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?

We relocated to a city where the cost of living was far cheaper than that in which we'd graduated and grown up in. We drove an older car rather than have car payments. We had one car. DH cycled to work or I dropped him if it was raining badly. We didn't have expenses like childcare, work clothes, commuting. I cooked from scratch. We did live week to week but we made it work.

This.

But surely it isn't difficult to imagine that different families have either higher incomes, or lower outgoings than you do ?

I work PT and total household income isn't much more than 44k, we manage. Cars are owned outright so no finance payments, no debts or loans, live in a cheap area, no mobile phone contracts we just all have pay as you go with £6 per month plans, no designer clothes, shop at Lidl. We still have holidays every year and have everything we need.

I just jumped on to say thank you to the teachers! You don’t get paid enough for what you do! 💕

My husband is a bus driver and I’m a SAHM after having 2u2. We claim what we’re entitled to and live without big holidays etc while the children are little. I buy for the next size up clothes and birthdays and holidays etc slowly throughout the year. My children are the priority and still get things like Lovevery playkits and we go for lovely days out in play cafes. I just forgo buying new clothes and expensive things for myself. We worked out that as a teacher I’d only be bringing in about £400 a month after considering childcare for both children, and for us it’s more important for me to stay home with them while they’re little.

DH earns around £65k and that’s enough for us to manage, however we do have a high mortgage so I go without beauty treatments and most luxuries I would have paid for before I had children. Clothes etc are all second hand from Vinted/charity shops and I make a lot of food from scratch.

While it sounds like a luxury being able to live on one wage, the difficult thing with one parent earning a high salary is that they’re often self employed and/or harder to replace at work at last minute or they may work longer hours. So if I’m sick I still have to manage the children while I’m ill, there’s no one able to relieve me. Also it’s actually impractical for me to work as I’d have to somehow be covering all children’s school hours/sick days/holidays etc by myself as he just can’t take time off like that. Luckily I do love being a SAHM, but just highlighting that it does often come at the sacrifice of not having a partner around as much.

I mean, they either earn a lot or don’t spend much. Simple

Some people get a lot of financial help from parents but it’s not something that’s always discussed with others. MIL gives DH “petrol money” whenever we visit her and that can be anything from £10 to £200. If she knows DH is eg buying a new car she will contribute to it. On a thread the other day someone said they receive £1500 a month from their father.

I am a SAHM. I work part time from home and earn £15k a year. Plus about £5k extra doing bits and bobs, selling stuff online.

A lot of SAHMs aren’t actually not working at all in my experience.

We did the maths about me going back to work full time. With wrap around care an holiday clubs for 3 children, sick days, hiring a cleaner once a week, travel costs etc etc it wasn’t worth it. I do everything around the house - I fix stuff, decorate rooms, have time to research the best deals when buying cars or holidays etc. All this adds up to an invisible salary that wouldn’t be there if I worked full time. So in a way, having a stay at home parent does bring an income in as it lowers your costs.

No rent or mortgage we were very lucky and left a house by my grandparents.
1 holiday per year most years but sometimes none.
No beauty treatments, nails, eating out and takeaways very rarely.
Watch the food shop, no credit or loans just try and budget with what we have.

Sahm here, my husbands earns considerably more that’s how we can make it work x

I’m not a sahm and we earn 140k combined and I STILL don’t get nails and beauty treatments done every month!! And I shop at Lidl! 😅😅

They have a high earning partner usually, unfortunately.
I’m a teacher & earn roughly the same as your husband but DH earns double. It’s the only way I’ve been able to work part time. I mean maybe on a lower income we could have cut our cloth a bit but it would have meant being very frugal.

its completely wrong that pay for teachers is crap but that’s another thread!

Husband earns similar, we never thought wed make it work. We have 2 DC. Eldest diagnosed with long term medical conditions. I have to be her carer and we have no choice. We've adapted and manage with what we have

@Gagamama2 slightly off subject but I would love to know what the extra bibs and bobs are that you do if you don’t mind sharing.

My DH doesn’t earn more than that, our bills are almost 2k including rent, we make it work somehow.

Nobody would be a SAHP if one earned 40k. That would be less than both working minimum wage.

But if one person pulls in 100k plus then it's much easier to have one earner.

It's not that difficult of a concept surely?

How are you classifying a SAHM?

When I became a SAHM my DH was earning around £44K and our outgoings would have been similar to yours. It wasn't an issue.

We now have a gross income of £50K and it still isn't an issue.

It's about living within your means.

I work 8 hours a week, DH is full time. Take home is 4k a month and we manage just fine on that. Clothing is always from charity shop or vinted, we eat out about 4-6 times a year, 1 UK holiday a year, I cut everyone's hair, meal plan and we have 1 car.

Some people just earn more. As the higher earner I went back to work and DH was the SAHP - works really well but you do need to be earning well.

We bought our house using only one salary as the amount we could borrow. We just had a badly decorated home for a while with no fancy anything.

I maybe live in a cheaper area but that is how we did it.

Sure :)
I ebay anything that isn’t nailed down in the house or isn’t on people’s backs…lol. Joking but a lot of clothes, shoes and kids toys are sold on if they are worth the hassle (generally only list something that will sell for about £7 or more). This is more a method for decluttering than anything else. It makes about £100 per month / £1200pa. Not sure how sustainable this is though now kids are growing slower and not playing with / being gifted toys as much.
I keep my eye out for mid century modern pieces of furniture going for cheap on ebay or fb marketplace. Give these a light restoration and sell on.
Ocassionally I’ll upcycle a peice of brown wood type furniture that is going cheap online / is being given away for free on our villages freecycle group. I paint these bright funky colours, stripes, big bold floral patterns etc and they sell well.
The furniture probably brings in another £200pcm / £2400pa. I do about 6-8 items a year.
I also have £1800pa income from an ISA that I’ve been paying into for many years

We managed by not having any luxuries. I had been the main breadwinner before I gave up work. DH had potential. We would eat out about 4 x a year. No takeaways. Everything cooked from scratch using Sainsbury’s basics or Tesco value range.

It was actually wonderful. Most of our friends were in a similar boat so our social life was at friends’ houses. We had days out in groups that were either free or using Clubcard vouchers and took our own sandwiches. We bought a tent and had camping holidays, often with other families.

It’s funny but old habits die hard. DH is now a high earner but we still don’t eat out other than birthdays or holidays, rarely have takeaways and cook from scratch.

My dh’s bonus is more than your dh earns in a year. I’m a teacher, it’s a hard job for the money, there is no doubt about it.