I was very fortunate to grow up “upper class” because my father was a physician. My mom was a “stay at home mom” and took and picked up myself and 3 siblings to school, sports, meetings, packed lunches, kept the house in order, handled bills etc.
My dad was definitely present, but also worked hard being on call a lot, working holidays etc. my mom kept the house together for sure. She’s awesome.
When I one day have kids, I’d love this same dynamic for them. Obviously, if wife was willing. If she wants to have a career, that’s not something that would turn me off.
I guess my question is- nowadays, how much do you make that allows you this life style and family dynamic? Does it worry you? Uncertainty? What field do you work in where you have the sense of job security where you don’t worry that only one of you are employed.
I make good money (128k~, but HCOL) at 26, and am 100% sure I could not support a family alone. Where do I need to get to? When did you feel you were in a good spot?
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I make $160k in a not very high cost of living area and it’s not enough.
I’d also just point out something you said – that your dad missed out on significant events in your childhood to work. That’s a sacrifice he made. I respect him for it, but I’m trying to minimize that type of sacrificing myself. I want to be as present in my kids’ life as my wife is, and we’ve got a good balance so far. That’s something that’s up to you, though.
You need to make what you make plus what your partner would make if she worked. When we started out I made 40k a year and my wife made 35. This was in the early to mid 90s. I’m an economist specializing in land and real estate. I picked up an account in 1996 when my 2nd child was 1. That account had a minimum value of 40k a year so my wife and I decided on the SAHM approach. It freed me to take on several accounts and that first year I quadrupled my income and never looked back. But the impetus was my job was going to generate more than hers and mine combined.
I make 115k in a city right outside Miami. Maybe medium-high COL. Was making 90k when she got pregnant and my bump to 115k covered her lost salary. It’s been tight a few times, but the bills get paid and we aren’t getting any younger. I expect a continual upward trend in my salary over the next 20-30 years so I’m not worried about the long-term.
I work in healthcare clinical engineering.
It all depends on what kind of lifestyle you’re willing to have in order to have her at home. We did it when I was making 40k all the way up to approaching 100k while in a low cost of living area. On the low end, we definitely weren’t poor, but we didn’t have a lot of extra after savings for vacations and extras. On the high end, there were no problems.
We talked about it beforehand and just decided we’d drive older cars that I’d work on myself. We’d live in a safe area, but not our preferred neighborhood with the best schools (especially since the kids weren’t even in school yet). And we would sacrifice a bit on lifestyle for a few years while my income was going up.
Looking back, we’d do it again without a second thought.
I was living this way making $12 an hour throwing boxes. Kids really *aren’t* inherently all that expensive, despite what people say. The issue is they’re higher priority, so all of your disposable income gets dumped into them. If you have less disposable income, you’re just spending less on them. The first year or so can be kinda rough, particularly if Mom can’t or won’t breastfeed as was the case for mine, but again: they really don’t *require* that much in the way of finances.
I would *recommend* at least 50k, tho. That was the point in my life where I finally felt like I could take a deep breath and relax, at least when it came to money.
$90k, looks like I live in an area that’s right around the national cost of living. Money is a little tight, but we basically have a $1,000 monthly budget after bills. Sometimes we overspend, but we try to make everything even out over a quarter.
I work from home, keep house, and cook. My wife watches the kids, and here recently she’s been trying to start a photography business. She doesn’t really handle the stress from watching the kids and having even a part time job, so I was pretty insistent that she either be a SAHM or we put the kids in daycare. She decided that she’d rather spend time with the kids rather than just work to pay for daycare.
I’m not worried about our finances or my job security at all. I work in software development. We have enough in savings to float us for a few months if i needed to suddenly find another job. I’d definitely try to find another job in software if I could, but worst case scenario I’d just get 2 lower-paying jobs nearby to try to get back up to what I make now.
128k is a lot to not be able to support other people. How much are you spending on rent (our mortgage is about 50% of my gross)? Could you move to a more remote area where prices are cheaper? Are you spending a lot on luxuries? Are you eating out a lot, or do you cook your own food?
I made $42k when we started (after insurance and everything, so probably like $45-46k gross. I’m just looking at an old W2 so it’s approximate. It can be stressful at times feeling like everything is on me, and that if I screw up everything crumbles. However, I wouldn’t trade the life I have :). I was poor my entire life, so I’ve learned to budget for everything. If we need extra money then I get it. At this point I make around $60k. Inflation these past few years has sucked, because it has hit normally low cost of living areas pretty hard on food and electric prices. We live a pretty comfortable life though as anyone could tell by the amount of gaming consoles we have laying around our house lol.
As far as keeping house and doing the bills goes that’s a 2 person job. Kids are a full time job themselves, so you can’t expect your wife to do all of the cooking/cleaning. Her job is to raise healthy, happy children. Handling the bills is really up to the 2 of you to decide. I do all the bills and budgeting for us. My wife is happy with the arrangement. I just let her know if we’re ever low on money for the month. Not that she couldn’t go look at all of our bills, accounts, etc… she just doesn’t really care.
You just need to make enough to pay for everything without stressing about money. You have to make a budget and figure out what that number is.
Also in case anyone is wondering about the income at the top it should be noted that I am pretty good at making extra money when I want to, so if for some reason we need extra money I take care of it.
it’s not really a dollar amount. My wife has always been SAH. married 12 years. The first 7-8 years I made between $27K-$35K. I make quite a bit more now, but my point is that we made it work. It’s all up to what you want your life to look like and making the necessary sacrifices to achieve it. Also, BUDGETING IS PARAMOUNT. I’m sure your parents stuck to one. In fact, I don’t know any family with a SAHP that doesn’t have a great budget plan. When we were broke, we didn’t start getting ahead until we budgeted.
you may need to move to a lower COL area, or keep working until you reach a dollar amount you’re happy with after **budgeting** things out.
To answer the rest, I work in utility services and flip houses on the side.
Female here with the perspective of being the child of parents with this dynamic.
We lived in a LCOL state, and my dad made at least $160k annually from his job. My parents also invested in land that they would rent out to farmers, so there was a tiny income stream there as well. My mom stayed at home fully, managing the house, bills, shopping, and driving me and my sister wherever we needed to go. My dad was occupied with work a lot, but spent the time he could with us on the weekends riding bikes with us, throwing a ball around, or taking us to the tennis courts.
Vacations and family activities outside of these were minimal, and we shopped pretty frugally. I remember once around 20 years old complaining to my mom about our lack of vacations growing up, and she very clearly made the point that it was either vacations or college; we didn’t have the money for both. Our clothes were nice but almost always bought on clearance.
Because of this, my parents were able to purchase new cars in cash (including mine and my sister’s), cover our entire undergrad tuitions, and support us financially through college (rent, groceries, gas, etc). It allowed me and my sister to really get an upper hand, because we began working ourselves starting at 16. My parents let this money be just for “us” but educated us on the importance of saving. Receiving CDs from them for Christmas and birthdays was a normal occurrence. To this day (I’m 26, my sister 28), my parents will still gift us money under the condition that it must be invested into our IRAs.
The only downside to all of this is that my parents were very emotionally neglectful, and they prioritized giving us a life of financial stability over giving us one where we felt emotionally loved, respected, understood, and safe. They were angry with us and each other a lot, probably due to my dad being stressed from work. And they definitely used their money as power over us, threatening to stop paying for *everything* when they were angry with us. So I urge you to keep in mind that there is definitely a balance. I have a fine but extremely superficial relationship with my parents now. But overall, I am very, very blessed from the dynamic they chose.
I guess it depends on where you live and how the housing market is..
My wife and I got lucky and bought our house prior to 2020 so our mortgage is only $1,200 a month in the Central Florida area.
I make 52k a year and can afford the household bills by myself as long as we do not splurge too much.
I guess to have kids on top of this, and to live without worrying too much about money I’d say around 80k a year in a circumstance like mine.
If you’re looking to live in a big city like NY, San Fran.. california in general actually. You might want to be making in the 200k range or more – just my guestimate.
I’m not a man, but my father made 6 figures in a government job. I know we were never super well off but I loved comfortably.
I remember a point where my mom was considering going back to work when I was in elementary school but did the math and realized that the cost of after school care for me and my brother would be basically even with my moms hourly pay. So it wasn’t worth it. When I got to an age where I could be at home by myself for a few hours after school then she went and got a job. But she got a job IN schools so her hours were basically the same as mine.
I am in the military where it is very common to have stay at home moms. You can easily do it even with the pay you make now. Yes my family have benefits and housing taken care of. But, we make ~34k a year work, and while we don’t have lots of savings besides 401k atm (finally learning to manage money so this is getting better). my beautiful family would never know we are even remotely low income.
Stay at home mom of adult children here…I worked full time 10 years before having our first in our early 30s. I was all about saving up and being financially secure and was able to resign after having first. You could talk to a financial planner when the time comes to see what would work for you if that is what you want to do.
Honestly most people I knew with this setup were doing worse than you. Half or less.
If the wife’s earning potential is in the same ballpark or lower than the cost of daycare for multiple kids, theres a lot of household labor thay would cost to replace, etc… then it really doesn’t make a lot of sense for her to work. Family gets more cash by not.
If you’re an educated high earned then, statistically, you likely also marry someone educated with a high earning potential. The opportunity cost of her career is MUCH higher.
My brother is an electrical engineer and, at 58, is at the absolute top of his profession nowadays. People know him worldwide and the money he make reflects that. It wasn’t always that way, though. He started out after getting a masters in power systems at the bottom of the EE pile like everyone else. He and his wife have 3 boys. They have paid for the first 2 to go to college and will the third. They go on vacations multiple times a year, though now more than when he was young. His wife is phenomenal with money, taking care of the kids and house, etc. They really do make an awesome team.
Not sharing my compensation data (that’s pretty private info tbh) but I will be able to easily provide this lifestyle to my future wife and kids.
It’s really all an issue of how you manage your money and how expensive you want to make your kids. Military families do it this way all the time, so I don’t know what the big deal is. You don’t have to buy a 500K home or live in an expensive area or drive new cars or take Disney vacations.
What did your physician dad bring in per year?