What is your income to allow one parent to stay at home?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even when DH was earning 200k, I didn't think we could make it. When you stay home, you tend to spend money. I would hate to be home all the time with no money to spend on activities and vacations.

This has not been our experience.

I know SAHMs who don't send their kids to preschool, never eat out, can't afford gym memberships, can't join the pool, etc. I would not want to live that way. As kids get older, their activities also start adding up. I'm a SAHM and we still spend $5k+ on just summer camp.

Why are you spending that kind of money on summer camp if you're SAhm? The whole point of sahm is not outsourcing all day childcare.

I have 3 kids. They also do swim team in the summer and we probably spend 20k on summer vacations. I love being home so we can truly enjoy school breaks.

[Anonymous]

The amount of income a family needs for one parent to stay home varies with the family and their priorities. There is no set answer, every family just has to decide on where their own balance point is between spending money and spending time.

[Anonymous]

We live pretty decently but frugally on a $150K income with a SAHM and 3 children. I started building up my retirement savings when I was single and before we had children (no student loans thanks to mom and dad) and I worked part-time until 3rd child was born. We also did well buying our home in Fairfax in 2001 which built up our equity quite a bit.

-Our mortgage is $2850.
-Due to relatively smaller salary, we pay little in federal taxes (effective rate about 6%) due to lots of deductions and exemptions.
-My husband gets pretty good benefits at work.
-Our vacations are mainly driving, but we've had a few bigger ones every few years.
-My kids aren't athletic so only rec. soccer (yay!), scouts, piano, etc. No super expensive camps. Belong to the local pool.
-I cook a lot at home and dress simply. Popular brand clothing for the kids (Uggs, Toms) are usually birthday presents/special purchases.
-I have time to shop around for deals on hotels, Disney, etc.
-Kids' smartphones (hand-me-downs) do not have data plans. Phone/text only with pay-as-you-go and data when there's wifi.

The negatives are:
-My retirement savings obviously slowed down signifcantly when I stopped working (still decent because I started early).
-We're dependent on my husband's job (which my young feminist self swore I'd never do!), and it's harder for me to get back into the work force now that my kids are older, and I'm not particularly motivated to since I'm used to only answering to myself all day.
-College savings is good but would have been better with me having a job.

[Anonymous]

It depends on what kind of lifestyle you consider acceptable for your family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. Just to cover a basic mortgage and preschool and after care and daily expenses of life I've found you need 200k in Bethesda. I'd want at least 250-300k to have a spouce stay home to make sure we had a safety net.

Yes but since I SAHM we don't have the cost of aftercare. Our mortgage is basic and does not eat our income. "Daily expenses" is where the rubber hits the road. We do fine on $150, even take vacations! Save for college!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even when DH was earning 200k, I didn't think we could make it. When you stay home, you tend to spend money. I would hate to be home all the time with no money to spend on activities and vacations.

This has not been our experience.

I know SAHMs who don't send their kids to preschool, never eat out, can't afford gym memberships, can't join the pool, etc. I would not want to live that way. As kids get older, their activities also start adding up. I'm a SAHM and we still spend $5k+ on just summer camp.

Why are you spending that kind of money on summer camp if you're SAhm? The whole point of sahm is not outsourcing all day childcare.

Camps are fun and most are not all day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of these responses are not helpful.

I will say I'm impressed with those earning <150k and make it work. We live in the suburbs and our housing costs are around $2400. We are expecting our second next year and just feel like we can't make it on DH's salary (~125k).

We are making it work for less than $150k in Bethesda. The real reason is we have no CC or student loan debt and the house was purchased pre-boom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI was around 110K when I started to stay home. I worked part-time some years (making around 15K), but much of the time I'm taking care of one of our ailing parents in addition to kids. HHI is now closer to 135K. We have set aside for college and retirement. Vacations were always going to be visiting family anyway.

Live in DC, mortgage (all in) is 2K on a row home (purchased in 2008). We aren't big spenders on clothing or cars (1 car family as we're downtown). Preschool is a co-op. We do some classes, but the schedule isn't packed. We spend a ton of time walking the city, utilizing parks and the abundant free entertainment that DC offefs. We've never felt it was too tight, but know we live more modestly than many of our peers.

Are you planning to win the chart a lottery, or are your inbound D CPS schools good all the way through high school

[Anonymous]

I currently work PT, but we did this on $150k for a while. The biggest factors were a low mortgage and no student loans. We are in a TH in Alexandria bought with equity from another sale. For us, the biggest thing was getting that mortgage under control. Its less than $2k, which is doable for us.

[Anonymous]

165k Bay Area
Between rent and student loan debt we are scraping by. One car. Rarely travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It depends on what kind of lifestyle you consider acceptable for your family.

+100

And what you think you'll do when kids are in school 6.5 hours a day beginning at age 5.

DH makes $400-500k. I had a full-time flexible WAH job with great health benefits $165k so I still work. 7-3:30--basically when kids are in school. The 2 years before they started full-day preschool I did 4 day weeks with nanny at the house with me.

Look to future, not just immediate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on what kind of lifestyle you consider acceptable for your family.

+100

And what you think you'll do when kids are in school 6.5 hours a day beginning at age 5.

DH makes $400-500k. I had a full-time flexible WAH job with great health benefits $165k so I still work. 7-3:30--basically when kids are in school. The 2 years before they started full-day preschool I did 4 day weeks with nanny at the house with me.

Look to future, not just immediate.

OK. Tell me how to get your job. Because my field was 9-6 WOHM and salaries topped at about $60k. If I could make what you make working 7-3:30, either in or out, I would do it in a heartbeat!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends on what kind of lifestyle you consider acceptable for your family.

+100

And what you think you'll do when kids are in school 6.5 hours a day beginning at age 5.

DH makes $400-500k. I had a full-time flexible WAH job with great health benefits $165k so I still work. 7-3:30--basically when kids are in school. The 2 years before they started full-day preschool I did 4 day weeks with nanny at the house with me.

Look to future, not just immediate.

OK. Tell me how to get your job. Because my field was 9-6 WOHM and salaries topped at about $60k. If I could make what you make working 7-3:30, either in or out, I would do it in a heartbeat!

Science degree + fed govt job.

[Anonymous]

$140K income. I have a part time job ($20K) which allows me to save separately for a retirement. Very healthy retirement savings and decent college savings even on that. Two inexpensive cars. Inside the beltway, MD

What we've cut - never moved up from the small starter house with one bathroom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even when DH was earning 200k, I didn't think we could make it. When you stay home, you tend to spend money. I would hate to be home all the time with no money to spend on activities and vacations.

This has not been our experience.

I know SAHMs who don't send their kids to preschool, never eat out, can't afford gym memberships, can't join the pool, etc. I would not want to live that way. As kids get older, their activities also start adding up. I'm a SAHM and we still spend $5k+ on just summer camp.

Why are you spending that kind of money on summer camp if you're SAhm? The whole point of sahm is not outsourcing all day childcare.

Not a SAHM, but we have an AuPair and camps are not meant to warehouse our kids. Many of the camps we do are only 5-6 hours and don't cover our work day, hence the AuPair. My kids go to the Computer programming camp that Georgetown puts on, the Naval Academy lacrosse camp, camp friendship for a week, and archery camp. None of the adults in our home can give our kids the rich experiences that these camps offer, regardless if myself or DH SAH. These camps run us 8k each summer.