Would you work if you OH earned £60k?

[hihosilverlining87]

My OH earns £60k. Mortgage is around £570. I'm due a baby in October - would that be enough to live off? Would you give up work if your partner was on £60k or would you say it's not enough?

Don’t give up your future to play house with your boyfriend.

Does her partner want to give up work and look after the baby?

We don’t know. OP hasn’t said. That would be the “say” part of my question. Obviously.

Never ever give up your financial independence

I would (and do) like to think I'm contributing, and not just by looking after the baby.
Particularly in today's climate when jobs are less secure.

Did we establish if the op is married yet?!
This is a key factor.
Giving up work for a long time is a bad idea-much harder to get back to it not to mention missing out on pension etc etc.

I work because I have an amazing job in tech which I love. I don't work for the money; it's purely for the stimulation, the environment, the challenges and the highs of the role.

Always be financially independent. Always have a foot in the door of work. You never know what might be round the corner: divorce, ill health, death, redundancy etc.

Yes. I didn't always work full time and there were times when DH was by far the higher earner as a result, but I hated the idea of being completely dependent on him, despite the fact that money was ways genuinely "ours". By "keeping my hand in" I knew I could always go back if circumstances meant I needed to.

That doesn't necessarily mean if you split either. For example, his redundancy was much less of a disaster because oI also had a good job and DH became seriously ill and was unable to work leading up to his death. We'd have been stuffed during that time if I hadn't maintained my career.

Having you both working spreads the risk a bit .

If giving up work to look after babies is such a good idea why don’t majority men do it?
Oh I know they’re not mug enough to relinquish their financial autonomy and be dependent upon someone else

I would and have. For a while I only worked 2 days a week, but I'm in a much better position financially and career wise now my kids are older, precisely because I never gave up work entirely. What do you do? If, after giving up, would you be 100% confident that you could secure a job easily if the need arose?

I don't think it's enough and I live in South Wales which isn't expensive. Our mortgage is about £650 and we earn about 60k between us because I'm PT.

You could do it but they'd be nothing spare. We have no extra money at all

Personally definitely not, I currently work PT for my husbands business while raising our kids. Our joint income is 28k and we get by just fine including the odd treat and holiday. 60k would be amazing. Everyone is different though

Completely agree with TheDamnFoolThatShotHim and I have been a SAHM for over 16 years but mine was a medical decision. However, Dh and I had been married for 5 years at the point I became a SAHM.

All discussions about finance happened before we decided to have a baby. We talked about funding my maternity leave, returning to work part time and talked again about me becoming a SAHM.

Actual salary is irrelevant, how much you spend of it is. Long term or short term SAHM? How are you set financially if he decides to kick you out of the house whilst you are a SAHM? Would it be a squeeze if you didn't bring any money in? How will you organise your finances together if he is the only earner? What are you attitudes to money like? Would you have access to money to spend as you wish or a limited budget?

So many questions to think through.

My husband earns more than 10 x that and I work.
It’s not about money for me (though I do like earning my own). It’s about loving what I do and wanting to be successful in my own right.

I would keep my job part-time if possible, but I'm a very cynical person (marriages can end, then what?) and I'm also not someone who coped very well with losing my identity along with postnatal depression/anxiety.
It's pretty personal, I don't think there's anything wrong with either option tbh as long as baby isn't tiny when left.

Nope. It’s not about the amount it’s about financial independence.

I can’t understand why women put themselves in this situation. Scares the bejesus out of me.

It depends what sort of life you want! I’m a sahm and DH earns a few times that amount, and likewise, our mortgage is also 3 times that, so a similar situation. We definitely don’t have enough for absolutely everything we would like but prepared to sacrifice that to make childcare much easier and more pleasant for all!

So long as baby isn’t Tiny when left. What’s that even mean?. Left?in a bush, left in a puddle?
Babies aren’t left in childcare, nursery is a regulated and inspected setting. Left isn’t a notable feature of nursery

Husband earns more than that by a lot and I work. Live in London- it’s expensive

My husband earns £55k and I’m due in February. I’ll definitely be keeping my full time job.

Absolutely I’d go back to work, even if just a couple of days a week. Husband earns £90k a year and would probably be fine with me staying home, but honestly it’s more about my own freedom and identity. I wouldn’t want him to have the responsibility of paying for everything and expect it would put a huge amount of pressure on his shoulders, when he already has a very stressful job. Plus I’ve got amazing friends at work. Taking 4-5 years out of work would stunt my career so it just wouldn’t be an option I’d ever consider.

@Kathers92

Yes my partner earns around the same, and I was made redundant at the beginning of the pandemic. We do own our house outright though and I own another property which I earn around £1000 per month from. I do plan in going back to work after having a second child but we are comfortable at the moment.

Comfortable?! You are effing minted!

It’s threads like this that make me realise how low down people see raising your child and not using childcare.
Comments such as ‘don’t play house’ with your boyfriend, don’t quit work just because he wasn’t 60k- it’s not like she would be just stopping work and lazing about all day not working with no children!
Looking after a child is a job- an extremely important one!

@Herecomesthesun70

I don't think it's enough and I live in South Wales which isn't expensive. Our mortgage is about £650 and we earn about 60k between us because I'm PT. You could do it but they'd be nothing spare. We have no extra money at all

It absolutely inconceivable that you have no spare money. I live in South Wales, and our income was £50k for some years with a £1000pm mortgage and two kids and we still managed to save.

You must be bathing in Bollinger to have no spare cash.

It absolutely inconceivable that you have no spare money. I live in South Wales, and our income was £50k for some years with a £1000pm mortgage and two kids and we still managed to save

Agreed. When we first moved back from abroad when I had my first child we lived in a very expensive city. DH earned £50k at the time, I earned nothing. Our mortgage was far higher than the OP’s and we had plenty of spare cash. Managed to save, eat out, go on holiday, do our hobbies etc.