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?

But op said NOT Including food and leisure

To me, bills are payments you HAVE to pay, so for us…but I suppose yeah 700 isn’t abnormal, ours are;

Insurances(life, house)150
Electricity 150
Waste collection: 25
Broadband & TV: 70
Mobile phones x3: 60
car insurance&tax x2: 150

So that’s 605…

@SonnyHoney no…tbf our mortgage including insurances is 2k and we save 2.5k per month minimum.!

4 DC here ,lower wadge would not cover childcare or after school clubs or holiday clubs ,so it made more sense to have one parent at home .
You cut your cloth accordingly
No new car ,no new kitchen,no moving to a bigger house when they get to teens and house feels small.cheap caravan holidays.
No expensive tech ..my phone cost £100 outright ,not tied in to monthly payments and does everything I need it to .
Not sucked in to expensive brands of clothing
No expensive days out ..meals out only sometimes at birthdays.
Can't remember the last time I bought new furniture..my sofa is my husband's nans that he sat on in her house as a child ..he's 53..

I overpaid on my house from the start so I don’t have a mortgage now. It’s small, pretty much in a starter home but I love it and it’s in a nice area so no need to tie myself to a mortgage again. There’s only me and my DD and I would rather have money to spend.

It started as needed to be home to not pay out childcare costs
Then when they reached teens and needed a parent at home to come to ,to know where they are ,make sure they had a good day ,help with homework,a proper dinner at a reasonable time ..it worked for them ..these are the two at mainstream school ,and it was hugely beneficial to them having a parent at home .
The other two had been diagnosed with autism on on different paths that didn't include school ,so for the other two it was necessary a parent was home

My DH works full-time; I work 1.5 days/week. 2 DC aged 3 and 5. Our combined monthly takehome pay is £4k. We're in the SE so our mortgage is £1450/month for a 3 bed terrace. Bills about £1k on top of that. We budget very hard. We eat out a couple times a year. We go on cheap holidays in the UK or Europe. Neither of us has expensive hobbies or gym memberships (we cycle, do park run etc). We only subscribe to one TV streaming service at a time. I don't get any beauty treatments, nails etc. If we're taking the kids out for the day we take food and a thermos of coffee. Basically we live like it's the 80s 😆 It's not what everybody would choose but it means I've had so much time with the DC that I wouldn't have had otherwise, and to us that's something that no amount of money could buy.

Low outgoings is the simple answer. I have been a SAHM for 20 years (DH has never earned above 40k). When my older children were little it was tough, but as I could only earn minimum wage it wasn't financially worth working as we were actually better off with me at home claiming CTC and getting help towards rent. Once we bought our house and got away from the extortionate rental market it was much easier and we no longer needed any tops ups. It's only worked for us because we're happy to live without expensive luxuries. I have never had any interest in fashion/hair/nails etc and have always shopped in Aldi/Tesco, bought supermarket or Next clothes. We don't have Netflix or Sky etc and have 2 older cars, with cheap insurance. I only drive a couple of times a week anyway, so we could always get rid of the second car if things got tight. Our holiday has always been a week self-catering in the UK. We only eat out on birthdays, and have a takeaway once a week.

I work 8 hours a week so not really a SAHM. My husband is full time but quite low pay. So to be honest benefit top ups really help for us!

In my case, a partner who earns more that £44k and income from rental properties.

Then there's gas, water & council tax, road tax plus potentially pet insurance. Plus food. Life is expensive

One of the two is a high earner which cover for two or three good salaries. The person who stay at home probably could be earning less to a full time live in. Last time we looked for one they were around £40.000 in London including everything.

Yeah I don’t have gas, water or council tax, road tax? Is that car tax?

I think there’s two types OP.

The ones with partners that earn high and ones that don’t but live very frugally.

I’m the in the first camp and I know it was a privilege but honestly if I had my time again I would have gone back part time to keep a foot in the employment door. I’ve left myself in a very vulnerable position.

My DH earns a lot more; his salary is that plus double what I used to earn pre DC. He doesn’t shout about his job and we don’t have a flashy lifestyle so people around us have no idea and probably wonder the same as you.

Was a sahm when dh was on 71k and our mortgage was 600
Dh then dropped to 50, I work 3 days a week as a teacher (29k) and new house costs 1.3k a month

So more money and less outgoings!

Are you joking?

I have been one for 18 years now. My eldest is 19 in a few months, others are 15, 10 and 8.

DH doesn't earn much but we don't go on expensive holidays and bought a house that only could be bought on one salary alone not on two. Cleared mortgage and have been mortgage free for several years. That's what makes the difference.

I also have chronic health issues and two children have additional needs so I am needed at home. I study part time with the OU.

We are not rich but we are comfortable. And live in one of the cheapest parts of the UK.

I am playing the world's tiniest 🎻

How much is your childcare?

Exactly the same here ,that's how we afford 4 children..and that was so important to me as a single only child ,I was very lonely growing up.

44k is not a high salary for supporting an entire family with
It could be.
It depends on where you live how many ychildren you have, how big your mortgage/ rent is, what activities you do etc.
I know plenty of families where I live where that gives you a reasonable lifestyle. I know in other areas you would struggle to survive.

I was at home 8 years then part time, you spend less

I don’t mean to be rude but what’s the relevance to the thread? The OP asked how people afford a SAHM. You work part time to you’re not a SAHM.

Get together young, scrimp and save for a deposit living a very frugal lifestyle. Carry on that lifestyle in first house, prioritise getting the mortgage down. Then have child - SAHM and husbands wage is below what you quote. Continue to be careful with money as above. I've had plenty of barbed comments from others, who live far more expensive lifestyles, and it's really grating after a while! I now avoid those people.

Are you not in the Uk? How do you get free water and no council tax?

deduct the cost of a second car and childcare

£500 per month with funding of 30 hours for full time working hours childcare
£300 per month for second car/tax/fuel//insurance