SAHM: how much does spouse have to earn to make it work?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the bickering about Fed pay? Its not like the $800k posters think they could live on ANY of the Fed amounts.

Signed,

DH makes $400k and I SAH but we could easily live on $200k in exchange for 40 hours a week and Fed benefits.

As a CS with a lot of high-flier CS friends and colleagues I don’t think I know anyone who makes around $200K and works only 40 hours a week. Would love to move to whatever agency you’re thinking of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the bickering about Fed pay? Its not like the $800k posters think they could live on ANY of the Fed amounts.

Signed,

DH makes $400k and I SAH but we could easily live on $200k in exchange for 40 hours a week and Fed benefits.

There was a poster at 11:43 (page 5) claiming crazy things about "mommy track" non profit and fed salaries being significantly higher than they actually are. The rest of us aren't bickering. We're pointing out the poster is wrong.

Honestly, I wonder if people claiming these high fed salaries are just trolls trying to antagonize everyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why the bickering about Fed pay? Its not like the $800k posters think they could live on ANY of the Fed amounts.

Signed,

DH makes $400k and I SAH but we could easily live on $200k in exchange for 40 hours a week and Fed benefits.

It’s weird when someone who doesn’t work in a particular field provides salaries for that field that are incorrect while at the same time claiming those salaries are for roles where people have purposefully not looking for challenging work or contributing at a high level (mommy tracking).

What if I said all the partners at law firms I knew were in mommy track jobs making $6 million. Or I knew a bunch of mommy tracked pediatricians who made $700K.

[Anonymous]

Basically your spouse has to earn enough that your income doesn’t matter, so that’s a personal question.

Our HHI is about 500k and my husband makes around 340k of that. Between our savings goals and our expenses, we utilize both of our incomes and would have to really reprioritize if I quit my job. But other people do it on less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Basically your spouse has to earn enough that your income doesn’t matter, so that’s a personal question.

Our HHI is about 500k and my husband makes around 340k of that. Between our savings goals and our expenses, we utilize both of our incomes and would have to really reprioritize if I quit my job. But other people do it on less.

OP asked how SAHMs make it work. She didn’t ask rich working moms why they aren’t staying home, but as usual you all chimed in anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Basically your spouse has to earn enough that your income doesn’t matter, so that’s a personal question.

Our HHI is about 500k and my husband makes around 340k of that. Between our savings goals and our expenses, we utilize both of our incomes and would have to really reprioritize if I quit my job. But other people do it on less.

OP asked how SAHMs make it work. She didn’t ask rich working moms why they aren’t staying home, but as usual you all chimed in anyway.

Answer is quite simple. You have to live a lifestyle that can be supported by the one workers salary. If you cannot do that, you should not stay at home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why the bickering about Fed pay? Its not like the $800k posters think they could live on ANY of the Fed amounts.

Signed,

DH makes $400k and I SAH but we could easily live on $200k in exchange for 40 hours a week and Fed benefits.

There was a poster at 11:43 (page 5) claiming crazy things about "mommy track" non profit and fed salaries being significantly higher than they actually are. The rest of us aren't bickering. We're pointing out the poster is wrong.

Honestly, I wonder if people claiming these high fed salaries are just trolls trying to antagonize everyone.

I wasn’t that poster but I know lots of dual feds. I don’t know what they make but I just assumed 300-400k combined. I didn’t really ever try to calculate until now. I’m guessing that pp was just estimating and she was off by 100-200k. I understand that is a large margin of error.

We live below our means and people probably think we earn less but we actually have a seven figure income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Basically your spouse has to earn enough that your income doesn’t matter, so that’s a personal question.

Our HHI is about 500k and my husband makes around 340k of that. Between our savings goals and our expenses, we utilize both of our incomes and would have to really reprioritize if I quit my job. But other people do it on less.

OP asked how SAHMs make it work. She didn’t ask rich working moms why they aren’t staying home, but as usual you all chimed in anyway.

Answer is quite simple. You have to live a lifestyle that can be supported by the one workers salary. If you cannot do that, you should not stay at home.

DP here. I posted pp that I would need Dh earn 500 to stay home. College is expensive these days. If you want to live in a good school district, housing will be expensive. I think pp 500k HHI is right on for comfortable lifestyle plus retirement and savings.

I know a few SAHMs whose husbands don’t earn that much and I’m surprised how much they don’t worry about college or retirement.

[Anonymous]

These posts are insane. We are a dual income household comfortably living on $200k total. We could probably live on 1 income without daycare expenses. It’s all about your lifestyle and trade offs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These posts are insane. We are a dual income household comfortably living on $200k total. We could probably live on 1 income without daycare expenses. It’s all about your lifestyle and trade offs.

Exactly this. We do live on single income (175k) and it works, but most of the people posting here would not make the same choices we do re: neighborhood, cars, house size, etc. That said, we are really happy and have everything we need and most, if not everything, that we want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These posts are insane. We are a dual income household comfortably living on $200k total. We could probably live on 1 income without daycare expenses. It’s all about your lifestyle and trade offs.

I'm guessing you will not have fully funded college plus grad school for each kid ($70k * 7 years= $500k per kid at least), and if any of your kids have extra educational needs, you won't be able to switch to private school or hire tutors. Also presumably no sleep away camps.

Fine that you don't want those things, but if I'm the working husband, I'd be pretty pissed if my wife insisted on staying home and we couldn't afford those things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH makes 800k now and I still work. I’ve told myself that once he makes 1mm, I’m out of here. We have a lot of expenses (private school, travel, mortgage).

FWIW I quit when DH was around there and I was surprised by how many expenses (especially convenience taxes) evaporated when I was home to mind the budget. It didn't burn nearly as much as you'd think... and I was making $300k so nothing to sneeze at.

Well $150k went to taxes right off the top.

Same--when I worked, 50% went directly to taxes.

Sad country where we penalized the success

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These posts are insane. We are a dual income household comfortably living on $200k total. We could probably live on 1 income without daycare expenses. It’s all about your lifestyle and trade offs.

I'm guessing you will not have fully funded college plus grad school for each kid ($70k * 7 years= $500k per kid at least), and if any of your kids have extra educational needs, you won't be able to switch to private school or hire tutors. Also presumably no sleep away camps.

Fine that you don't want those things, but if I'm the working husband, I'd be pretty pissed if my wife insisted on staying home and we couldn't afford those things.

This whole thread is hilarious. I can’t tell if this is a troll response? I consider myself to have had a pretty privileged upbringing but no way did my parents pay for both regular undergrad AND grad school (?) or send us to private school. And the only sleep away camp I ever attended was a low budget one in Michigan. This was completely in keeping with my peers in my town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For us it came down to this formula:

my income-daycare=not enough to make a major difference in our lifestyle

Agree but it would be my after tax income. If my daycare plus working costs are$50,000 I assume my gross income needs to be at least $75,000 to breakeven.

DH made enough that everything I made was being taxed at the top bracket.
Then I went to 80% so that I had time to get things done while the kids were in daycare.
Then I did the math and realized that after taxes and childcare I was adding about 10% to our HHI and causing myself a lot of stress.

I am a doctor, so I was able to pick up some weekend work to make up the difference in income and keep myself employable during the years that I stayed at home. I know that not everyone has that option.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH makes 800k now and I still work. I’ve told myself that once he makes 1mm, I’m out of here. We have a lot of expenses (private school, travel, mortgage).

FWIW I quit when DH was around there and I was surprised by how many expenses (especially convenience taxes) evaporated when I was home to mind the budget. It didn't burn nearly as much as you'd think... and I was making $300k so nothing to sneeze at.

Well $150k went to taxes right off the top.

Same--when I worked, 50% went directly to taxes.

Sad country where we penalized the success

The tax laws penalize working mothers.