Financially, if you don't mind sharing!
I think about this sometimes and it just seems like -for us- there will have to be some MAJOR cuts to make it happen. I don't know how we would afford to pay our mortgage and/or health insurance!
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Dhs salary is big enough to cover us. Of course now that lo is here we can't just go out shopping for clothes just for funsies whenever we want, and sometimes we have to wait a month or two to buy something expensive that we want, but we pay our credit card off every month and pay all the bills on time.
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I'm not SAH yet, but will be. The way we will make it work is that we waited until H made enough money for us both to live on before starting TTC-- it's a major factor in our timing. We haven't really increased our spending compared to the increase we've had in salaries, and we rent and only have one car, plus H's last salary increase was roughly equivalent to my entire salary.
Not to mention, we live in the Boston area which has some of the highest day care rates in the country, so my working wouldn't help nearly as much as you would think anyway.
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We live on very little. We do have a mortgage but we don't live in a city so living costs aren't high here. We aren't big shoppers for anything, we eat really well but there's lots of tricks for getting the food bill down, we don't have cable or smartphones, we already owned our cars and have a savings and don't have any education loans or any other loans to pay back - so reoccurring monthly bills are really just basic living expenses.
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Luckily DH makes enough money that we can live comfortably. We have friends who live off one salary though (50k) and they manage (I don't know how, but they do!).
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We don't buy much. Our hobbies include gardening, bird watching, mushroom picking, walks and the occasional visit to antique stores. I do like to cook and we spend quite a bit on groceries, but aside from that we don't really shop except for necessities. Well, I do have my moments on Etsy, but aside from baby related gear and accessories, I don't shop for myself.
I did work part-time right up until I was in labor, but DH's salary covers our living expenses plus enough for savings. I use my salary to buy baby gear and misc things we need (like birthday gifts, decor, etc).
There are things we'd like that we're waiting on - a new fridge for instance. I'd also like to remodel the kitchen but it's not really needed so we're waiting. For now paying off the mortgage and building up our savings is more important. We don't sacrifice vacations so that's always in the works (a necessity when you live in a country that's cold and dark for a good part of the year, IMO).
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DH works and I stay at home. We always knew we'd have this arrangement so we planned our finances around it from the beginning. We budgeted for our house etc. on his salary alone, and don't have car payments. Those are the two major factors in making it work for us. We don't have much disposable income or as much in savings as I'd like, but we get by and still enjoy treats every now and then.
I kind of like it this way. Even though we live very modestly, I like knowing that if we ever came by hard times all it would mean is me picking up pt or ft work.
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@LAGS: We are in the exact same situation. It was something that we planned on since before we were married so we've always had it in mind. Our mortgage is also only based off of DH's salary, we have no car payments, etc.
We also recently got rid of our smart phones and now instead have phones that don't require data plans (which saved up $50/month). I meal plan for the month and we keep a very strict budget. We still have money for little extras but definitely not for huge shopping sprees.
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We're very lucky that DH's salary and bonus can support us...of course, bonuses are never a guarantee, but we have a lot in savings from past bonuses. If there came a time that he left his current field (finance), then we would likely have to make some lifestyle changes (moving to a less expensive rental apt, changing our eating out/shopping patterns, etc).
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Luckily, DH's salary is enough to support us, but we still try to make very wise choices with our money. We don't buy a lot of clothes, eat at home most of the time, drive old cars... And we made the decision when we got married that we would only ever live on his salary. We knew that I would be a SAHM when we started having kids, and didn't want it to be a shock to lose a salary.
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My salary could support us... but Mr. Jacks also was employed while doing his SAH gig. It meant no career advancement for him and a very modest salary, but that coupled with the child care savings was good enough to make it work.
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DH's salary is reasonable, and besides a mortgage, we don't have any other big debts (no college loans, car loans, etc...), so that helps. Also, I don't plan on being home full-time for very long, only maybe a year or two. Ideally, I would start working from home or working part-time sometime after I finish my degree, to help offset costs. So we are making some sacrifices right now, with the understanding that it won't be for very long.
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We just get by and we are okay with that. We have what we need and every now and then we can afford a little extra but it is far more important to us that I stay home with the kids than to have lots of money and stuff.
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We're practicing living off of DH's salary right now. We use mine to pay off debt. Without the debt, we can afford to live off of DH's salary alone. Hopefully, once the baby is here, we will have paid off that debt with my salary until that point.
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We saved up from my salary, so now we just don't go out or do movie night or get as much alcohol... We also are smarter with groceries.
We just.... live simpler.
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Like others we made certain choices to enable me to be a SAHM. That meant things like waiting a little to TTC and buying a house in the suburbs and making sure our expenses did not exceed my husband's salary. We saved my income for a few years and lived off of my husband's income to get us ready. It is worth it to me bc I love staying home
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We'd have to move out of Boston and DH would have to be done with his surgery residency...which will happen in another year or so. I plan to SAH during his fellowship year where he will make more than residency but less than when praciting (we are moving from Boston for a year...) I'm not sure what I'll do when we return and I don't have to work. Right now, we could live on my salary since I currently make 2X what he makes, but he can't stay at home!
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@pastemoo: Did you decide you are going to SAH?
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My income has always been minuscule compared to my husband's so we've always paid bills off his and saved mine/used it for random things. We made sure to buy our house based off one income and don't have any other debt besides that. We don't really travel because of his work schedule so that saves money. Other than that we are fortunate enough to be able to pretty much do as we please. Several guys my husband works with tease him about being rich even though they make the exact same amount. My husband has started responding by saying we can afford to buy toys because we don't drink away our income. A lot of the guys spend a small fortune on beer every week but we don't really drink hardly at all. My husband MIGHT buy 1 six pack every other month.
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I only made about 1/3 of what my husband makes, but it was a nice cushion. I still work one day a week on my husband's weekday off. I also pick up the odd night and weekend hours tutoring. This covers groceries and my sanity, and that's about it. Thank goodness my job let me make this move- I do enjoy my job so much more in it's smaller role in my life.
We refinanced our house and student loans, and cut out quite a few expenses to make it work. We aren't constantly looking for entertainment anymore either, so we don't go to concerts or many nights out anymore. We still eat out a few times a week, but are more careful about it now. We save up for big things for a month or two and worked out a budget on Mint.com to keep track of everything.
We just had big car repairs and are doing without a dryer for the summer, but our son is growing and changing so much that the dryer and lack of vacations are well worth it! Our son also keeps me so busy that I don't shop nearly as much as I used to- he helps me stay on track. I've also gotten to be a better bargain hunter, using coupons and second hand stores.
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I think our situation is alittle bit different from most here. We live abroad and DH has a good expat contract from his employer. They pay for our apartment, utilities, and a yearly flight to the US for all 3 of us. Because of all that, I can be a SAHM and we are really able to enjoy a comfortable life in Tokyo. We end up paying a huge chunk of change in US taxes, which sucks, but there's nothing we can do about that.
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Sounds like for the majority of you one of you makes enough to support every one. Unfortunately, not the case for us. I never intended to stay at home so that was the furthest thing from our minds when house searching. And not saying I do now...I just think about it some times.
I still think the biggest things that scare me that can't be cut are mortgage and health insurance. Either of our paychecks alone would not be able to cover both and daily living expenses.
Our biggest frivolous spending is probably the data for our iPhone. Besides that we're actually really frugal. I'm a cheap a$$ and hardly shop.
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DH and I practice living off his salary (67,000) and paying our law school debt with mine. After our clerkships, we will have about half of our debt paid off. Then, DH will likely get a bigger firm job, which will pay enough for us to live on his salary, and we can decide whether I will SAH or WOH.
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That's tough when it's things that would be difficult to cut such as mortgage or health insurance. You don't want to skimp on the insurance, for sure.
Like others have said, when we house hunted, we based what we could afford on my salary alone. (I'm a nerd who has budget projections for the next few years already done, but it helps me to not worry about money when I can see exactly where things will be going!) -
I'm kinda curious about what people make since I saw someone post about a family living off of 50,000 being crazy!
We don't have baby/jobs yet, but my husband's salary will be $42,000 starting in August, and baby comes in January. I'll have some part time job till then, bringing in max a few thousand which we'll put straight into savings. I'm a tad worried because our savings is pretty depleted now - we just graduated from grad/law school in the spring and I haven't had regular work this summer and he's been studying for the bar.
BUT, 42k is more than 2x what we've made with my RA salary and his summer income combined. I think last year we "spent" about 35,000 total - nearly 20,000 on tuition. So really it's nearly a 3 fold increase in income! And I know babies bring a lot of expenses so we aren't planning on being rich, but I also don't think we'll be spending 30k on baby alone.
Here's the advice we got: insure the insurables - life, home, health, car. My advice is basically - don't buy a lot of stuff. Clothes, DVDs, going to the movies, new electronic gadgets, apps, trips, bottled water, sodas, teas, not finishing leftovers (we're bad about that - getting better), driving instead of walking/biking, snack foods, individual cartons of yogurt instead of big tubs, name brands, washing your car (if you go to a carwash), throwing things away instead of fixing them, new books instead of library/thrift stores - all stuff that can be skipped. It sounds stupid, but the way to cut expenses is to buy less. Everything you are about to buy, think "do I really need this?" Hint: if you have to pay for shipping - probably not!!
Good luck!
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DH made $60k a year when we decided that I would be a SAHM. After two pay increases, he now makes $70k, and the extra income most definitely helps. I think it works for us because we have no debt other than our mortgage. We paid off all of our student loans and haven't had a car payment in years. The standard of living here is average - not too high, not too low. We do have a budget and try not to spend more than we need to. Unfortunately we don't save as much as we should, but we have to pay back my FIL for money that borrowed for down payment on our house. Once that is paid for we can start saving a lot more.
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@jedeve: I think the amount you 'need' to make it work is hugely dependent on where you live. I hear you can rent nice houses in some parts of the country for well under $1000, or BUY places for under $200,000. But my husband's job will only pay what it does in a big city, which is much more expensive. So it's hard to get into any actual numbers unless you know the relative cost of living, you know? Plus so much of it is priorities-- we live downtown-- if we moved to the suburbs, housing expenses would be a lot less, but our commutes would be a lot longer and we'd probably need two cars.
But all the things about need vs want that you said are totally true.
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@jedeve: My husband makes just barely under 50k/year and that’s what we’ll be living on (and what we already have been living on since we’ve been putting my paychecks into savings for our house downpayment). We don’t live in a huge city that’s super expensive but I wouldn’t say the cost of living here is cheap.
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haha you guys all make way more than my husband or I make. Architects are poooor
@jedeve: believe it or not those are all things we already do on a regular basis. We're really just not huge spenders and we're homebodies too. The "frivolous" things we have to cut are data plans, TV, internet.
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@regberadaisy: I think we're skipping out on TV next year too.
I don't have a data plan, but I would like an iphone. So expensive though!
I don't have a data plan, but I would like an iphone. So expensive though!
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