Should I be a SAHP...

[mrsfarnworth]

I hate my job. It's only a couple of days a week, but it's only just above minimum wage and it's so stressful. Hate having to put dc in nursery and the job is almost making me slightly depressed.
DH earns around £60k which is only going to go up.. and is expecting around £500k in payouts of his business over the next year or 2.. so financially we'd be ok.
What would you do? Keep it for the sake of having a job and my own pocket money.. or leave and enjoy being home all the time before youngest dc starts school?

What's your relationship like? Can you work part time instead? It's quite hard to get back into employment from a career gap.

It’s not difficult to get work.
what you need to do if you decide to be a SAHP is retrain. Use the time wisely.

I only work one day a week and I love that. We are lucky to be in a position where we don’t have a mortgage (own our house) and can afford this. But I miss my DS even on that day and couldn’t imagine working full time! I feel strongly that this time is precious and absolutely flies by and as I financially can (even though we’re not saving loads and I’m not getting a great pension right now), the time with my toddler is most important to me right now.

MN is very often against SAHM’s and I understand why, seeing so many posts about abusive and controlling men. So, I think it largely depends on what your relationship is like and what your DH would be like in terms of sharing out money, and sharing out chores and childcare if you weren’t making any money.

Depends on your outgoings really and how much disposable income you had. If your husband earned 100k and you had some spare cash for a bit of preschool and a cleaner so you could use this time to study or upskill for a job you DIDN’T hate for when your DC are a bit older- then I’d say go for it. This can be a great time for a bit of a reset. I did the same.

However, depending on the where you are in the country I don’t think 60k before tax is a particularly great wage for a one income household.

Also depends if your husband will see you as a skivvy and responsible for everything domestic. If you have to ‘remind him’ or ‘tell him’ to do chores and he doesn’t see what needs to be done, then absolutely do not give up work.

People will come along and say don’t even consider it in case your husband has an affair- but then it would have been stupid to have had DC in case you were left 😂 you can’t send them back, you can get another job though. We take risks when we enter relationships with others and combine lives- this is one of them.

I think being a SAHP can be fab if you have an equal partner, time for downtime and opportunities for personal and professional development. And a healthy bank balance.

4 years of drudge and default parenting and penny pinching sounds miserable- but it’s what a lot of women are exposed to when they give up paid work unfortunately.

Third option, look for a different job. Even if it’s doing the same thing for a different employer you may find it better. Two days work a week sounds perfect to me (I am a SAHM).

Very similar situation here. My husband earns a similar amount as yours and we’re trying to work out if we can live and still save a bit without me going back to work. We think it can work if we actually budget and keep track of spending etc. Luckily our monthly mortgage payments aren’t too high at the moment.
It just seems silly to me personally to go back to a job I don’t love, for the majority of my earnings to go towards paying someone else to look after my child. We worked out that my salary if I went part time (less days and shorter days), and after paying for nursery etc, would end up being something stupid like less than £3,000 a year. It’s ridiculous. If I had a career I loved then it would be worth it to keep up progression.

Ladies have a read through the threads on here of the women that are being shafted or worse are stuck in misery because they gave up their jobs so have no access to money or savings and can't leave.

If you have a big pot of emergency cash that can be kept aside for you only that's a different story

Yeh id think look for a new job or retrain is the best idea here

I am out the other side, long term sahm, youngest child almost 18, loving, caring Dh, open with finances, sees me as an equal partner so not shafted or left. Yet. But our relationship is solid, but many a woman has said that. This is about women looking out for women.

Think about your own pension pot (SIPP maybe) and a frank and honest conversation about money. There are threads where the "D"h is pissed his wife gets to go and have a coffee with friends whilst they all take their children with them, hardly a break is it?

Also the future so if you return to work when your youngest starts school who will take time off for the child being sick, equal division of labour re the house. I had lots of friends return to work but their husbands want to do the same as they have done before ie not much and expect their wife to work and do everything household/school/house admin.

For me, Dh was hands on from day one, night wakings etc, we shared nursery drop off and pick up and sick days. I became a sahm when Ds1 was not quite two and we did a 6 month trial to see how both of us would feel. That was 20 years ago.

Maybe a career change..Keep having a job.
Save money if possible.
Life is unpredictable and often throws curveballs.. It isn't guaranteed that his salary will go up, that he'll keep his job, that he will remain active, capable, and healthy, that he'll live to old age, that you two won't divorce, that you'll both be financially okay..etc...same with you.

Look for a new job or retrain - don’t give up your financial independence and pension. You never know what’s ahead, so always make sure you can put food on your own table if needed.

If you do decide to give up work then protect your pension by ensuring that the family outgoings include a private pension for you and make sure you keep your skills up so you can rejoin the workforce easily in a job you enjoy.