Feasibility of one-income living.

In My Humble Opinion
1

The topic came up in this thread that housing used to be cheap, and isn’t anymore. The story used was that someone’s father had a house and car and raised a family of five on one income, and that this was impossible to do today.

Now, I will certainly admit that housing isn’t exactly cheap, and I live in one of the pricier parts of the country. But even with that, we have our house and two cars and I’m the only one making an income right now. My wife stays home with our five-year-old twins and three-year-old.

I think this could be an option for more people - but frankly, some people do not want to spend all day home with their kids, some people do not want to forgo things like HDTV or exotic vacations to make this work, and some people want way too much house, or way too expensive a house, to make this a viable choice.

We made lots of decisions along the way to make this work - everything from foregoing a new car at various times to buying our son’s “new” bike at Goodwill. And we eat a lot more cube steak than sirloin.

But it can work.

Now, I certainly understand that there are poorer families where this is not an option - I grew up in one of those families, so this point doesn’t need to be made to me. Still, when people tell me they cannot afford to become a one-income family, it is often clear to me that what they mean is they do not wish to make the lifestyle changes necessary to make it happen.

That’s fine, certainly - I’m all for choice. But they should be honest and say as much.

2

Well, my husband and daughter and I could not live on just his income, much as we’d like to. Why do you find this so hard to believe?

3

See above. For many people I do not find it hard to believe at all. But I’ve had couples who were both lawyers use this excuse when my wife and I were discussing our arrangement.

That’s just stupid. Just tell me you want to work. We don’t care - we just came up with arrangements in our lives to fit what we wanted to do - and we’re thankful we could do them.

4

We are going to venture into the realm of one income (+ social security) in the near future. The only reason we can do it is because the house is almost paid off. I don’t think it would have worked ten years ago. We’d be living on beanies and weenies.

5

I’ll post what I first posted in the other thread (and add a bit):

Your mom probably did a lot more planning and scrimping with the food budget (“tuna casserole AGAIN?”), you didn’t have computers, mp3 players, more than one TV (or any TV at all), multiple cars, get new furniture because you’re tired of the style and not because it’s actually broken, clothing was mended (and socks were darned) instead of thrown out, you didn’t have cable, cell phones, netflix, internet, etc. Many people dried clothes on a line instead of using a dryer. You didn’t have a dishwasher and most didn’t have air conditioning.

A lot of things that are commonplace nowadays (and many people would say “necessities” or at the least “basics”) would be considered luxuries back then. I’m 26 and growing up, I had a friend whose family had 8 kids and only their father worked. They had a small house (so we got kicked out of the house all day in summer :)), all clothing was passed down and mended, they had one old TV and an arial on the roof. Their mom made food from scratch because buying dried beans, flour etc. was a lot cheaper than frozen meals or eating out. They each got a present (maybe two) at Christmas instead of the mountain that’s practically expected nowadays.

More people today could live on one income than they think. They just don’t really want to.

6

Mr Moto, I don’t exactly disagree with you. But I can see a few things you should consider about your own situation that may not generalize.

In your family right now your wife is caring F/T for 3 kids, it sounds like. The marginal gain from her working, once you subtract childcare, may not be all that much. Heck, it might even be negative, depending on what type of work she does and what kind of childcare.

Also, you don’t have to answer this b/c it’s a personal question, but how are you doing on saving for retirement and college educations? Once the 3 kids are in school and those concerns start to loom a little larger, your family’s calculation may not be the same.

In the case of the 2 lawyers, they are likely to have high earning potential and high debt from college loans. Being a SAHM doesn’t qualify you to defer payment on student loans. Their calculation is likely to be different from your family’s.

Also, there is the perspective that women lose more than immediate income when they are out of the workforce. They are not paying into social security or otherwise building seniority or retirement savings. They are not keeping their career skills up to date and marketable. Some women step out of the workforce without considering the true financial impact of that decision.

I do think you have something of a point, some women just prefer to work but don’t find it socially acceptable to say that. Some people have tried to calculate what is best for their family and miscalculated, making the wrong decision. But it’s not straightforward and I believe the right decision really varies from family to family, and over time for individual families.

7

My brother’s family does (wife + five kids). They have a nice, newer home on 40 acres that they did most of the finish work on, but they drive older used cars, they don’t eat out, they take cheap vacations (fishing/camping trips), they grow their own vegetables, and shop garage sales a lot. They never have a lot of extra money and I know it is a struggle. But that’s the way they like to live as she homeschools.

8

Glad to see this thread. :slight_smile: It was my father who was mentioned.

For those of you who are sustaining house, car and family on one income, how does your income compare to the median income in your area? I have a friend who is in fact sustaining a largeish house, a car, and a wife on one income. And they are always having relatives over and feeding them. This is very good–but he makes about three times what I do, and I make more than the median wage in Canada.

Okay. I do not own a car. I live in a bachelor apartment that is well below the average rent for the area. My furniture is still the same mix of hand-me-downs and Ikea Billy bookshelves that I had after school. I do not own a TV.

On the other hand, now that I’m out of debt, over the past three years, I was able to buy a new Mac computer, new cookware, and a new (single) bed (double beds are well over a thousand these days). I pay about $200/month for counseling and exercise that keeps me sane and helps me get through the month. And I pay about $200/month for communications that my parents did not pay (cell phone, internet, cable–but not the phone).

I could take that $400/month and pay for a car instead of those other things. I could stop eating out. But even so, there is no way that I could sustain the doubling of housing costs that it would take to buy a house in Toronto AND support a car and family.

And as for feeding four other people…? Sorry. It’s just not going to work. In relative terms, I’m still making relatively less than my father did, even if I spend it all on myself instead so spreading it out across an entire family.

9

I’m sort of doing it…I have a wife and three kids and live in the DC area. She works part time from home now, but there were times when all she did was a little freelancing from home. It has been doable for us because

  1. the childcare costs involved with her working full time would result in minimal net gain. So with her home more, we don’t spend that much on childcare, just preschool and the occaisional afternoon sitter.

  2. I make pretty good money, not outstanding for this area, but good. If I had a McJob things would be much different.

  3. We live in a smaller house and don’t spend huge amounts on stuff, though I have to say we’re not depriving ourselves of much, either.

I recognize that it’s harder, though I wouldn’t say impossible.

10

I think you’re right here, based on the recent GQ thread about large families in houses with only one bathroom.

I think there’s a lot of truth to the OP’s general point. I think our society has gotten steadily more materialistic, and our standards and expectations have gotten higher. It’s certainly a lot easier to go from not having something to having it than vice versa, whether the “something” is a second car, cable TV, new clothes, electronic gadgets, or whatever.

One factor that has perhaps changed: from what I’ve read, it’s my impression that jobs today are less permenant than they used to be. In the days of the single-earner family, it wasn’t uncommon for that single earner to stay in the same secure job for life, perhaps with steady increases in pay, prestige, and benefits.

11

I bought a queen-sized bed last summer for $600, with frame, delivered. A Simmons something-or-other pillow top. Why are beds so expensive there?

12

We got questioned a lot by folks in our neighborhood when I stayed home with our children.

The difference–as others have mentioned–is that we did without things our neighbors believed were necessary. So we didn’t have cable TV, we had one car and juggled when the children needed to go to the doctor’s, we didn’t have air conditioning (that one was painful), and so on.

We DID scrimp and pay for private schooling.

My ex did not make any more than our neighbors, in fact I know of at least two families who made a fair bit more. We just chose to do different things with the money we did have. It usually (but not always) comes down to figuring out how you want to spend the money you do have. I hope that doesn’t come across as judgmental because I really have zero interest in judging which families get along on one income and which ones do. We all have to do what works for our situations.

13

Exactly what we did, though it was 25 years ago. It wasn’t that easy in the beginning, but my salary went up faster than our expenses. We didn’t go out to eat very often, we didn’t get cars until we absolutely had to, and then used ones, and we rented for a while. Now our kids are adults we think it was well worth it. My wife started writing part time, and was able to get more and more work as the kids got older (plus do it from home.) Our town had a good number of stay-at-home moms, which helped.

It isn’t for everybody, it isn’t possible for everybody, but it can be done.

14

I would agree that the subtext for most (not all) people is not just living on one income, but living on one income - in the way they want to live.

Gadgets and lifestyle are a big part of it, neighborhood and housing is another. I could live in cheaper housing, but then I would have to live among those people (whoever that is).

So, I would say the percentage of people who could live on one income is much greater that the percentage who would even conciously consider it, even in theory.

After all, families are living on single income levels all over the place in real life.

15

Single income family of five here.

Out of your list:

Efforts made to keep food costs down: check
Computers: yes, but two of the three are freebie handmedowns
TV: one freebie handmedown
Cars: one secondhand
New furniture: most of our stuff is secondhand or made ourselves. I would definitely never replace a functional item.
Mending clothing: yep. Also nearly everything is bought secondhand in the first place.
Cable: no
Internet: yes
Cell phone: yes, but we limit use due to the cost
Netflix: no, but WoW accounts :wink:
Dryer: no
Dishwasher, A/C: yes.

The thing is, a lot of the “don’t have” items are not really sacrifices for us. The only regular item we’ve really cut spending on since kids is eating out. I’ve never had a dryer or cable. I’ve absorbed too many of teh values of my greenie dad, who’d spin in his grave if he ever heard we got a second car and he’s not even dead yet! When we did have two incomes we never actually spent them, just lived on one and saved the other.

Housing is bloody expensive though. Our house costs are currently around half our income. And we are well-paid professionals, so we do fall into the category of “people who can afford to do this.”

16

I stay home, and so do a goodly number of my friends. It’s not uncommon here to live on one income (though the majority of local families are dual-income, it’s not rare here and won’t earn you incredulous stares).

We are pretty fortunate and my husband makes something over the median income for the area. (Keep in mind however that ‘the median income’ is something like 38K/year–this is a poor area.) This means that I have a few more luxuries than many of my friends who live on much less, and we probably have more savings. But a lot of people I know live on 40-50K or so. And I know a few people in higher income brackets–but mostly not. (Of those wealthier friends, I should also say that they mostly have 4 or more children–but then so do my less-wealthy friends. I’m the weirdo with only two.)

I also have a bunch of friends who do stay home, but who also do whatever they can to earn some extra cash. Babysitting, working a night shift a couple of times a week, fancy cake decorating–any skill they can turn to, to make ends meet. Usually they are just very committed to having a parent at home, and they arrange their lives accordingly, with no luxuries or frills.

I would certainly never dream of buying a new car or a bunch of the latest gadgets, though.

17

We’ve been a one income family almost the entire time.

We are comfortable and while we don’t have to scrimp, we don’t splurge a lot, either.

We do budget, though. We have all the things we think we require (house, 2 cars, savings) and we also have all the ‘toys’ (mostly electronics) we desire and still take a vacation (nothing too fancy) every year.

We avoid credit card debt- a (too big IMHO) big burden to any budget.

We’re not rolling in dough, but I don’t feel like we are lacking for anything.

18

There is, quite possibly, a bigger difference in what they think they can live on and what you think you can live on that goes beyond big houses, flashy cars and MP3 players. I’ll say at the outset that it may also be the case that other people may just enjoy both working, but no one is under any obligation to confess to you the greater details of their financial situation and/or personal feelings on the matter so I don’t get why you’re so hot about it. You want to tell everyone that you guys make it work and it’s a personal morality issue-other people just want to give you an answer so you’ll get off their back about it and you suspect something else is up. So what?

Anyway, getting back to my more major point, when people I know who say they can’t live on one income give that answer they’re generally speaking to…

a) The desire to save up for retirement to the tune of a couple million. Which is basically what you need if you have no intent to live on social security and die in HUD housing. It’s also quite feasible.

b) The desire to help ,or pay for the type of college they expect their children to attend. This is a cultural value that I know many people on the Dope chalk up as spoiling of children, but it’s a pretty major issue for various ethnic communities and it certainly holds in all of the dual-income power professional types I’m acquainted with (leaving culture out of it completely).

c) The desire to live in an upper middle class town with good public schools. The average home price of the town I grew up in is $729, 500 and I can assure you that you’re not getting a 4000 sq. foot mansion. My parents sold our house for about that much and it was a 4 bedroom colonial with 1.5 baths.

These may not be your values. Or, you may make enough money that you can do all of that (save up millions for retirement, live in a posh town and help your kids with school). Whatever it is, good for you.

There’s also a 4th for many trade professionals-law, business and medical schools are very very very expensive. I’m one of the few people I know of who has a comparatively low debtload and that’s a direct result of my parents’ country-hopping habits that allowed me get my undergrad ed done free. Most people I know are looking at 100K at my age (29). So when people say “we can’t afford it” they really mean “we can’t afford it” because otherwise they would be defaulting on money they owe.

I personally feel that the cumulative effects of 2 and 3 on your kid’s success are understated. Yeah everyone wants to believe that sundried sheets and no mp3s and blahblahblah are all a kid needs but when you’re competing to get into top colleges things like having the resources to send your kids off to help lepers (for free) and do internships at NYT and WSJ (for free) and work at the leading ebola researcher’s lab (for free) because you cover their costs with your childhating-daycarepackingoff-blood money can end up making a big difference to admissions committees.

19

You may be right. I have no intention of sending my kid to Harvard or of helping/making her get an elaborate CV before she’s 18. I want to give her the best education I can, but I’m unconvinced that an Ivy League undergrad degree is important enough to spend your teenage years exhausting yourself for. Stanford would be about the height of our ambition (and hey, they give tuition breaks!), but realistically speaking, I doubt that our kids will be able to get into Cal Berkeley, our alma mater. The competition is simply too tough these days. So we’ll aim for BYU or one of the better UC’s that isn’t Cal.

We plan to help our kids with college, but they will have to pay as much of their expenses as they can manage. IMO a free college education is frequently an unappreciated one. At the same time, I could not hope to earn enough to pay my own way in college and I don’t expect that of my kids either. It just isn’t very realistic these days.

And to support that, I guess, today I paid two teenage boys I know to wash all my windows. They’re off in a few weeks and working to earn some money before they go. Many of my less-well-off SAHM friends would consider that a luxury (as I do, really–last year I washed my own dang windows).

20

I agree it can be done. I’ve seen it done. More often I’ve seen mothers work some kind of part-time job (consulting, teaching*, re-structure their hours) just to break even while keeping their resume and skills fresh.

(* I don’t mean teaching is part-time; I mean they taught part-time.)

I think it’s good for the kids. It drives home the concept of not being able to afford everything you want.

We are a double-income family with a pleasant history of indulgence, BUT we have always kept our debt within the range of a single income, and that debt is ONLY mortgage and one car payment.

There have been lean times when one of us was out of work and we didn’t really notice it; no dinners out, no new clothes, no cable t.v., and everything was line-dried, home-cooked, and done by hand (I sanded a floor that need re-finishing by hand because I had more time than money once).

Meh. When we had the money, we just spent it entertaining ourselves instead of keeping busy with things that needed to be done.

We grew up poor*; we know how to be poor. You don’t spend money you don’t have to. You only have to spend money on food and shelter, and there’s yard-sales, hand-me-downs (remember hand-me-downs?), and Vinnie d’P for everything else (I still love a good thrift store).

  • Well, not really poor; neither of us ever went hungry. But I remember beef (not steak, just beef) being a big deal at dinner. And, as God is my witness, I will never eat bologna again.