If you are a SAHM ...

[smiley]

if you are a SAHM how much did you want your H to earn in order to live comfortably?

When we have a child I want to SAH or work part time 10 - 15 hrs per week but I am looking at our budget and trying to figure out how we could afford that.

I am just curious what your household income is that made you comfortable to cut your income to zero. I know this will different for everyone, I am just looking for a little insight.

[anna7602]

I think a lot of this will depend on COL and how much debt you have, how much house you want to have, etc.

I am not technically SAH since I freelance, but when DH and I bought our first home, we did so with the idea in mind that I might one day want to work less (or not at all) once we had a child. So we looked with that idea in mind. We also made it a priority to reduce all non-mortgage debt and save as much as possible before TTC. We haven't had cable TV in years, don't own a car, own a modest-sized apartment, and generally don't have a lot of fixed bills. Now, we are in the happy situation that whatever money I bring in through my own work can either go directly to savings or for fun things like vacations.

[pugz]

it totally depends on COL and monthly expenses. For us, we planned ahead by buying a house that we could afford on one income, and we also built up our savings to 6 months of living expenses. I am going back to work part time (2 days a week) and about 1/3rd of what I make will go to daycare. We had to reign in spending in a few areas: clothing, groceries, eating out/entertainment and give up vacations to make it work.

best thing you can do is save save save and practice living on one income before you actually have to do it!

[6fsn]

Basically I wanted enough to maintain our current bills while maxing my IRA and saving for other things (college, vacation, life crap). I was willing to cut our current budget for clothing and food but I also made sure to add in for activities.

[pugz]

also while we do have one car payment, it is not high and it was only a 2 year loan, then our other car was paid for in cash years ago. We have no debt other than our mortgage, car loan, and student loans.

[jackpackage]

Here's a post from the main board that may help.

pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=mm&thread=100968&page=1

H is a high earner and I am not, so it was pretty easy for me to SAH.

[Deleted]

For us it wasn't some magic number for DH's income that made us pull the trigger on SAH. It was if we could cut my income. Some families get by fine on $60K HHI with both parents working and others need $100K just to pay the bills. It's not about how much DH makes IMHO. It's about your fixed expenses (mortgage, student loans, etc..) and how much of his income they eat up. If your bills are 85% of DH's take home pay for example, then SAH won't work. If you want to SAH, then your options are to increase DH's pay somehow, cut expenses, or both.

As far as how we made it work, my hubbie has a good salary, so to afford losing mine we just cut everything we could out of our budget before TTC. Using our high joint income, we paid off a personal loan and both cars. That freed up enough space in our budget so that we could lose my income and still pay all the bills with enough left over to not feel strapped.

Also, "comfortably" is a relative term. We knew going into this that money would be tight, and some things would have to be cut. We don't take nice vacations anymore, just a long weekend here or there. We have to watch what we buy. Sometimes that looming Amazon order has to wait until payday or cut some items from it. We rarely go out to eat. Cutting all those things really sucked at first but we're used to it now. SAH is very much worth it. If having the money for all those things is important to you and DH doesn't make enough to live that "comfortably" then you have a decision to make about what your priorities are going to be. SAH isn't for everyone, and that's okay too.

[smiley]

Dec 28, 2012 16:50:02 GMT -5 @supergreen said:

If your bills are 85% of DH's take home pay for example, then SAH won't work.

What would be a good % for our bills to be compared to H's income?

We are in debt repayment mode right now and then that will change into savings. It will be almost my whole income going to savings when we get to that point so we should be able to build that e-fund. We are also waiting for DH to get promoted (hopefully in 2013) before we even think about having a child because his pay increase would cover my whole income.

[smiley]

Dec 28, 2012 16:40:49 GMT -5 jackpackage said:

Here's a post from the main board that may help.

pandce.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=mm&thread=100968&page=1

H is a high earner and I am not, so it was pretty easy for me to SAH.

Thanks -- I guess I missed this post! A lot of great information and it does vary widely. Some answers were more than DH and I combined right now so it does really depend on priorities.

[dcn]

We move so much that my income was always extra, we were used to making it work on just his income. I'd like to find something in a few months at least part time!

[gibbinator]

(VLCOL) dh's teacher salary is enough if we decide for me to stay home-$52000. It's enough to pay the bills and have some left over for incidentals. Things will be tight for awhile though. In 14months he'll be getting a raise that will boost his salary up enough to cancel out what I used to make when we bought our house.
Another factor is we only have one SL for debt and dh's car will be paid off before my leave is up. We'll have about $800/mo less in loan payments at that time than when we moved in 3yrs ago.

[cinco]

After our first I went back to work. I used my salary to pay for daycare, and put the rest in savings. DH's salary covered everything else. It worked out well, so I stayed home after the second. It provided us a nice little safety net too. I think a trial run is the best way to see if you can afford it.

[MadamePresident]

We are completely debt free. We decided to pay off our house, never had car loans and were lucky enough to make it through college without student loans. By not having those big debts, we can live on very little. My husband is an engineer so he makes a good wage and the cost of living here is pretty moderate.

[Deleted]

Well I'm sure you realize that it's going to be different for everyone based on your COL, your current lifestyle and fixed expenses, how much you're willing to cut back on non-necessary spending, how much you value SAH, and your goals for the future. The year I left my job my H got a promotion at work that more than equaled my salary at a job I hated (I was a public school teacher) so that was a pretty easy decision to make in retrospect :) He makes a nice income but I'm sure we could do it for less if we had to.

If I had it to do over, I would want my H to make a salary that would allow us to continue saving pretty aggressively for retirement and cover our current lifestyle so we wouldn't have to cut back too much on more frivolous things like vacations, eating out, the house cleaner, clothing, hair cuts, etc. It would also have to be enough to add in certain expenses like college contributions, babysitters, activities for the kids, family memberships to places like the zoo, science museum, etc., and preschool.

I personally wouldn't want to SAH if it meant that I couldn't buy myself a new pair of shoes on occasion or allow my kids to take piano lessons or send them to preschool. And especially not if it meant that we literally had to stay at home all the time, lol. Since you don't have kids yet, what I would do in your situation is start adding up how much those extra things cost (activities, preschool, college contributions, etc.), add them to your current budget, and see where that leaves you.

Maybe your H already makes enough to cover everything or maybe you will start having to cut back in other areas to make it work. Do the math and see how much wiggle room you have and whether you find that palatable or not. Another smart thing to do would be to start living on his income now and save all of yours to build up your savings. I'm not sure what your timeline for having children is but if it's a few years away you might be able to save a nice amount that way to give yourselves more of a cushion. Best of luck to you!

[smiley]

Thanks for all of the input violet -- we are a few years out and I am hoping DH will get promoted before then... if he gets promoted it would be equal to our two incomes combined right now so we would be able to live comfortably. At the point we start trying we should only have the house as our debt. I want everything else paid off. We are both young (mid twenties) so we are in no rush.

[Deleted]

Dec 28, 2012 16:58:26 GMT -5 smiley said:

Dec 28, 2012 16:50:02 GMT -5 @supergreen said:

If your bills are 85% of DH's take home pay for example, then SAH won't work.

What would be a good % for our bills to be compared to H's income?

We are in debt repayment mode right now and then that will change into savings. It will be almost my whole income going to savings when we get to that point so we should be able to build that e-fund. We are also waiting for DH to get promoted (hopefully in 2013) before we even think about having a child because his pay increase would cover my whole income.

As far as bills compared to H's income, again that depends on what you're comfortable with. If you're the type of person who budgets everything so there (hypothetically) isn't money "left over" then 85% of DH's pay taken by bills might be fine for you. We don't budget that closely. I think our bills are 75% of DH's pay and I feel that's too high, but we work with what we've got. Like I said in my previous post, sometimes things just have to wait. I pretty much always have an Amazon order I'm waiting for him to say I can go ahead and place

Your "debt payoff then switch to savings" plan sounds great. I think it's very prudent to wait until you're financially stable to have a child. Like you said, you're still young and in no rush. It sounds like you're doing everything right, good job!

[af1212]

Since it sounds like you have a few years before kids, could you start living off of his income now?

When we got married, we deposited my H's check into our "living expenses" account and only used that to pay the mortgage, groceries, etc. My check went into an account for one time expenses (down payment for house, paying off student loans, stocking our HSA account, etc.) and then just general savings. I have been home now for 3 years and we have never felt the pinch. My husband makes less than many of my friends' husbands but we have structured our life so that we can make it work.

[whitepicketfence]

As others have mentioned, it's not your HHI that matters, it's your expenses. DH is an engineer so he makes a good income for our LCOL area. We also don't have car payments, live in a smaller home, don't take vacations, and live a fairly frugal lifestyle. We don't pinch pennies but we are cautious with our spending.

If you are a few years away from having kids and think that you may want to SAH when the time comes, I would start living on one salary now while banking the other. If you do end up staying home, then you'll be used to living on one income and will have a healthy savings cushion. If you decide to go back to work, well, then you'll still have a healthy savings cushion to help with baby expenses.

[drloretta]

Another "it depends" here.

We sat down and drew up what the budget would look like without my income and saw that we could still more or less do what we were doing with fewer splurges.

[Deleted]

We adjusted our budget before I went on maternity leave assuming that I would not return to work. We also joined mint to track our spending and that has helped tremendously. When I went back to work we kept our budget the same as if I was still home. We apply my check to one-time purchases (needed a new dryer recently) and savings.

DH makes about 3 times my salary so while it was an adjustment, it wasn't as drastic as we thought it would be. I think what really changed was we stopped going out to eat once dd was born and pretty much eliminated that line item from our budget.