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?

Gosh. I wonder why the highly paid jobs seem to go to men. It’s almost like the system wants women barefoot and pregnant, doesn’t it?

Why did you consider it your responsibility to pay for childcare?

How were your earnings and pension impacted?

My DH is a teacher, earns the same as yours. I’ve been a SAHM for 7 years. 2 DCs. How have we achieved thus?

• Stayed in our starter home (we live in a v.expensive city).
• Waited 7 years to start our family until I was 32 (I used to pay half our mortgage, both teachers, needed to wait until DH earned the same as both of us combined). Waited for mortgage payments to reduce, paid to lock into 5 year deals with premium interest rates.
• car share, walk everywhere when not our turn
• Shop at ALDI.
• Reduce holidays/switch to UK only
• Quit gym/nails/eyelashes, etc.
• Never buy hot drinks out
• Don’t outsource anything, we do stuff ourselves abetted ourselves as needed to paint & decorate, do up our gardens, etc. I wash our car and wash my own windows, paint my own fences, wherever needs doing.

I would have moved to a cheaper area if need be. I don’t miss anything, time is everything. Priceless.

My DH has provided for our family as a full time teacher for the past 7 years on UPS 1, earning under £40 K until recently, and we live in an expensive city and own our home…he still saves for our DCs…pays for extra-curricular and holidays…we know how to budget..it’s more doable than many realise.,,

Agree, it's like posters who have unicorn jobs. They work full time in well paid jobs but also work opposite hours to their equally well paid partners including travelling extensively for work so do opposite childcare and still sleep enough and all without any of the financial burden of childcare and act like that's normal for most people or even vaguely achievable for most people

But it doesn't matter who's back it comes out of.
If I earn 20k and DH warns 40k and childcare is 25k then it costs my wages and more to work, even if only 10k comes out of my wages and 15k from his. When we cover all the other bills, we still have less moeny than if I didn't work.

I mean, I didn’t work hard at school but worked hard in my minimum wage care job, my husband on the other hand was very academic and chose a career path that guaranteed his success. Don’t get me wrong I do agree with you about men being unfairly advantaged in the workplace but ’barefoot and pregnant’ is unfair to me, I’m not some downtrodden tradwife. We both agreed I’d stay at home, although if I earned more my husband would make a far better SAHP and absolutely loves doing the lions share of the parenting when he’s at home (not that I don’t enjoy it, I do). I’m very fortunate that I take dividends as a shareholder from his company and have my own pension & ISA which is my own. I’m currently training to do a voluntary role in a sector that interests me and hope to eventually do it for money. I recognise my privilege, coming from a very poor, but happy home.

Not every SAHM is a victim. I’m not going to go to work wiping arses just to come home and wipe more arses to make a point to the ‘system’.

I earn around 30k, single mum with mortgage and its enough for me, could probably save a bit more than I do as well! Parents help with childcare thank god, as there are also no nursery spaces around here! I guess you get used to the amount you earn and learn to live within it. I think you're really well off!

I earn around 30k, single mum with mortgage and its enough for me, could probably save a bit more than I do as well! Parents help with childcare thank god, as there are also no nursery spaces around here! I guess you get used to the amount you earn and learn to live within it. I think you're really well off!

Having help with childcare is a massive financial advantage. Childcare for my 2 was £2.5k a month at one point.

If you’re having a SAHP they wouldn’t be paying for childcare either. I assume the whole point of that post was that she manages on one income , which is less than what OP’s husband’s earns.

Well 60% is tax.

If you earn a lot lot less then you’ll be in the lower tax bracket and get to keep more of your pay check.

Money goes on mortgage, bills and car. Sounds like you have 1 child? We have 3

We do still do things like go out for Nando’s or pizza express. I spend a lot on soft play. We have Disney subscription. So we do spend money. We are just careful with money too. I always thought growing up £100,000 salary meant you were ‘rich’ and had a swimming pool and holidays to the Maldives

Yes, I understand about tax brackets.
I have 2 children, one adult and one teenager and have raised them both on my own for 10 years. I imagine I have significantly less in savings and pension, I simply have not had enough to spare.

I don’t think this is the case these days though is it? Don’t couples talk and work out what is best given their salaries and who actually wants to be the SAHP?

I would not have wanted to be the one going back full time. It was completely my decision to be the parent who stayed at home, albeit over the years I’ve picked up random bits of work here and there around the school runs. Personally no amount of money would have been worth it for me to not have been there while they were toddlers and through infant school, going to all the school events, planning their birthday parties and watching them at after school clubs. It’s why I had kids in the first place, maybe mums generally feel more this way than dads do? Maybe they value emotional and physical connection to their children more than job status and income, and so that is why they choose to be the stay at home parent? I don’t know, I’m genuinely curious. Because you’re right, most stay at home parents are women but I can’t imagine these days their husband would automatically expect them to be if they don’t want to be?

Yeah so a big part of this is also that we are raising children in different decades/ economies. Your adult child was raised 20 years ago vs my small kids. We aren’t comparing apples with apples here.

Your salary would have seemed more 20 years ago. £100k would have bought you more 20 years ago.
Tbh I’m surprised that you are surprised

@LikeDaisies there are definitely some posters here blinded by their own privilege!

If you don’t have inherited wealth, a bank of mum and dad to give you a leg up, free childcare, and also live in a moderate/expensive city, the cost of living is really high.

The reality for most ordinary people is that two full time salaries are required to live comfortably. It’s also much tougher than it used to be. I don’t actually know any SAHMs in my social circle,

@Focusispower or shock horror one / both the couple makes sacrifices and works really really hard ?!

Stop shopping in marks and Spencer,give the dune handbags,hunter wellies and trips to the Carribbean a miss...I was a stay at home mum and had no material stuff at all,my boys are more important...guess you got to get priorities straight and cut your cloth at the end of the day

Why is that a problem? You are lucky in the sense you work term time. Many mothers can’t and also can’t afford clubs and wraparound care

I acknowledge that I raised my first son in a different economy, but things were also different for me. I didn’t earn as much, my mortgage was higher ie I faced the higher expenses that younger parents with small children face.

I was still able to buy new clothes for my child.

But I will accept what you’re saying - 180K is a struggle for you raising 3 young children.

Where did the children go when you were at work?

Op, do you honestly not understand ‘how it’s financially possible’ for a couple to either earn more than £44K or have a lower mortgage/rent?

I'm a stay at home parent and we have 4 children. Between my husband's salary and benefits we have a take home amount of around £4500 per month. I recently did a breakdown of our costs.

Mortgage - £1187
Nursery - £615
Gas & Electricity - £135
Car Insurance - £115
Phones x 2 - £89
Council Tax - £260
Life Insurance x 2 - £67
Contacts - £50
Road Tax - £31
Home Insurance - £25
Netflix - £19
Amazon Prime - £9
Tesco CC+ - £8

Total - £2610

Shopping (food, cleaning supplies, nappies, toiletries etc) - £650
Diesel - £200
Misc spending - £250

Total - £1100
Grand Total - £3710

So we do have some left over each month if there hasn't been a random thing to pay for like a car repair, big day trip, holiday or birthday etc.

On a salary of £45k and with only child benefit, our take home would be around £3200 which would technically be manageable if we took the childcare away but would leave very little buffer. And yes we have childcare costs even though I am a stay at home parent.

It really depends on your individual outgoings.

But that’s never how it’s described. “It would have taken all my earnings but wasn’t worth it” misses all of the other benefits of employment and reinforces the conditioning that women are responsible for dealing with chilccare, which hold us back societally.

You assume we both worked the same hours……