Post by littlemermaid on Dec 6, 2012 9:32:38 GMT -5
Why don't you guys start living off of just your husband's income now. Deposit yours into an account that is not used at all to pay any bills, so like an emergency fund or savings account. Then you will actually be able to see how much you have to adjust your lifestyle and budget. It give a good reality check and in the course of this you also saved a good nest egg by saving your paychecks.
I have been at home since my first child was born. My husband makes about $35,000 more than I did when I was working and we could have lived on just my salary if we were careful
There are other factors that made it feasible for us though.
We have no debt other than the house. It is the house I bought, pre-bubble, when I was single. The mortgage is low and it will be paid off in 4 years.
We have a good emergency fund, because we planned on my staying home for a few years.
I am out on unpaid leave, and I don't have to go back until the September after my son turns 3. I start back at the step I left on and I maintain my seniority. If I didn't have this option I would not have stayed home.
Really no amount of income would make me feel comfortable. We could live and save (minimally though) on DH's income HOWEVER I feel that in this economic climate it wouldn't be smart to quit my job and voluntarily go down to one income. Even thought I don't make a lot more than the cost of day care, I look at my job as an insurance policy. In the even DH lost his job, we could get benefits right away through my employer. While my salary wouldn't cover all of our bills, it would significantly help out. I don't have the stomach to "put all of our eggs in one basket", so to speak. Now, if we had millions in non-retirement savings, this woulnd't be a concern.
Isn't this incredibly dependent on cost of living?
It's dependent on a lot of factors. That's why she asked "your DH" vs. what's the amount anyone needs to make.
But then what does the poll prove really?
I don't have kids, but I'd imagine my answer would be somewhere over $300,000. And that's probably assuming moving to a cheaper neighborhood in order to upgrade to a 2BR.
For me, it is not really about income, as we could do it now based on that - more about aversion to risk and net worth - I like knowing we have two incomes as it is unlikely that we will both lose our jobs at the same time, if he dies, I will still have income, etc. As our net worth grows, I am more likely to stay home. Not sure what I want it to be, though.
I could choose to SAH today. DH makes enough that we could live reasonably comfortably on his income alone. We put more than what I earn into savings and investments each month.
We have made efforts to keep our budget at a level that keeps us in this territory. I telecommute and am the trailing spouse. Honestly, we never fully know how DH's career moves will impact my ability to continue working, so we have avoided setting ourselves up for potential issues.
H would need to make about another 6k a month, honestly. Maybe more. His salary would basically have to double and then some - if I were to SAH we would still have to pay our SLs and I would lose my SL forgiveness so that would be a factor, and he would have to pick up the health insurance which is more expensive and not as good as mine, and I would want to be able to max out retirement and to have a bigger e-fund than we currently have if we are depending on one salary.
so basically, its not going to happen for a while. Ha.
I feel like this sounds ridiculous given our LCOL, but he would have to make over $150k. Together, we make about that right now, but my employer pays for health insurance for both of us in full (and would cover a child if we had one), my phone and iPad bills and they also provide a decently generous retirement match. I wouldn't be willing to change our lifestyle or savings just to SAH, and if we had a kid, we'd have more expenses than we do currently, plus added health insurance expenses by switching to insurance provided by his job.
We could have technically done it when DS was born, but we would have had to cut back on a lot of stuff. I'd say H would have needed to make $50K more a year to make it work with the goals and lifestyle we wanted.
I think this depends on your desire to SAH. I would actually prefer to find something PT more than anything. If I did SAH H would need to make arounf 150-200k. Which isn't going to happen.
SAH for one of us is a high priority, so we're committed to making it work regardless.
That being said, my DH has worked really hard at getting promoted over the last few years (including a surprise promotion this week!). That has made things much easier and I realize it's not an easy choice financially for most. But if our big goals weren't happening, we'd probably look at me going back to work sooner than planned (currently when the youngest is in 1st grade) and not have anymore kids.
Our big goals: 15 year mortgage, add a month a year to the emergency fund (currently at 4 months with DH in an incredibly stable field), fully funded Roths for both of us + 401k contributions to get us to 15% total, steadily increasing our tithe each year, annual vacations, not having to stress over day to day purchases. We're both pretty frugal so it works and I don't stress about keeping a super tight budget.
We save a bit for the kids college, but we plan to significantly up that when I go back to work. We have one car payment that will be paid off early next year and own two others (including a truck we refer to as the eyesore) outright. We'll continue to pay that amount into a car fund once it's paid off for future car repairs/purchases and not have to touch out emergency fund for that in the future, in theory. I have some student loans but they were consolidated in 2004 at around 3% and are about $300 a month. And without my income from staying at home, we can actually deduct the interest. Other than the mortgage, student loans, and the car loan, we don't and have never carried any consumer debt.
We're planning on moving in the next year or two and will most likely go up to a 30 yr loan which makes my DH nervous (he'd rather live like a pauper and pay off the house today) but we need more space.
If I was working, after daycare for 2 kids, I'd probably drive a newer car, have a cleaning service, and keep that 15 year loan when we move. So, I think I'll stay at home, drive my 2002 passat a while longer, clean my own house, and pay a marginal amount more in interest on our next home for a few years. Luckily I have a DH that agrees with all of this.
It's dependent on a lot of factors. That's why she asked "your DH" vs. what's the amount anyone needs to make.
But then what does the poll prove really?
I don't have kids, but I'd imagine my answer would be somewhere over $300,000. And that's probably assuming moving to a cheaper neighborhood in order to upgrade to a 2BR.
Huh? I don't think she's trying to prove anything. I think she's just asking a question. Everyone's life, comfort level and monetary situation are different so people will have different responses.
I only would have done it if my H was really wealthy.
I make good money, and when you combine that with health insurance, 401K and other benefits, it's way too much money to give up. I like working and need to do it to feel personally fulfilled but i just couldn't imagine giving up all that money for several years.
I don't think I want to completely SAH for any amount of money. Neither does DH.
3 weeks into maternity leave I know this is true for me. I wouldn't mind stoppin down to part time though. That would require H to make another $30k or so to offset my loss of income, retirement savings and cost of instance premiums.
For me, it is not really about income, as we could do it now based on that - more about aversion to risk and net worth - I like knowing we have two incomes as it is unlikely that we will both lose our jobs at the same time, if he dies, I will still have income, etc. As our net worth grows, I am more likely to stay home. Not sure what I want it to be, though.
I agree with all of this. I could say that if DH made about 4x what he makes now I might feel comfortable quitting, but then I worry what would happen if he were to lose his job. So really it's more about a net worth number, and that number would have to be in the mid/high seven figures.
I'm surprised at how low most of the salary numbers being mentioned are. I guess I'm more risk averse than I thought!
I guess job field plays into this as well. DH is an engineering manager, he gets head hunters calling him all the time. He's interviewed and been offered jobs twice in the past few years and his current job always bends over backwards to keep him. If he lost his job, I really don't worry about him finding something comparable. My background is insurance and we live in an insurance town. After I was laid off while pregnant, I was offered a job with a competitor that included paid leave active the day I started (std) and 12 weeks of job protection at 6 months pregnant. I just couldn't be sure I'd want to come back after having the baby so I didn't take it. So if I needed to work, I'm fairly certain I could make it happen. Plus, we made about the same amount. I know that I probably won't be able to waltz back into the market at the level I left, but I know I could make enough to keep us going.
We have a lot if fat in our budget (DH eats out lunch every day.. I love my high end baby stuff) and we have an emergency fund. If one of us dies, we have high level term life insurance on each of us. I sleep just fine at night with this level of risk.
We could make it work now, but it would be a drastic change. No travel, we'd have to downsize a little, and I'd be making a lot of budget meals.
For me to actually consider doing it for any significant amount of time, I'd like to see him making at least $120k. That would be less than we make together by a fair amount, but I think we could make it work. I'd have to ease off on Sephora trips and maybe dye my own hair instead of dropping $140 at the salon, but I think we could comfortably save for retirement and still have room for a little fun.
Probably $120k to be able to fully fund retirement, continue adding to our savings and be able to continue our current lifestyle. Barebones budget with minimal retirement contribution we could probably do $60k but would likely have to draw from savings here and there. MCOL.
The thing is, I really love my career and get a lot of satisfaction working. Though I could stay home, I don't know if it would be for me.
Yeah, I don't think DH would ever be able to make the amount we need for me to SAH. It would be more of a question of how much I would need to make since I'm the breadwinner.
This is us, too. DH would need to make $150k yearly. We live in a HCOL area.
In 2006 when I has DS we decided that I would stay home. DH was making $63k at the time. This was bare bones, just out of college living. That winter I actually tacked sheets in doorways to keep the heat in the right rooms because we didn't have central heat and could only afford small plug in heaters. It was not glamorous. I was lucky enough to be offered a part-time, work from home position at my job so I was able to contribute about $1200 per month extra and that was great. We did that for a year and then I quit for good because it was REALLY difficult to properly calculate payroll while running after a one year old with no other help. I know other women do it all the time and I assume they are miracle workers. By the time I quit DH had gotten a $4k raise and I started watching a little girl for $700 per month so we stayed around the same income. Now, six years and two more kids later, it would betough to live on $63k per year. Dh makes $90k right now but he is exempt from Social Security so we bring home that extra 6.2%. I could totally live in $63k but we would need to sell DH's truck and buy something cheaper, not build the house we are building, get rid of cable and internet, and make some other cuts that I don't really want to make. We are in a LCOL area of a HCOL state so we don't have to make a ton but we do have higher taxes and some higer expenses due to our living here. On a side note, I truly don't think I am SAHM material some days. It is not rocket science but it takes an incredible amount of patience and willingness to give up freedom that I have a hard time with. I NEVER let my children know when I am having these down moments and I always pull out of it and realize that this is truly what I want for my children and I am happy to be with them more often than not but I can totally see why people would not desire this lifestyle.