If your a sahm/dad how much income?

[Kaybaby]

I am a single parent and on Parenting Payment, and I work part time. I have 3 kids full time.
My income is about $750/wk + $250 child support. I also get FTB as a lump sum - around 12k/yr.
I have a sml mortgage in Perth - 500/mth (bought 1st house at age 21, now 38 - paid it down hard pre - kids (1st bub at 26yo) and working FT).
I have 1 x investment property - doesn't quite pay for itself.
I own my car - saved hard to buy outright.
I have PHI, house/contents and car insurance.
If you are intelligent with your money from a young age you can set yourself up. Being on such a low income really bugs me at times, but I feel I manage it quite well. We holiday a few time a yr (including to Bali once yr).
We eat healthy and simple.
It's my priority to be at home rather than work FT - My kids play a lot of sport..If I worked FT they wouldn't be able to attend.

[TeBe]

I am a sahm. My husband earns $150k gross per year. After tax we receive about $2k each week. His work pays for his vehicle, and associated expenses such as petrol, rego etc. and we own another car outright. We do not receive anything from Centrelink and I did not receive baby bonus or government paid parental leave.

Our mortgage payments are around $500 per week so that leaves us $1500 per week for other bills and food etc. We have savings and we do not have a credit card.

[DT75]

I hear you on the CS. DF pays about $650 a week, plus schools fees.

(FYI - I'm all for parents paying CS, if DF didn't pay what he is meant to he wouldn't be my DF )

Oh I am all for it too- my bio dad paid nothing towards my upbringing.
But it should be 50% each on essentials- school, medical, agreed upon activities, etc.
CS is for support- clothing, pocket money, etc.

We pay around $1200 a week all up.
Although with the birth of Bella, it will go down.

[Homeschooling4]

I'm a sahm. My partner works 3 days a week (5 hours each day). He's on workcover. Before that he was working 70 hours a week.

Our combined income (which included family tax benifit, child support and his wage) per month is $5800 per month ( so roughly $60,000 a year between us).

[delirium]

We earn about 65k a year and live quite well. We don't own but that's more about not being able to get together a deposit so much as not being able to pay a mortgage (we live regionally so smaller mortgages).

There's no real secret other than live within your means. We're just not really interested in 'stuff'. I buy second hand for lots of things, not bc we are broke but bc I'm smart everyone comments how nice the inside of our house is. So it's not like I buy scummy stuff. We just don't do credit. We pay cash or we don't buy.

I think people get into this debt cycle - I want that TV worth 2 grand but I don't have the cash. Oh well I'll stick it on the credit card and pay it off fast! But then you are saddled with monthly repayments for everything that eat into your disposable income. People have the car, the huge mortgage in the expensive suburb but they are 'broke'. We do it backwards. We have the 2k in the bank when we see the tv bc we don't have all these debts to repay, that money then goes into savings. We buy the tv with cash, so no debt still and by the next pay we are banking into savings again.

[Blessedwith3boys]

Basically we earn after tax $4,800 per fortnight between us, no centrelink payments. That's not including dh's oncall every 3rd week. We pay all expenses fortnightly such 1 mortgage, life insurances, pay extra into our supers, insurance for 3 vehicles, house insurance, money to the kids bank accounts, some onto the credit card and into savings account, PHI then general household bills such as phones, water, shire rates, food. We only pay 20% of electricity as work subsidizes it. We don't overspend, we live comfortable enough. Oh and we have daycare fees for 1 child deducted fortnightly.

[Full House]

The assumptions in this thread are rather amusing.
I was a sahm for years...and DH earns a good wage, but we did struggle because we do live in the 'expensive suburb.' It had nothing to do with being greedy or not being willing to make sacrifices or anything like that.
My dh's job requires him to work close to the city...so we had a choice...to live in the expensive suburb close to dh's work (so he didn't have 14-15hr days with travel time), be surrounded by great public schools within walking distance, and everything that we love (city life).
Or, we could live an hour away in a more rural area that is saturated with low ses families, send our children to the overfull public schools, or pay through the roof for the private school (or send our kids to a catholic school when we're atheists....no thanks), DH could spend 2-3hrs travelling each day and we'd have to drive everywhere because there's nothing close and the public transport system is awful.
We are now a family of two working parents...because we absolutely love the lifestyle we have in our 'expensive suburb,' and have absolutely no desire to move. We'd be absolutely miserable.
Oh, and if we sold our house to move out we'd be able to buy a house right, and we could both work meaningless part time jobs and live 'the simple life.' But we'd be absolutely miserable.

[lauzie]

This thread is so interesting and has made me have a think as we are about to go down to a single income in 4 weeks as our little on is due in June.

Hubby and I are on very good salaries and live a lifestyle of if there is something we need or want we generally don't go without. In saying this, we save very hard and don't throw our money away. However there are things that will definitely change once I am not working, As an example us at the moment having take out 2 times a week is something we can afford and are happy to do. New circumstances will mean re adjusting and more meal planning and prepping.

Our mortgage is not overly large, repayments around $1700 however we currently pay extra at $2200. All up our annual expenses excl mortgages is around $17,000 not including groceries or spending money. So 1 wage we should be able to make ends meet and still have some savings each month.

Being the saver I am, we started saving this time last year to be able to go to 1 income comfortably, able to enjoy our holidays we have annually and hopefully not have money stresses during my time off work.

I think the main thing I have taken from all the advise / examples is you live within your means and readjust. Where you may have been able to spend money somewhere with 2 incomes which doesn't make financial sense with 1 so you adapt and or compromise on other things.

Thank you so much for all the great tips too 😊

[Renn]

@gingermillie
Edited: my bad, I was quoting DP on some of the numbers. Rego is actually more like $800. Thanks for the correction.

As for gas, insurance etc., location certainly is a major factor but it also helps to bargain hard. We've reduced our bills a LOT purely by switching or threatening to switch providers.

[Renn]

The assumptions in this thread are rather amusing.
I was a sahm for years...and DH earns a good wage, but we did struggle because we do live in the 'expensive suburb.' It had nothing to do with being greedy or not being willing to make sacrifices or anything like that.
My dh's job requires him to work close to the city...so we had a choice...to live in the expensive suburb close to dh's work (so he didn't have 14-15hr days with travel time), be surrounded by great public schools within walking distance, and everything that we love (city life).
Or, we could live an hour away in a more rural area that is saturated with low ses families, send our children to the overfull public schools, or pay through the roof for the private school (or send our kids to a catholic school when we're atheists....no thanks), DH could spend 2-3hrs travelling each day and we'd have to drive everywhere because there's nothing close and the public transport system is awful.
We are now a family of two working parents...because we absolutely love the lifestyle we have in our 'expensive suburb,' and have absolutely no desire to move. We'd be absolutely miserable.
Oh, and if we sold our house to move out we'd be able to buy a house right, and we could both work meaningless part time jobs and live 'the simple life.' But we'd be absolutely miserable.

Oh absolutely... if it's as simplistic as saying "you must be so greedy and frivolous to spend that much money" then there are a whole lot of unnecessary assumptions in that. In saying that though, it's still a matter of priorities and living within your means.

You've chosen a more expensive lifestyle that you love, which is great. I think most people could get by fine on a hell of a lot less money if they really had to. It might mean moving to a location they don't love; having no choice in school; taking a less fulfilling job etc., but they could do it if they had no choice.

It's fantastic that so many of us HAVE these options, and the ability to decide how we want to live our own lives. What gets me is when people - of whatever income - fail to acknowledge how incredibly privileged we as Australians are and all of the luxuries we have (whether that be the ability to earn enough to live in the suburb we want, to buy coffee when out or to spend $240 a year on takeaway).