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?

I'm so glad i grew up poor i could easily manage to be a sahm on that money .

They have better paid jobs, live in smaller houses and cheaper areas.

Also, your mortgage and bills are £1600. Your DH’s takehome is about £2900. You could live on that if you had to.

Our household income is over 60k more than yours and I still can’t afford those things! What lots of people are failing to say is £44k in the north is a very different salary to £44k in the south east.

You can’t comprehend that people have a larger household income than £44k? ?

They do it by earning more, spending less, being lucky enough to have a smaller mortgage than yours, etc. I don’t have kids and we both work full time, but if I did have a child, I could afford to stay at home while it was a baby. Our mortgage AND bills combined come to about £1000. DP earns about £55K. All of this is just down to luck - the tiny house DP scrimped and saved to buy in what was then one of the most deprived council wards in the country for £40K in 2000 sold for £144,000 when he sold it in 2016. Luck of the draw.

I'm a SAHM. Our housing costs are a lot less than yours. I cut my own hair. I only own 1 pair of shoes. Almost all my clothes are second hand.

Guessing if anything like mine

210 council tax
150 g&e
23 wifi
15 tv
20/30 phones
50 water
50 life insurance
22 C&b
12 prescriptions
28 car insurance
22 sky
8 prime

that’s around £600 for essential bills

then

175 dd gym
50 contacts

plus petrol food etc

Big salary of course. I haven't worked for 20 years. It was not worth it, I was working to pay for nursery, so what was the point? DH worked away a lot, and it was too stressful. We had a huge mortgage, and private school fees, but not interested in holidays or material goods. So high wage, and different priorities.

I won't say that's your choice, because maybe it wasn't, but with no disrespect to mothers who do make different choices, it's not something I would have ever chosen if I had another option. I wanted to be home with my kids. I had three under four at one stage and they were some of the best years of my life.

I was a sahm. Kids now uni age and slightly older. My redundancy payment and a small inheritance mostly cleared our mortgage. DH was on £35-£45k over the 15+ years our kids were kids and I wasn't working. We were eligible for tax credits, and with a very small mortgage were able to manage by being extremely careful. Old car we owned outright. Very cheap PAYG mobiles. No TV/streaming packages. Cinema/meals out were very rare treats (like once or twice a year). One week UK self catering holiday. Buying second hand. We focused on lots of activities for the kids - games, walks, sports. Our extravagance was music lessons, on a 'mates rates' deal because I'd known the teacher for 20 years. For a while our 'spare' money was £4 a month. And amazingly, when I talked to one of the kids recently, he hadn't a clue that we hadn't been well off - he just saw we had a holiday, we did loads of stuff, and it hadn't crossed his mind that we couldn't afford the sorts of things his friends did with their families because he was happy with the things we were doing instead. It was the low mortgage payment that enabled it though. We were apparently in the bottom 10% of incomes, but having such low housing costs meant we were able to manage fine, and to keep the kids busy with activities which they've all carried on into adulthood.

Exactly. When we graduated we chose to relocate to a much cheaper area, away from where we grew up. It made life so much easier as a family, though we did live very much week to week for years. I've never regretted doing that.

What do you do for part time work from home @Gagamama2
I am not currently working as took redundancy as was struggling with health. I would love to start earning by working part time from home but I don't have a profession as such, or any qualifications. That's not to say I have no skills they just aren't easily saleable (I was civil servant working in policy). So I am looking for inspiration! Also keen to know more about the extra £5k - I sell bits here and there but comes to very little!

OP - We manage on one salary because we have to as I am not well enough to work in the kind of job I used to do and would struggle with anything that requires being on my feet, with customers, full time/in an office... Thankfully my DH salary is decent so it's manageable. But it's not ideal.

Toddler twins in childcare would eat any salary I'd earn.

My SAHP role is a necessity, not a luxury.

We cut back, and cut back.

Dh was a high earner with travel and long hours, someone had to be there and his schedule was too unpredictable. It made sense to us. My pension suffered - so now I’m playing catch up putting all my salary into my pension. I don’t know any women locally who worked full time.

Some are on benefits. When the DC are under 3 and sometimes 5 it doesn't really pay to go back to work if you're both on low incomes.

We did it 20 years. We managed by living on the smell of an oily rag!
We didn't have a huge mortgage and we didn't have much money. But we didn't spend hundreds on nursery fees and the kids had me at home with them.
Once they went to school I went back to work part-time so I could do drop off and pick up.
I was worth t for us and has worked out well for our now adult children.

Bollocks, I live in a fancy part of outer London and on £200k you’d absolutely be able to afford £40 to get your nails done monthly even with the costs here. If you can’t you need to check your finances.

If you work part time from home you’re not a SAHM… you’re a part time worker. That counts as work.

Exactly… I was feeling a bit bemused by the ‘I’m a SAHM earning £x part time’ posts. If you’re working you’re not a SAHM.

I think it’s outgoings. I’m a single parent and I earn £1100pm part time and get £300 maintenance and I feel rich! I don’t go out very much but I run my car, shop at Waitrose, eat organic and have nice things. BUT, I have very low outgoings each month, £400 tops for all bills so the rest is food and for spending/saving. It makes a massive difference having a mortgage and higher outgoings imo.

DP works incredibly hard and long hours to provide a great lifestyle. Both basics approx £50k. But with his shift allowance, overtime, nights etc, easily brings in an additional £20k, if not more. But hardly see each other at weekends as he’s always working. I am going back 3 days a week once maternity leave ends, though he would prefer for me to be a SAHM. It would be very tight money wise.

Usually the other parent earns way more than £44k.

“he would prefer for me to be a SAHM”

why? genuine question as I see it quite a lot that the husband wants that (not necessarily that the wife wants it).

would you prefer it too?

Children in private school ? It's got to be going somewhere!

They cut their cloth accordingly.
One car.
One holiday a year.
Spend less on clothes/beauty/hair/nails
Eat out rarely.
Take advantage of free activities like museums/walks/school holiday activities.
Family tax credit.
Etc...