Right now, DH & I are blessed to have good jobs and decent salaries, but our combined income is still well below the $100K mark. I feel like $100K would be the magic number for us to be comfortable financially and able to achieve our goals. It would take a huge change in DH's career for him to make $100K before we TTC, which is why I am leaning towards working. I just don't see how we'd make it work on half of that... but maybe some of you do?
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We'll be comfortable on DH's salary, but it's not 100k, especially with all the budget cuts in the last few years. We'll definitely have to be more conscious of resources and will probably save less than when we're both working, but 100% doable without any major sacrifices. We don't live in a really pricey area like NYC, but Seattle suburbs aren't a particularly cheap place to live either.
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I'm a SAHM, and my husband doesn't make 100k. We're pretty comfortable, but things are still tight. I can't just go out shopping whenever I want. But I'm ok with that, it's worth it to me. It also depends on where you live though, where I live is way cheaper then living somewhere like NYC.
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We don't even make half of that and I'm a SAHM. We are on a very tight budget but its sooo worth it to spend my time with DD and be able to watch her grow up. (it also helps that we don't live in an expensive city)
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I was a SAHM with less than 100k coming in from Wagon Sr., but 1) we live in an expensive area and 2) we were both working part time jobs to cover the gap. And we were still struggling pretty badly. I'm glad I'm happy as a working mom because it's much easier to handle life when money is not such a burden!!
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Haha this made me laugh, my husband doesn't even make near half that. Even when we both worked, we hardly made half that. Making 100k/yr would make us very wealthy for where we live.
Where do you live?We still don't make much and I wouldn't say we're "comfortable", but we know how to manage money and stick to our budget really well, so we have what we need. We use a zero-based budget system and it has completely turned our financial lift around, we are a lot more aware of how we spend/save.
Anyway, it would be nice to have second income, but it wouldn't be cost-effective for me to work because I can't make enough to offset the cost of childcare. So that kinda made the decision for us. But I'm going back to school to finish my degree so in a few years that may change.
I don't think making the transition to SAHM is necessarily about being "comfortable", but instead learning to manage what you have.
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I think where you live also makes a big difference. I know a co-worker of mine def does NOT make 100K. I would gander 40-45K a year. His wife is a SAHM with two kids. And they are tight but comfortable. There's def no frivolous spending in their household but they make it work.
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We are currently a one income family due to some health reasons. This time last year, we were a two income family. When we went down to one income, we had to get rid of a lot of our expenses. I make less than 100k. We are tight now but we are working hard on paying down our debt so that will help. When we were on two incomes, I was thinking about how it would be nearly impossible for my DH to be a SAHD. Well, here we are on one income.
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We are definitely a less than 100k family. We would be seen as wealthy if we made that! Anyways my LO isn't here yet but I currently stay home (I'm finishing up my B.A.) and will continue when he/she makes her appearance. I would say we're comfortable though we aren't frivolous spenders. We also do not live in an expensive area.
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We depend on both of our salaries to be able to save money on top of paying our monthly bills. We could go down to one salary and it would be under $100k but we couldn't do what we want to do - save for retirement, save money every month in savings and have a few luxuries here and there. If one of us lost our job, we could do it but we would just have to cut back on luxuries. By luxuries, I'm talking eating out once a week and buying expensive hair products.
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It's definitely possible, but depending on how much debt you have, it might be difficult and you'd have to really budget.
We have friends who make 60k and they make do. My friend is a cancer survivor, so a lot of their money goes to medicine and organic veggies and etc. for her. I have no idea how they do it, but they make it work..! They have a 2.5 year old and live in Atlanta. Cost of living is cheaper down here. -
This is very interesting, in my area (high cost of living), the average income is well over $100K and it seems in most families both parents work. I at least want to cut my hours (and income) in half once LO arrives. Although my husband makes over $100k, that will still be a huge adjustment!
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My husband makes way less than that, way less. I work part time - but not half time - but don't make all that much right now because I chose flexibility over pay (and we don't have to put her in daycare then too). We're making it work. But we don't have debt, own our own house, have money in savings, and both have good degrees (well husband has a couple more years to finish his second one) so at some point we'll make money, or at least more than we are now. I figure baby girl is only a baby once though and I was working way too many hours for me to be a happy mommy.
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We are just above 100K with a 2 income family, I don't think there is any way we could live comfortably with just my DH's salary making 1/2 of that. I would love to be a part time working mom so I could spend more time at home, but right now I don't think we will be able to swing that either. Hopefully by the time #2 comes around.
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My DH and I combined make just under that but with our expenses mortgage, car payment, insurance, food, and a lot of debt we couldn't swing it. Honestly, me not returning to work wasn't even an option on the table for us. If one of us lost our jobs we would cut expenses and figure it out but it would be really really hard.
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DH makes less than that and in a week or two we will be one income. We have been saving my income since August so that we can start looking for a house. DH is great with money and we live pretty simply, so I am not worried. If I were to return to work after the babay, what I would make would just cover daycare and that's just not worth it to me!
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Us, (eta well not sahm but as of recently I have 0 income, student) and we live in a high cost of living area too! Right now I'm not working because of grad school, but I will be going back to work (if I can find a job in my field!) within six months of having our little one. But since my field is low paying we could probably just as well off if I didn't go back.
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I guess we live in very different places because my husband doesn't make half of that and I am a SAHM. 100k would make us freaking rich!
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Wow, there is such variety! I agree it does depend on a lot on where you live. I know we could be better about our budget, but right now after our bills (we are still working on getting out of debt) there isn't much wiggle room. I don't think we could even pay all our bills on just DH's salary, much less the expenses a child brings, and I think we live fairly modestly.
I guess if I'm being honest, I don't *want* to adjust our lifestyle to what it would take for us to live on half of what we make right now. We would have to live in a much smaller place, sell our cars, get rid of cable, never buy organic anymore, etc. While I think we could do it for under 100K, realistically the only way I'd be a full-time SAHM is if DH was able to make enough to come within striking distance of our current two-person income.
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My sil is a sahm and my bro makes less than 100k in NYC. He lives comfortably - even has a young son...
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@daniellemybelle: While I think we could do it for under 100K, realistically the only way I'd be a full-time SAHM is if DH was able to make enough to come within striking distance of our current two-person income.
Ditto and we aren't near the $100k range.lol
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It depends on student loan debt, credit debt, where you live, whether you rent or own.
My parents had 4 kids on a teeny tiny one person income, but neither had student loans, they had a very inexpensive house and little other debt.
The other part you have to calculate is daycare cost. If LJ had to go to daycare, hubs would have to make 18-20,000 more a year to have it make financial sense. Otherwise, we'd be losing money.
You just have to analyze the finances for your situation. I have a big student loan burden, so we have a different calculation than most families...
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@Mrs. Jacks: I agree. If it weren't for my student loans and some credit card debt, we could be living fairly well on just my income.
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@bluestriped bee: Though again, your location is also spendier than some. I betcha my cost of living is cheaper than yours is now... though totally usurped by the fact that we now have 2 houses because the housing market was so bad when we moved!
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Oh, much less!
I have not been working since 20 weeks due to pregnancy complications. Since then, our household income has only been 62K.
Obviously, things are tight because of a mortgage, 2 car payments, medical bills, student loans, and various other bills, but we are making it. We probably will live with things this tight until LO is 6 months old. Then I will go back to work/look for another job (my job didn't hold my position).Sometimes it's annoying because I can't buy a new pair of shoes or get a manicure when I want to, but we figure that everyone goes through a time where things are tight financially, and ours might as well be now while we are young. If we really needed to cut things, we could get rid of our expensive cable, smart phones, or one of our car payments (we don't NEED a BMW).
We have enough for bills, baby necessities, and food for our bellies. That's enough for me! -
@miss-spunkin: I completely agree with what you said!
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DH makes way less than $100k! Salaries for engineers here in Sweden are pretty low compared to other places. If we moved to my hometown (San Diego) he would be making over $100 easy. But the standard of living would roughly be the same after you calculate housing costs, childcare, medical & dental, etc - all of which are little to no out-of-pocket cost here.
So even if we moved back and I were to get a well-paid, full-time job, it would roughly be the same with 2 incomes vs here with me only working part-time. The only difference would be more expenses for us (we'd definitely buy more), work longer, and won't get to spend as much time together. It is much weather there, but the quiet, simple life away from a bigger city is something we both prioritize (at least for now).
It really depends on how much you spend. There's a ton of people that make a ton of money but live paycheck to paycheck. It's all about lifestyle and what's comfortable for you.
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Is it bad that i dont know how much my husband makes?
I will be a sahm once baby girl gets here and our household income will drop very close to the 100k mark. My husband has his own law practice, so even though his income is enough for us to live comfortably, we still have to watch our money closely (because his income varies so much and as a result, his tax responsibility is different every quarter).
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It totes depends where you live, my DH makes $120k per year and I make $50k, I am going to be a SAHM for one year and then go back to work part time (3 days a week). we are going to have to change our lifestyle heaps, not only will we loose $50k/year which is essentially our play money, but we will also have the added expenses of a baby. Luckily i get 6 weeks paid maternity leave from work and the government will pay me 18 weeks maternity leave at minimum wage (approx $500/week) We just got back from a holiday in Europe, which I suspect will be the last vacation we take for a while..but I know it will be worth it!
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we are in RI, and DH definitely does NOT make 100k a year. I'm a student - and we have quite a bit of debt, but, our cars are paid off and we do not own (save quite a bit of money there). We're doing just fine!
you just have to decide what things to cut out and skimp on..for instance, I very rarely buy myself anything (and when I do, it must be on sale/clearance or is something cheap..read, magazine). Also, I get my hair cut once in a blue moon. but, to some people those are important things to get done - so you might have to tweak vacation budget, etc.
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@daniellemybelle:
I think the amount of money you can live on largely depends on the cost of living in you area, your financial goals, current debt, and what sort of lifestyle you want to live.
It sounds like you've thought a lot about your financial goals and lifestyle and $100,000 could be that number for you.
One of the reasons I'm not going to stay home because we can save so much more if I'm working and that is really important to both of us.
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There is something about the 100k figure that is comforting, I have to admit. It was the number I had in my head since I was about 25. I thought it would be enough to maintain most of the lifestyle I percieved I would have when I was starting a family, plus some to save.
Now, I stay at home and I gave up a 6 figure salary. That money was our savings money and I plan to go back soon so we can continue saving aggressively. We live comfortably on my husbands salary, but things could change in an instant and I would feel more comfortable sharing the burden. -
We don't even have 100k with both of us working! When I'm at home, we will make way way less, but we can manage on it.
We live in the DC area, we're just good at being frugal. -
Ha... we don't even make half that, combined. And we likely never will, considering the line of work we are in (non-profit). But if we could pull in 50k together, I think we would be comfortable and happy with that.
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@Arden:
us too. We are actually planning on getting by just the 3 of us on under 50k for as long as we can before I get too antsy and want to go back to work!
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No, well under $100K, and we're still making well over the average income for our area. My parents got by on a sergeant's pay for most of my childhood, even living off post without a housing allowance. I'm from MO and ND, currently living in GA, so $100k being considered minimal blows my mind.
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Very interesting responses. We are planning to have me stay home once we have our baby. With two incomes we live on an amount well below $100k. I actually make more than my husband right now and after I quit we'll be living on less than half of what we are now, with no benefits. Our biggest concern right now is health insurance which will coat about $800 a month. Thankfully we put together an emergency fund and have paid off all of our debt in preparation for this time. Even with that, things will be very very tight but we'll manage
because it is very important to both of us. -
@Bluebonnet: I complete agree with you!
@looch: It *is* comforting. Probably falsely so - mo' money, mo' problems, and all that. But after looking at our current financial situation compared to our current income, I always come back to that "magic" number.
@Beyond2: That's great that you have prepared so well. The main reason we are waiting to TTC is to pay off our debt and have a hefty emergency fund. Even on a lower income I would feel much more comfortable once we've secured that.
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Gosh, this thread makes me very curious how much people really make. I've never in my life had a salary even up to 40k--so the idea of 100k is just--- it's an astronomical number!
And my husband is enlisted in service, so he doesn't make much either. -
I agree with most posters that it depends on where you live - this is a very interesting post though! It's encouraging to know you don't have to be 'wealthy' to stay at home
us too. We are actually planning on getting by just the 3 of us on under 50k for as long as we can before I get too antsy and want to go back to work!
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