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

[Anonymous]

800k plus

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

This was it for me. Plus I had a job that I knew I could go back to.

Same for us. When ours were very young DH’s company had a lot going on and he worked long hours and had to travel. I would have had to be the primary parent for everything and my job wasn’t flexible. It made more sense to step out for a bit.

Agree with the others commenting about those in the 800+ income range being able to take a break if they wanted. It’s totally fine to keep working if you love your job and lifestyle. But you truly could stay home if you wanted. That’s a different situation than OP is asking about.

I can't even understand these posts (if it's not a troll). We make 300K as a dual income couple and we just reached that in our mid-40's (public servants). It's incomprehensible that people think 800k isn't going to be enough.

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don’t want to SAH on $800k HHI, you don’t want to SAH. Period. It’s ok, but own it.

I’m PP. not true at all for me. I really want to SAH but 800k really doesn’t cut it in a HCOL city.

Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP many of us have been there, so know you are not alone.

First, that first year is brutal. The US is cruel that we don’t have longer maternity leave. But many of us would advise you not to make rash decisions. Unless you’re a nurse or teacher, it can be very difficult to re enter the same career, even after a couple years. It may be better to do a half ass job for a couple years and ride on the goodwill you generated pre kids, with the plan to change jobs for a fresh start once you’re more settled. Or to ask about PT or remote options. The pay may be barely break even for those more flexible jobs, but the upside is that when you’re ready to ramp up, you’re starting from a very different place than had you left the industry.

For me, I wouldn’t quit unless DH was making at least $700k. He makes that already (so do i) but we both keep working. Ours was never a goal of “what money do we need to pay the bills” but “what money do we need to ensure both of us have freedom to do the jobs we want and retire when we want”. I would never have been okay letting dh be in a job that adding only marginal savings to our retirement every year, knowing he’d have to do it for 45 years - if the alternative was I could materially contribute to retirement and we could both be retired by 50 or 55. Reality is that most women who decide to stay home do it both because they want to be with the kids but also because they don’t love working. Now imagine imposing that working on your spouse for the rest of their healthy lives. Just not cool with me.

Finally, I wouldn’t assume costs go down when you stay home. For typical UMC moms, they spend as much or more than the “work tax”. I worked very part time for two years after DS was born and hung out with the stay at home mom crew, and most days involved a mommy and me class and coffee, and there was a lot of time killing shopping (in person or online) because they had more time to worry about if baby had the right pair of arch supporting shoes, or tracking the fact that Janie and jack was having a sale, or just killing time at Target.

$700K is not UMC.. that is upper class. You are exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP many of us have been there, so know you are not alone.

First, that first year is brutal. The US is cruel that we don’t have longer maternity leave. But many of us would advise you not to make rash decisions. Unless you’re a nurse or teacher, it can be very difficult to re enter the same career, even after a couple years. It may be better to do a half ass job for a couple years and ride on the goodwill you generated pre kids, with the plan to change jobs for a fresh start once you’re more settled. Or to ask about PT or remote options. The pay may be barely break even for those more flexible jobs, but the upside is that when you’re ready to ramp up, you’re starting from a very different place than had you left the industry.

For me, I wouldn’t quit unless DH was making at least $700k. He makes that already (so do i) but we both keep working. Ours was never a goal of “what money do we need to pay the bills” but “what money do we need to ensure both of us have freedom to do the jobs we want and retire when we want”. I would never have been okay letting dh be in a job that adding only marginal savings to our retirement every year, knowing he’d have to do it for 45 years - if the alternative was I could materially contribute to retirement and we could both be retired by 50 or 55. Reality is that most women who decide to stay home do it both because they want to be with the kids but also because they don’t love working. Now imagine imposing that working on your spouse for the rest of their healthy lives. Just not cool with me.

Finally, I wouldn’t assume costs go down when you stay home. For typical UMC moms, they spend as much or more than the “work tax”. I worked very part time for two years after DS was born and hung out with the stay at home mom crew, and most days involved a mommy and me class and coffee, and there was a lot of time killing shopping (in person or online) because they had more time to worry about if baby had the right pair of arch supporting shoes, or tracking the fact that Janie and jack was having a sale, or just killing time at Target.

I think you mean we don't have any maternity leave

We do have maternity leave. It's called saving your leave like some of us did. I worked for many year at the same job, and rarely took a vacation or sick day knowing I wanted maternity leave. Then I used it all (and then realized how much I hated the job and quit).

[Anonymous]

This has got to be a thread of trolls. Anyone who feels uncomfortable on $800k is an idiot. That's more than most make in a decade.

OP, record every dollar you spend for a couple of months, and then I would want and extra 20% on top of that for savings and emergencies. That might be $100k, it might be $500k. It depends on your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For us it was $115K but its all about lifestyle choices.

You have to think long term. Can you still pay the mortgage, save for retirement and college, will you have $ to take vacations, new cars as needed, and have a 3-6 month emergency fund? Because an emergency fund is much more important when you are Single income with a family.

For us, we always planned as if I'd stay home (despite the fact I was making 6 figures 20 years ago before age 30). That meant purchasing a home we could afford on one salary, living a lifestyle that could be supported comfortably with one income.
Even though we knew spouse would likely begin to see a nice increase in salary over the years, we lived as if we were not going to get that. Then when they saw salary double we just saved that extra and never looked back.

But first, you need to be happy with being out of the workforce. Each year you stay out it is harder to get back in, for most jobs. So plan, if you think you want to work when they are 10-12 yo, then maybe part time or some side consulting (or side work in whatever your career is) to keep in the market is a good idea.

[Anonymous]

We do it with 3 kids and 150K

The key is we refinanced when rates were low and our mortgage is 1,900. We could not afford to buy our house today.

2 kids in daycare would cost more than my salary. Yes, I know daycare is temporary blah blah. Still, taking in all the stress and knowing that we weren’t even breaking even on all the work I was doing was enough to quit.

We also have one child with special needs and the constant doctors appointments are brutal. Even as a SAHM it is draining. Plus it’s not something that you can truly divide and conquer—it’s important to coordinate with the doctors and make sure you’re getting all the information, so you need a point person. Even if I was working we would have redistributed other chores so one parent could be the point person for doctors/therapists/etc. and realistically that person was always going to be me. Just one small example, I can keep DS calm during an MRI, my husband absolutely cannot and he has a hard time coordinating with medical staff. This is not something you can say “have him take half of the doctor’s visits.” It’s not like soccer practice where you just drive and zone out and come home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP many of us have been there, so know you are not alone.

First, that first year is brutal. The US is cruel that we don’t have longer maternity leave. But many of us would advise you not to make rash decisions. Unless you’re a nurse or teacher, it can be very difficult to re enter the same career, even after a couple years. It may be better to do a half ass job for a couple years and ride on the goodwill you generated pre kids, with the plan to change jobs for a fresh start once you’re more settled. Or to ask about PT or remote options. The pay may be barely break even for those more flexible jobs, but the upside is that when you’re ready to ramp up, you’re starting from a very different place than had you left the industry.

For me, I wouldn’t quit unless DH was making at least $700k. He makes that already (so do i) but we both keep working. Ours was never a goal of “what money do we need to pay the bills” but “what money do we need to ensure both of us have freedom to do the jobs we want and retire when we want”. I would never have been okay letting dh be in a job that adding only marginal savings to our retirement every year, knowing he’d have to do it for 45 years - if the alternative was I could materially contribute to retirement and we could both be retired by 50 or 55. Reality is that most women who decide to stay home do it both because they want to be with the kids but also because they don’t love working. Now imagine imposing that working on your spouse for the rest of their healthy lives. Just not cool with me.

Finally, I wouldn’t assume costs go down when you stay home. For typical UMC moms, they spend as much or more than the “work tax”. I worked very part time for two years after DS was born and hung out with the stay at home mom crew, and most days involved a mommy and me class and coffee, and there was a lot of time killing shopping (in person or online) because they had more time to worry about if baby had the right pair of arch supporting shoes, or tracking the fact that Janie and jack was having a sale, or just killing time at Target.

$700K is not UMC.. that is upper class. You are exhausting.

Sure, 10 years ago. The economy has been bonkers for 5 years though, and especially in the upper 20%. If you're measuring yourself relative to your peers (which is what UMC and UC are), $700k in a hcol city like DC is the equivalent of what $400-500k was 5 years ago. Which for a couple people in their 40s was not upper class then either. That's solidly UMC. If you and your spouse are both feds, and you missed that gravy train - sucks for you. But don't act like a combined HHI of $700k in DC is rich compared to your peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

This was it for me. Plus I had a job that I knew I could go back to.

Same for us. When ours were very young DH’s company had a lot going on and he worked long hours and had to travel. I would have had to be the primary parent for everything and my job wasn’t flexible. It made more sense to step out for a bit.

Agree with the others commenting about those in the 800+ income range being able to take a break if they wanted. It’s totally fine to keep working if you love your job and lifestyle. But you truly could stay home if you wanted. That’s a different situation than OP is asking about.

Actually many of them could not stay at home if they wanted, because they have built a lifestyle around the High Double income. If your ability to pay mortgage and monthly "needs" you have established as well as retirement/college/emergency fund requires both incomes then you cannot stay home without major adjustments.
I agree---it's ridiculous to live like that IMO, but many do. If the mortgage is more than 50% of the top earners salary, the other cannot really stay home without selling the house and moving (not going to happen in todays environment)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

This was it for me. Plus I had a job that I knew I could go back to.

Same for us. When ours were very young DH’s company had a lot going on and he worked long hours and had to travel. I would have had to be the primary parent for everything and my job wasn’t flexible. It made more sense to step out for a bit.

Agree with the others commenting about those in the 800+ income range being able to take a break if they wanted. It’s totally fine to keep working if you love your job and lifestyle. But you truly could stay home if you wanted. That’s a different situation than OP is asking about.

I can't even understand these posts (if it's not a troll). We make 300K as a dual income couple and we just reached that in our mid-40's (public servants). It's incomprehensible that people think 800k isn't going to be enough.

Because they build a lifestyle that requires more than 800K and don't/can't easily scale downwards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP many of us have been there, so know you are not alone.

First, that first year is brutal. The US is cruel that we don’t have longer maternity leave. But many of us would advise you not to make rash decisions. Unless you’re a nurse or teacher, it can be very difficult to re enter the same career, even after a couple years. It may be better to do a half ass job for a couple years and ride on the goodwill you generated pre kids, with the plan to change jobs for a fresh start once you’re more settled. Or to ask about PT or remote options. The pay may be barely break even for those more flexible jobs, but the upside is that when you’re ready to ramp up, you’re starting from a very different place than had you left the industry.

For me, I wouldn’t quit unless DH was making at least $700k. He makes that already (so do i) but we both keep working. Ours was never a goal of “what money do we need to pay the bills” but “what money do we need to ensure both of us have freedom to do the jobs we want and retire when we want”. I would never have been okay letting dh be in a job that adding only marginal savings to our retirement every year, knowing he’d have to do it for 45 years - if the alternative was I could materially contribute to retirement and we could both be retired by 50 or 55. Reality is that most women who decide to stay home do it both because they want to be with the kids but also because they don’t love working. Now imagine imposing that working on your spouse for the rest of their healthy lives. Just not cool with me.

Finally, I wouldn’t assume costs go down when you stay home. For typical UMC moms, they spend as much or more than the “work tax”. I worked very part time for two years after DS was born and hung out with the stay at home mom crew, and most days involved a mommy and me class and coffee, and there was a lot of time killing shopping (in person or online) because they had more time to worry about if baby had the right pair of arch supporting shoes, or tracking the fact that Janie and jack was having a sale, or just killing time at Target.

I think you mean we don't have any maternity leave

We do have maternity leave. It's called saving your leave like some of us did. I worked for many year at the same job, and rarely took a vacation or sick day knowing I wanted maternity leave. Then I used it all (and then realized how much I hated the job and quit).

What you are describing is not maternity leave.

It’s how people cope with not having maternity leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People can lol at the comments about $800k not being enough (it probably would be for us), but here's the thing: If someone is making $800k, they probably work a lot and have a pretty high stress job. You go down to one income, and while you definitely have a nice life still, you don't have a "rich" life where you don't have to worry about costs. If you have two kids, $800k does not pay for 13 years of private school plus college and grad school and summer camps, plus a couple expensive vacations every year. So you have one person working the life of a high income person and making the money of a high income person, but with only one income you're not actually in the income bracket where money doesn't matter. And as someone who makes that kind of money myself (as does DH), i can tell you that the idea of putting this insane level of effort into my job for the next twenty years isn't doable. At some point (soon) both of us need to downshift. If you have another person making $250k (pretty normal in HCOL city if one spouse makes $800k; eg dual lawyers where one is a fed), now you have that extra money to pay for the schools and camps and all the extra stuff.

So yes of course $800k is more than enough to have a sahm. But it's not rolling in it money. And if i'm the spouse working hard enough to make $800k, i'd like to be rolling in it.

I come from a middle class family (and I mean actual middle class, not DCUM middle class) - and from the type of place where hitting 100K salary means you have MADE IT BIG.

Serious question:

What do all of you actually DO that warrants these 500k+ salaries? I honestly cannot wrap my brain around it. And if possible (if you feel like answering) please avoid using corporate jargon catchphrases that don’t actually impart any meaningful information to those of us outside the know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP many of us have been there, so know you are not alone.

First, that first year is brutal. The US is cruel that we don’t have longer maternity leave. But many of us would advise you not to make rash decisions. Unless you’re a nurse or teacher, it can be very difficult to re enter the same career, even after a couple years. It may be better to do a half ass job for a couple years and ride on the goodwill you generated pre kids, with the plan to change jobs for a fresh start once you’re more settled. Or to ask about PT or remote options. The pay may be barely break even for those more flexible jobs, but the upside is that when you’re ready to ramp up, you’re starting from a very different place than had you left the industry.

For me, I wouldn’t quit unless DH was making at least $700k. He makes that already (so do i) but we both keep working. Ours was never a goal of “what money do we need to pay the bills” but “what money do we need to ensure both of us have freedom to do the jobs we want and retire when we want”. I would never have been okay letting dh be in a job that adding only marginal savings to our retirement every year, knowing he’d have to do it for 45 years - if the alternative was I could materially contribute to retirement and we could both be retired by 50 or 55. Reality is that most women who decide to stay home do it both because they want to be with the kids but also because they don’t love working. Now imagine imposing that working on your spouse for the rest of their healthy lives. Just not cool with me.

Finally, I wouldn’t assume costs go down when you stay home. For typical UMC moms, they spend as much or more than the “work tax”. I worked very part time for two years after DS was born and hung out with the stay at home mom crew, and most days involved a mommy and me class and coffee, and there was a lot of time killing shopping (in person or online) because they had more time to worry about if baby had the right pair of arch supporting shoes, or tracking the fact that Janie and jack was having a sale, or just killing time at Target.

I think you mean we don't have any maternity leave

We do have maternity leave. It's called saving your leave like some of us did. I worked for many year at the same job, and rarely took a vacation or sick day knowing I wanted maternity leave. Then I used it all (and then realized how much I hated the job and quit).

But that’s not maternity leave. That’s saving your leave. Don’t you even understand your own post?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

This was it for me. Plus I had a job that I knew I could go back to.

Same for us. When ours were very young DH’s company had a lot going on and he worked long hours and had to travel. I would have had to be the primary parent for everything and my job wasn’t flexible. It made more sense to step out for a bit.

Agree with the others commenting about those in the 800+ income range being able to take a break if they wanted. It’s totally fine to keep working if you love your job and lifestyle. But you truly could stay home if you wanted. That’s a different situation than OP is asking about.

Actually many of them could not stay at home if they wanted, because they have built a lifestyle around the High Double income. If your ability to pay mortgage and monthly "needs" you have established as well as retirement/college/emergency fund requires both incomes then you cannot stay home without major adjustments.
I agree---it's ridiculous to live like that IMO, but many do. If the mortgage is more than 50% of the top earners salary, the other cannot really stay home without selling the house and moving (not going to happen in todays environment)

You contradict yourself. They could absolutely stay at home if they wanted, but they don’t want to. Certainly not as much as they want the expensive house.