ANYONE WHO'S DH EARNS ABOUT £13500 A SAHM?

[Dalrymps]

Just on mat leave at the mo but my job is over an hour away so not gonna be able to go back. Was considering being a SAHM for a bit. Anyone else's dh earn about £13500, if so, what kind of working tax credits/child tax credits do you get a month?
Have had a look on the site and am gonna ring the tax credit people tomorrow but just wondered what peoples personal experience of it is

I second checking and double checking everything
Because dp has acompany car they tried to add nearly 9k onto his yearly earnings.
He pays for everything practically on his car so it is only classed as a 2k taxable benefit so we had t sort that out.

Dalrymps, we have 2 kids, a morgage and a car..............

I felt,like you, I couldn't leave my kids with someone else so I gave up work to be at home

its been hard financially, but now they are older I'd never regret it, although it is really hard to get into the jod market ina a decent hourly paid job

it all just depends if you can manage, I think I'd have moved to a smaller flat to manage, but I feel really strongly i couldn't leave them all day with a nursery or a childminder, so I never felt like I had a choice

oh and the £70 was including WFTC for 2 kids

your local council wil give you a number to ask for help with the council tax, also try citizens advice, they are usually helpful

good luck!

dh gets about that much. We get tax credits (mind you 4 kids, 2 of whom are disabled so they do add up a bit) and Working families or whatever is is called now.
4 kids, mortgage but we manage. We can't afford to eat out or buy new things but with careful budgeting you manage.
Add up all your outgoings and see if you can cut back anywhere to fit with what comes in.
If you want figures, I'm not too embaressed. We get about 800 a month in CTC but thats 4 kids, 2 of whom are disabled. We pay about 400 a month on our mortgage. Its the bills we struggle with, especially gas and leccy going up and up and up and up. We do get DLA but its spent on a motability car to get dd around.
Personally I put being with my kids over money and have been home for 16 years despite one poor wage.
Until 4 years ago CTC didn't exist but we still managed.
You should get free prescriptions for being on a low income, free dental, WFTC, CTC etc.
Child benefit as well.
I think its unexpected things that lead to trouble, like something vital breaking like the heating! Therefore its worth paying for servicing just to keep things ok. Our boiler broke 2 years ago and that was a bit of a disaster!

nice to hear from people who do manage, one thing we'll never have a problem with is the heating, fil is a heating engineer/plumber and lives 5 mins away . I know what it's like having no money, was a student for 3 years, I haven't got rose tinted glasses on, I think the only thing I can do is try it and if it fails then i'll have to get a job!

I think if it were me I would try to manage on your DH wage and tax credits. You should get quite abit of tax credits and free prescriptions and half price swimming etc (if your local council do leisure key). If you really want to SAH then do it (if you can) as you only live once and I don't think you will regret it.

Part of the reason I think this is because if you live on one wage and get in a tight spot financially, you can always get a part time job which will be 'extra' whereas if you depend on a 2nd wage now it will just be absorbed and outgoings will increase accordignly and it will be impossible to give up work or cut back.

We used to be on simelar wages and I gave up my part time job as i got little more than tax credits and had to worry about childcare etc and kids being ill, it wasn't worth it. If you have a lower paid job often tax credits are not much less. DH has a better paid job now but as we loose free prescriptions and more tax credits, we are not really better off. Either way though i have enjoyed every minute of staying home (I think paid work is over rated!)

Thanks jellybeans!, thats what I thought, if I work part time it'll all be taken on childcare where as if I don't, tax credits will be slightly less that I could earn but I won't have to pay for childcare and more importantly it'll be me looking after ds, plus, as you say, if we can't manage I can always start working I'd rather look back and say 'I looked after ds' than 'we had a nice tv/car etc', we just about have everything we want at the mo anyway as we moved from a flat to a house but the house was cheaper! (different town) so we used some profit to do it up, pay off debts and get a new bed/dishwasher/fridge/oven so there's nothing big we'll need to buy in the immdiate future and if something breaks down we have a little saved as a safety net so really want to give it a go. I know we'll have to be strict with our money but want to at least try. I don't imagine for a minute it'll be an easy job being a sahm but a very rewarding one as i've found so far!