How do families have SAHMs?

[LikeDaisies]

Financially - I cannot comprehend how it’s possible!

Husband is a teacher. Earns around £44,000. That isn’t enough to cover our bills if I were to leave my job and stay at home with our baby.

Mortgage is £900. Other bills come to around £700 - not considering food, leisure, etc.

Not that I’d want to leave my job, but I’d love to be able to drop down to 3 days a week. But financially it just isn’t possible. We wouldn’t be able to afford our mortgage and bills.

So it leaves me wondering how I see so many families who are able to manage having a SAHM.

Please can anyone who is in this situation explain how it is possible/how you make it work?

You know how lots of jobs pay better than a teacher? Well they have those jobs. It's really that simple.

Or they have low costs or come from money.

They spend less. DH earns £25k full time and I earn £29k for a 4 day week. Our mortgage is just over £1k per month. We don't struggle.

44k is not a high salary for supporting an entire family with

My DH worked for a start up tech company that sold for a lot of money. It just gave us enough to buy a house outright, but it was enough to make it feasible for us on his salary alone.

It's just as well because my ds was born with disabilities and I got very ill for about 15 years after he was born so was never well enough, and free enough of caring responsibilities to return to work. I'm now home schooling through no choice of our own.

Realistically if that company hadn't sold for all that money, I don't think we'd have been able to afford kids at all, as we were only able to afford to rent a room, even on both salaries, before that.

Some couples save up, clear down the mortgage, work a few years, no rush to have a family if you meet young. Makes a big difference.

When childcare costs more than the lower earners wage.

Although there is more help then when mine were babies. (15hrs a week from 3yo!) So less common now maybe.

For a lot of my friends it was financially better to go back 2/3 days than 5. Five costs too much in childcare. Remember if you’re getting about 22 hours funded a week it won’t go far. My friend is a teacher and went back 3 days. Her colleague went back 5. They used the same nursery. My friend worked out her colleague was getting about an extra £20 a week for working two extra days.

I barely know anyone who went back 5 days. If they did, they did it to go back and try to get pregnant again asap and have the highest mat pay possible. Then after the second went part time or quit.

You wait until DH is a deputy head.

Well the obvious answer is that they don’t have a main earner on £44k

im a SAHM and husband earns six figures plus bonus. I think it’s that simple really. You need a main earner with a large salary not a teacher.

I think some earn more (in some cases a lot more) or spend less, or both. Sorry to sound blunt, but there it is. Or they have family money or have inherited cash or property.
And some - where the lower wage wouldn’t cover childcare - they claim what they’re entitled to and manage without luxuries. Different lifestyle, a simpler one. No big days out, expensive cubs etc. Mainly hanging out at home.

They either earn more or live on less.
I was a sahm mum when our children were little, my dh earned a lot less than £44,000... we just lived on sweet FA!

They have a higher income and/or lower outgoings than you.

Dh earns 65k full time. I work 1.5 days a week and earn 18k . We have quite a low mortgage due to the fact we bought our house 15 years ago when they wer significantly cheaper and we live in a deprived area in the North. No childcare costs. We typically save around 1k a month. I could probably not work but I wouldn’t be paying into my pension (I overpay) and we wouldn’t save/ would have to cut back significantly.

They go without lots of things such as meals out , takeaways , nails and fancy clothing etc , they basically pay the bills, mortgage / rent and budget the shopping. When children are small they don’t care about holidays and are happy with day trips to the beach or a picnic in the park . Their clothes are Primark / supermarket and often Grandparents help out when they can . If you wait until you can afford kids you will wait forever.

we did 8 years me being at home. I don't drive and don't want to, love my bus rides, love my nature, love being alone, if I splash on restaurant or hairstyle, is once per year....literally fresh air and sunshine is your best friend not to be obsessed over money

I think it comes down to how you prioritise your money and what you are willing to forego to be a SAHP.

£44k so around £2.9k take home? If your bills come in at £1600 that is £1300 disposable? Unless you have a big expense not included in with your bills that seems a reasonable amount to live off?

SAHM here.

Not married to a teacher.

I have close family members with four children, he earns a little more than minimum wage, she’s a SAHM. Some inheritance but car-sized inheritance rather than house sized. I assume they also claim some UC but haven’t asked. They make it work by spending very little: two bedroom terraced house in a cheap town, one very old car, no clubs for the kids, no expensive day trips, no holidays most years. It’s possible.

Earn more.

Spend less.

Have another source of income (or a one off, inheritance etc).

Benefits.

yep, to a teacher. Managed and still do, fantastically

Everybody is different: they have different priorities and different life styles.

I was a SAHM after my DS was born - we had no other family whatsoever and any salary I could have earned would have been eaten up by child care costs and expenses. My DH had a secure job and reasonable salary but certainly wasn't a high earner.

Besides which I wanted to be at home for my DS when he was growing up.

We had a perfectly comfortable life style and bought our home. We had holidays and went places and did things. We didn't have a car but could pay for things that mattered to us such as music lessons for my DS. But certainly multiple holidays and an extravagant life style wasn't for us.

It was a choice that worked for us and I'm sure for many people.

Thats exactly how i did it.

That’s great x

They don’t have a £900 mortgage or spend £700 a month on bills 🤷‍♀️

What other bills are coming to 700!??