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Stay at Home Moms
msnehz
member
How can you financially afford to be a SAHM?
msnehz
member
I've been doing a lot of thinking about quitting work and being a SAHM. My in laws look after our daughter when we're at work. Recently she's been preferring my MIL over me when I go to pick her up and it breaks my heart. By the time I get her home I only have an hour tops with her before I have to start her bedtime routine. I don't want other people to raise my daughter. I wanted to ask you ladies (I hope you don't mind sharing), what is your DH annual salary? Do you rent or have a mortgage?
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Re: How can you financially afford to be a SAHM?
Hi there and welcome to the board!
I agree with babypup, an anonymous poll might illicit more responses; however, they will be irrelevant as Cost of Living, Debt-to-Income-Ratio, and Standard of Living vary so greatly between individuals.
Maybe asking about % of income leftover each month would be more accurate?
To actually answer your original question: we can afford for me to SAH because 1) we have no consumer debt and 2) we have enough money leftover after all of our monthly expenses to live comfortably.
Good luck!
eclaire 9.10.06 diggy 6.2.11
there are just too many factors to consider.
How can you financially afford it?-
the easiest answer is that you plan for it before you have children. Save, pay off debt, live off of one salary, etc. A big thing is just being financially SMART- regardless of the decision to SAH or work- children or not...... You shouldn't live beyond your means.
Yes we have a mortgage, yet it is a house we bought when we were both working- and we could easily afford it on one salary.
We live within our means. We don't turn our heads or ignore exisiting debt that has to be paid and we don't buy anything on credit. The only exisiting debt we have is student loans, mortgage, and 1 car loan. We know how much DH briings home and we know we don't go beyond that amount
There are things you can do like cut out cable, not eating out, buying lesser expensive meats (buying the mean with skin & bone in it and removing it at home, that's saved us a lot in groceries), we don't have a land line since we both have cell phones, if we needed to cut down more we could cancel DH's data plan for his phone. Just a few examples of things that we like to have but don't need to have to survive. I hope you're able to find a way to make t work for you!
Yes, a clicky poll would be better. People don't want to post their DH's salary. I know I don't. We are in a HCOL area also, and that factors into salary as well.....
We can afford it because we have no debt at all other than our mortgage and 3 cars. We are also very comfortable and don't live paycheck to paycheck and haven't really changed our lifestyle all that much.
GL to you! Hope you can make it work......
DH and I made about equal salary until I became a SAHM for good last month. We already knew we could swing it on his income alone, we just wouldn't be able to spend on anything we wanted any more, and would have to keep a closer eye on the budget and how much was in the bank.
We have a mortgage and a HELOC. That's it for our debt.
You may want to post your budget on MM, tell them you're thinking of being a SAHM, and ask for advice on what you can cut to get where you want to be.
GL
DH owns his business, so what he pays himself varies depending on how business went for the year. Our income is pretty much on the average end of the scope though. We live in a LCOL area, but we still try not to over-spend. We own a very modest house, and probably won't be upgrading until DD is in school and I'm back working part time. Since we're able to make extra principle payments now, we hope to have a decent amount of equity by the time we sell. Our only debt besides our mortgage is about 7K on a car loan and 10K left on my student loan.
If it makes you feel better, my DD would much rather go to her grandmas and DH when she sees them than me. It seems like she gets kind of bored with me, and wants to go by someone who is familiar, but who she doesn't get to hang out with all the time. If you did SAH, you might still find that it doesn't necessarily mean your child will always prefer you. Quite the opposite in our case.
Money is very tight for us, but we make it work. I didn't have a high paying career before DS came along, so for us it's cost effective for me to SAH. Otherwise, I would only be making enough money to pay for childcare. And like you, we didn't want someone else raising our child. We have to make sacrifices and be poor for a few years in order to do it, but it is worth it to us.
Our only debt is our mortgage which is 22% of dh's take home pay. Everything else is there to pay the regular bills and put into savings.
I don't want to post an actual figure. That doesn't really help you anyway because if I say we live on $70K and live well, someone else might say there's no way they could survive on that. It all depends on your cost of living and lifestyle.
If you can't afford to live on your husband's salary, consider places where you can cut back so that you have less expenses.
I am not a SAHM, but that is our goal. With that in mind we are paying outright for graduate school and making double payments on our car loan and undergraduate loans. After doing those things, I still manage to save about 25% of my paychecks. It doesn't sound like much, but when I remind myself that half my check goes to debt payoff then I feel better. Basically, that means DH either needs a raise equal to my 25% or I need to have a part time job that pays that amount. I figure I can probably find a child or two to watch that will make up the difference.
Also, we own our townhouse, but are planning on moving eventually and renting this place out. Our hope would be to at least break even, but depending on what the economy does, we might make a little on it each month. We can't sell it because we owe significantly more than it is worth.
Being able to stay at home to raise our kids was a priority for us. We have no credit card debt, we do have a mortgage, and we only have one car payment. In addition, our lifestyle changed so much once we had our daughter that we found we were saving more money than we thought we would. I don't go out to meet friends for drinks after work anymore. We don't go out to eat hardly at all. DH has a base salary that we live on with some savings. He also gets bonused, which is extra savings. In addition, I am a freelance paralegal and work occasionally at home, which helps. When I have to work, I make sure it's on the weekends, or a day that we have my MIL to help so we don't pay for any sort of childcare. Before we had our daughter we looked at our budget very closely and decided some things just had to go - we haven't had a vacation since she was born, and don't plan on it for a long time. Also, we had a boat that we adored, but we had to sell it because we couldn't afford the moorage with just one income.
My DH and I are expecting our first LO in February and I will leave my teaching job to become a SAHM. We do have a mortgage, but no other debt (we were lucky enough not to have college loans and we recently paid off our cars)
Before we started TTC we started putting my salary into a separate account and lived off just my DH's (he has always made significantly more money than me). It showed us that it would be possible (we have been doing it for almost a year). I would recommend trying for at least a few months to live off just your DH's salary and see if it's doable. Good luck!
When DH and I first got married we knew our goal was for one of us to stay at home with our kids when we had them. It took us 4 years to have kids but we made choices like purchasing a house that we could afford on one paycheck. We bought used cars with cash so we wouldn't have a car payment, etc. These little things just added up to allow me (my income slightly lower then DH's) to stay home.
Our income is not high by any means. I am comfortable saying after all the bills are paid each month we have 18% of our income that is not earmarked for anything but saving for a rainy day.
Eleanor 9.30.13
Ditto this, except daycare for 4.
We paid down most of our debt before we had kids so that I could stay at home. We have only a mortgage and student loans now. We make sacrifices to afford me staying at home - we drive older cars, I shop second hand for the kids clothes/toys, we don't have data plans on our phone, etc).
I hope you can find a way to make it work.
(m/c 1.17.07, m/c 5.15.07)
DS - 03.15.08
DD2 - 12.03.09
DD3 - 3.28.11
We live in the house my mom owns, we don't pay rent to her in exchange for keeping it maintained, etc.
My HDH is on the lower scale for living in our area on a single income, but since we have no car payment or mortgage, it's enough for the bills and necessary items.
Seriously, track your budget for 3 months, then minus what your pay would be and see if you can make it a couple of months on just your DH's, putting as much of your pay in savings (I can understand daycare coming out of your paycheck in this circumstance. ) if you can't do it, you're not ready financially.
Thank you so much ladies for your responses, support and suggestions. Besides our mortgage we have zero debt. I make more than DH so it is a little harder to just quit. But maybe we could still make it work if we give up our house, although in today's market that's hard to do as well. I have a lot of thinking and planning to do..... :-(
I'll go ahead and admit (the joy of being anonymous!!). My DH makes $50k. Before when I was working FT, I made even more than that. Although we could live 100% on DH's income, I do work 17 hours a week so I can stay in my field and make it easier to transition back into the workforce once my kids are in school FT. Plus, the extra money doesn't hurt.
How we were able to afford for me to SAH-we bought a house way below our means. We got a great deal on a foreclosure and did renovations ourselves. Even though we live in a relatively HCOL area (although not anywhere like NYC but higher than the national average-we're 10 minutes away from the Atlantic Ocean if that helps), we can afford it on DH's income since we have no debt besides our $1250 mortgage payment. We still save money, but we cut back on going out to eat, got rid of expensive cell phone plans and extended cable. We shop a lot at consignment shops and I make my DS's food.
I stay at home because based on my husbands income me working or not based on my income potential compared to his is trivial and now with DD on the way I'll be able to give her all the momma time in the world.
My best advice though is for you to test drive what it would be like if you did live only on DH income. Sit down with him and make a realistic budget using only his income, then try living on that budget for a while and see how you do.
I was actually making more money than DH when I quit. But to answer your question, we bought a house we knew we could afford on one salary, which is smaller than we would have liked but now with kiddies running around I'm glad all this is in our starter home, lol
We don't have any credit card debt or car payments. We have a strict budget for food/allowances and break even every month. We built up a savings while I was working. DH is getting a raise soon so we should be saving again soon and will start contributing back into my IRA and all the money he advances in his career going forth will be savings/vacation money etc...
I do freelance and make some money here and there which helps with extras cause there always are. I like that we are tight now with no debt so when I do return to work again it will all be extra money.
Good luck and I hope it works out for you!!!
Natural M/c 12/13/08 at 8w5d
im not a SAHM yet but ive been a SAHW for 2 years.... my husband is an e4 in the army you can google his salary. its not a lot. we make 2294 a month. i think. but we have enough for extras, and buying baby stuff has not been an issue either.
we have 2 credit cards (that are not even close to the max), cable, cells, car, car insurance for bills. we live on post so we dont pay rent, but if we lived off post we'd get rent money along with regular income. oh and we still manage to save money.
we afford it by being smart with our money and not living beyond our means. you would truly be surprised on what you can live on if you are good at budgeting! growing up my dad made 6 figures and i thought that my husband would need to make that much or more to be able to afford what i wanted... i was wrong. its all a matter of planning. ex oh i want a shopping spree? well i can either get a few peices here and there or save x each pay check and go on a big spree in x months.
good luck i hope it works out for you!