Feasibility of one-income living.

In My Humble Opinion
41

[QUOTE=dangermom]
I can’t hide my particular lifestyle choice under a social lie–the minute I confess that we homeschool our kids, people get defensive, as if by simply living our lives we’re judging them to be inferior parents.
[/QUOTE]

That really strikes me as odd. Of all the reactions I’ve had to folks who decided to homeschool, not once did I feel defensive or inferior as a parent. Either you encounter a vastly different crowd than I, or you may be attributing inaccurate emotions to the non-homeschoolers.

42

[QUOTE=Dinsdale]

A year from now I’ll have 3 kids in college. Again, can be done. Quite easily, if you care to. And we’re in no hurry for my wife to get a job, even when the kids are all gone.

[/QUOTE]

I agree with the rest of your post–but I am curious as to this aspect. Why wouldn’t you reassess after the kids are gone? I am having a difficult time understanding this aspect. If your wife went back to work and made say $40k take home pay, you have a great jumpstart on your retirement. You could pretty much live like you do now, and put away the maximum for retirement without it really affecting your life too much. Each of you could put $15.5K in a 401k (and hopefully get an employer match) and each could put away $5K in a Roth right off the top.

Why would you not do that? Okay perhaps too personal of a question, and perhaps there is a reason that I haven’t thought of, but to me it seems a great move for your future. If you are willing to share your reason, I truly would be interested in what your thinking on this is.

43

I was raised in a family with 5 kids and one income. Two of my siblings are doing the same with four kids each, the same way we did when we grew up.

My brother and sister are both managing to raise families with 4 kids on one income. For my sister, her husband was a sergeant in the army. They never lived on base housing. He often did carpet-laying or home repairs on the side for extra cash. They helped their kids with college, but didn’t foot the bill. They drove used cars and the kids wore hand-me-downs. My B-I-L kept a tight rein on the budget (he had to - my sister would be a major spendthrift if she could). Vacations were usually spent driving to visit family. They have money in savings for retirement, but will never be well-to-do. My brother is a sales guy who travels. He and his wife don’t have new cars. They probably have no savings and he’s occassionally had to ask my parents for help. In my opinion, she should go back to work, because the kids are all in school and they need the money. They don’t say no to themselves often enough. I also think she’d be happier if she got out more, whereas my sister was a happy homebody.

I support myself and 11 animals on my one moderate income. 15 year mortgage on a small farm and a used car. I rarely eat out and I pack my lunch to work. It’s a choice I made, to have all these mouths to feed. It’s getting harder, animal feed is going up, gas is going up, and there’s not much I could cut back un except my satellite service. We’ll have to see what the future brings.

StG

44

[QUOTE=Hakuna Matata]
I agree with the rest of your post–but I am curious as to this aspect. Why wouldn’t you reassess after the kids are gone?
[/QUOTE]

For us, the whole question boils down to whether - all things considered - we would be happier if she were working. Tho she is a lawyer, she does not feel that she would derive tremendous personal satisfaction or other psychological rewards from working. To the contrary, she can imagine that having to go to full-time work would detract from her lifestyle.

We’d have to make an economic decision as to whether the additional income she could bring in would outweigh the costs to other areas of ourlifestyle. Because right now we don’t really NEED more money. Sure I’d take it if it were given with no strings, but I’m not sure I’d change much of my lifestyle just for more money.

Right now, I make a sufficient income for us to live quite comfortably - while saving for retirement. Tho I could retire in less than 10 years at @ 56 (or younger with reduced benefits) I’m in no hurry to do so. Tho I don’t really care about any aspect of my job, it is not terribly unpleasant, and it provides considerable flexibility.

Meanwhile, my wife does all of our family’s financial matters (other than some investments which I handle.) It is of tremendous value to me to have someone handle money matters for me - if she were working fulltime, I assume I would need to assume a greater share of that. My wife also maintains the household. Well, I do a fair share of the cleaning, but she does the shopping, pays the bills, deals with contractors and vendors when doing repairs, etc., and even does a bit of the home maintenance. While the kids have been in school, she was the primary contact person for the schools. She even takes the lead in many social aspects - making dates with friends and family, remembering birthdays, and the like.

Heck, just having someone else pay the bills, do our taxes, and do most of the shopping is of tremendous value to me personally. Also, when the kids move out we intend to downsize, which should net us considerable profit which we can plow into retirement - or do with whatever we wish.

I am fortunate enough to have made choices that have put me where I enjoy considerable job security and expect pretty comfortable retirement income from multiple sources.

Bottomline, neither of us really gets a ton personally out of working. For us, it is all about bringing home the paycheck. And so long as I bring home enough dollars to support the lifestyle we desire, we see no reason to force both of us doing something unpelasant, just to build up our bank account balances.

If someone offered her a couple hundred K, I’m sure she’d consider it. But I think you would agree that there aren’t all that many tremendously high-paying jobs availiable to late 40s women who have been out of the full-time market for decades. To the extent they DO exist, they expect you to work your butt off for the coin - something she has no strong desire to do. Far more available are jobs that would pay relatively low salaries, while imposing considerable restraints on lifestyle. Simply put, the additional income is not likely to make it worth the costs - emotional and economic - it would involve.

45

[QUOTE=Dinsdale]

Bottomline, neither of us really gets a ton personally out of working. For us, it is all about bringing home the paycheck. And so long as I bring home enough dollars to support the lifestyle we desire, we see no reason to force both of us doing something unpelasant, just to build up our bank account balances.

If someone offered her a couple hundred K, I’m sure she’d consider it. But I think you would agree that there aren’t all that many tremendously high-paying jobs availiable to late 40s women who have been out of the full-time market for decades. To the extent they DO exist, they expect you to work your butt off for the coin - something she has no strong desire to do. Far more available are jobs that would pay relatively low salaries, while imposing considerable restraints on lifestyle. Simply put, the additional income is not likely to make it worth the costs - emotional and economic - it would involve.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks! I do appreciate where you are coming from and your answer was one I had considered. In my situation, we easily could live off my income as well, but my wife enjoys her job very much. That coupled with our desire to both be retired by age 55, her working makes sense for us.

But in your situation I can see why you might make the choices you have. Good luck and thanks for answering my question. :slight_smile:

46

[QUOTE=Dinsdale]

That really strikes me as odd. Of all the reactions I’ve had to folks who decided to homeschool, not once did I feel defensive or inferior as a parent. Either you encounter a vastly different crowd than I, or you may be attributing inaccurate emotions to the non-homeschoolers.
[/QUOTE]

We got the same reaction, not to homeschooling but to my wife being a SAHM. Not universally, but not all that rare either.

We, or actually my wife, had a friend who stopped speaking to us over this. My wife (she has an MBA) staying home to care for our children was that offensive. :eek:

Guilt over putting your kids in day care is not exactly unheard of, and people react to it in funny ways.

As far as the OP, we managed to live on my income while the kids were little. But we had already saved up the down payment on our house, we were older parents, and we were used to living pretty spare lives. Our area is not particularly expensive, and my income went up pretty steadily. It can be done, but managing expectations is a big part of it.
Regards,
Shodan

47

[QUOTE=Dinsdale]
That really strikes me as odd. Of all the reactions I’ve had to folks who decided to homeschool, not once did I feel defensive or inferior as a parent. Either you encounter a vastly different crowd than I, or you may be attributing inaccurate emotions to the non-homeschoolers.
[/QUOTE]
Probably I meet a different crowd. Of course I also meet some people who think homeschooling is just wrong, but around here they don’t seem to be very thick on the ground. It’s very common for someone to react by saying slightly defensive things explaining why they couldn’t possibly homeschool. It’s not that they actually want to homeschool at all–they’d probably rather shoot themselves–but they tend to think that homeschooling is somehow a saintlier way to be a mom, and people who do it must be superhumanly patient and creative and so on. Actually of course that isn’t true at all, but there are a lot of stereotypes out there–most of them self-contradictory.

I suspect that people who react that particular way are usually mothers of younger children who are somewhat insecure about their choices–which is true of most young moms these days, inundated as we are with the absolute knowledge that we can never really be good moms and everything is completely our fault. We are all secretly afraid that we’re ruining our children and that there is a perfect solution out there, if we were just committed enough or energetic enough or unselfish enough to live it.

48

Hakuna, I answered yours, now would you be so kind as to answer one of mine?

What do the 2 of you plan on doing when you both retire at 55? Since your decided date sounds so well thought out, I presume you have some specific ideas of how you would like to style your life at that time.

Like I said, my job affords me considerable flexibility - especially in terms of generous leave with few restrictions. So we could do a lot of travel and whatever else, while I still bring home the full-time pay and accumulate more for retirement, and allowing me to be generous to my kids/grandkids/whatever. I have no intention to work forever, just at this time I don’t have the need to identify a speicific stop date either.

We always aim at keeping open as many options as possible. So yeah, it is possible that something might come up such that I will take early retirement at 50 and start a second career. Or I could retire then and my wife could start working ot of the home. But I have to say either of those or other options seem less likely than me simply running out this string.

49

danger - of the many homeschool families I have known, the overwhelming majority are doing it - at least in large part - because of some aspect of their religious beliefs. Since those beliefs are nearly always ones I do not respect, I could not imagine feeling defensive or inferior to someone motivated by such beliefs.

I also am very aware of the considerable effort that responsible homeschooling takes. I know I do not care to exert that particular effort. I know more than one homeschooling family who are not exerting such effort and - IMO - doing their kids considerable disservice.

50

[QUOTE=Dinsdale]
Hakuna, I answered yours, now would you be so kind as to answer one of mine?

What do the 2 of you plan on doing when you both retire at 55? Since your decided date sounds so well thought out, I presume you have some specific ideas of how you would like to style your life at that time.

Like I said, my job affords me considerable flexibility - especially in terms of generous leave with few restrictions. So we could do a lot of travel and whatever else, while I still bring home the full-time pay and accumulate more for retirement, and allowing me to be generous to my kids/grandkids/whatever. I have no intention to work forever, just at this time I don’t have the need to identify a speicific stop date either.

We always aim at keeping open as many options as possible. So yeah, it is possible that something might come up such that I will take early retirement at 50 and start a second career. Or I could retire then and my wife could start working ot of the home. But I have to say either of those or other options seem less likely than me simply running out this string.
[/QUOTE]

Sure. Well I work as an Architect for a big firm. While I enjoy it, being part of corporate America is not my dream job. I do great projects and really to be honest have no complaints about it, but like any corporate job there is the internal politics, and our work tends to be for large developers, etc. Great pay though and lots of flexability, etc. So really no complaints at all.

But I would rather be doing small projects like single family housing, or projects that benefit society like community centers, etc. So from 55-62ish I would set up my own practice and select the type of work I wanted to truly do, without actually worrying about making money at it. Almost a pro-bono type situation, but if I can make a few dollars, so much the better. But I don’t want to have to count on the money.

My wife also wants to become a personal trainer and become a gym rat. She loves excersizing and would go everyday if it wasn’t for me :wink: But she is a big fitness nut and I am not going to complain that my wife wants to stay height weight proportional!

We also want to travel more then we do now. Even now we travel a fair amount, but it is something we both enjoy very much. But we now have a 13 year old and travel with a kid is very different then travel as two adults. So we look forward to that as well.

Finally–fish! I love to go fishing and so does my wife. We envision taking a week or two and travelling to say Montana and fishing and camping, etc. I now my wife wants to do much more of this then I do, but I am sure we will find a happy medium since we are damn good communicators!

51

Well, I wasn’t actually planning to discuss homeschooling on this thread, so sorry for the hijack. I realize, Dinsdale, that you probably don’t approve of my decision. That’s OK. I was just trying to explain why a lot of moms I know react defensively, because I can’t pretend I don’t homeschool–unlike people who choose to work a lot in order to fund expensive educations but don’t want to make other people defensive about their choices.

Just to clarify, we don’t homeschool for religious reasons (like many homeschoolers) and I’m pretty hardcore classical. I firmly believe that I am giving my kids a better academic education than they can get in the public schools. But if you want to discuss it, we can do that elsewhere. Meanwhile, perhaps you would enjoy evidence that not all homeschoolers are evangelicals.

52

My family of five was one income for about 90% of my life (the other 10% was my mom doing minimum wage for a few months until she got tired of it).

I think my dad made around $50k when I was growing up and got some nice promotions to the ~$75k he’s at now.

Sometimes it sucked. Being the oldest I was around when the times were hardest so I learned not to ask for much…I admit that I get jealous seeing all that my sister gets now. It taught me to be stingy with my money. But that was mostly the fault my mom’s budgeting and telling us we had no money (which I was brainwashed to believe) and that us kids are so damn expensive, which we later found she fed us generic store-brand foods just so she could blow the savings on herself.
Either way, my family survived. Always had 2 cars at the house, they were able to buy and pay off a $40k home, never starved, etc. etc.

53

I have a cousin, software engineer, who has a SAHM/Homeschooling wife and 8 sons.

8 sons. Eight Sons. (one just graduated. The youngest is 1.)

Another friend who is a SAHM/public school kids, 9 kids.
They are military and live on base, so that probably makes a huge difference.
But, none of their kids go without.
For the first 8.5 years of kids (2), I stayed at home and earned only peanuts via ebay sales. We managed just fine, despite a few car repairs of doom and Holy Crap it’s time to pay the taxes again. Fuuuuuuck.

We don’t live a high falutin’ life. Even when I worked at a real job, bk, the only thing I slurged mula on was travel. Lots of it. All our clothes - save undies and socks - are from garage sales, hand me downs or salvation army. I am low maintence ( except my books and knitting, which the former is taken care of through the library and the latter…uh…oh look at that pretty cloud!)
I just got a craptacular job at a local MegaHell 1.5 years ago and the pittance for pay ( $7.15 an hour, and do the work of 5 people - two tards and three geriatrics.) helps pay for one activity a month per child. ( Or my Knitting obsession.)

Will we ever be able to retire? Probably not.

If my husband dies, I am majorly fucked ( except for the life insurance, which should last long enough for me to get some stupid degree from some local half assed college so I could actually get a job in the REAL WORLD and make real money doing what I never wanted to do and can feel my spirit being crushed like a grape by a 700 pound corporate gorilla and then I would only be minorly fucked for the next 30 years or hope to die an early death to avoid SS and Medicare bullshit.)
Sorry, I’m a little bitter right now about some things that the back of my mind dredges up because my hormones are at rock bottom and it is the first day of summer vacation for the kids, humid as hell, stormy outside and no one likes the idea of DOING CHORES BEFORE FUNTIME!!!11!!!

Can you survive on one income with kids? If you want to bad enough.

The real question is Can I hide in the basement from my children for the entire summer vacation without them noticing, or my house being destroyed?

54

[QUOTE=dangermom]
I realize, Dinsdale, that you probably don’t approve of my decision.
[/QUOTE]

I don’t approve or disapprove of your decision. To tell the truth, I really don’t care.

And I’m aware that not all homeschoolers are evangelicals. Merely stated my personal and very limited experience that the majority of the ones I’ve met have been.

Moreover, of the homeschoolers I have personally met, only a small minority have impressed me as either capable or willing to expend the effort required to afford an education the equal of the public schools. Again, just my opinions and experience.

55

Well, then we’re even. :wink: I’m just unsure why you’re engaging me on this if you don’t care; I’ve already explained that people with this particular reaction are usually young moms, and I’m pretty sure you aren’t a young mom.

56

[QUOTE=dangermom]
…I’m just unsure why you’re engaging me on this if you don’t care; …
[/QUOTE]

Certainly didn’t intend to convey anything negative in bluntly saying “I don’t care” about your choices. In general, I tend not to care about choices people make - good or bad - that i perceive as having little or no impact on me.

My initial comment was solely motivated by the fact that my experience has been quite different than what you describe. And then I wished to correct any suspicion that I “disapproved” of any decision you made.

Upon reflection, I suspect there may be considerable cultural differences between our locations.

If it works for you and your family and makes you happy, more power to you.

57

I was raised in a single income family with 4 kids. (My grandmother also lived with us most of the time and rarely had much income and several cousins lived with us for varying times from a year or so on) We managed and I never really felt deprived.

The problem I’m seeing now is that my parents have almost nothing. My dad will work until he drops over dead because they can’t afford for him not to. The man is 63 and in very poor health, his heart could go anytime. They have almost no savings because everything had to go into keeping the family fed and in clothes. I appreciate the sacrifices they made for us kids, that mom was always there and was able to homeschool us but I really hate seeing the position they’re in now. Not entirely jokingly my mom has said that if dad is going to die it needs to be while he’s still working because about the only way she’ll be to afford to live is with the life insurance his job provides.

This is not to say that all single income families are in this situation, but especially among the more blue-collar set it doesn’t seem to be uncommon.

58

[QUOTE=Dinsdale]
Certainly didn’t intend to convey anything negative in bluntly saying “I don’t care” about your choices. In general, I tend not to care about choices people make - good or bad - that i perceive as having little or no impact on me.

[/QUOTE]

Eh, it’s all good. :cool:

59

Yeah, and maybe the OP is speaking to those types of individuals. I hear about these types constantly-many of them are my mom’s clients (she does financial sales)!

I do know that since adolescence I’ve had a working mom and a work-at-home dad (inventor) who had reasonably frequent business travel, and my parents most certainly did not bitch about not being able to live on one income while seated at their Lexus. They do own a couple of Lexuses now but it was after years and years and years of driving Toyota Corollas. Oh and walking. We’re big fans of that in our family-I can only imagine the look I would have received had I asked for a car in high school (though my dad would occasionally let me drive his).

What I know is my parents both having jobs led to them saving up almost every spare penny to give us leg-ups in life, from living in a crappy house in a town with a famous school system to sending us to expensive debate camps to gifting me the cost of my bar fees to writing off the entirety of my sis’s med school loans to have her avoid the interest (though she is paying them back with every penny she makes as a resident and another 40K on top of that).

The “you could do it if you want to” statement emanates quite a bit from the Dr. Laura camp (carrying inherent judgment IMO) and while I agree it’s quite feasible in the short-term, I think times have changed and if people look at the cost of living + education and project that 18 & 40 years into the future from when their kids are young, most come to the conclusion that they could not go it alone. And even on two sizeable incomes, it behooves people to live modestly.

And incidentally, the point of having a couple million at retirement isn’t to buy shit, it’s to have backup in case of major emergencies that crop up.

60

Sometimes people get too hung up on the “I must save money for my children’s education” thing. They hear that average tuition & expenses are some huge number per year and figure they must have (that amount X 4 X number of children) stashed away by some particular date. First of all, a fairly large percentage of the expenses are pay-as-you-go, and many are things you’d spend for regardless of whether the kid is in college or not – food and clothing, for example. Second, you can often do just as well with student loans and student aid. Third, the college education may not materialize.

My parents raised us through most of our childhood on my father’s income alone. My mom eventually had some jobs outside the home, supposedly to earn money for our college education. However, my sister only completed about 2 1/2 years of college before quitting to start a family. I got married after one year of college and paid for the rest of it myself through student loans and my husband’s support. What mom & dad did with the rest of whatever they saved I have no idea but I hope they enjoyed it.

My older daughter attended less than one full year of college before asking could she PLEASE come home because she just hated it. Second daughter we paid the bill for 4 years of college. In some ways it was worth it just because she was out on her own, got some real world skills and experience, and learned how good she had it. These days it seems like she got the most benefit from the part-time waitressing job she had during college. She advanced into the food service industry, married a chef, and makes a very good income as a bartender. She makes little to no use of her actual degree.

I recall one woman I once worked with who, after her baby was born and she came back to work, would spend the first 15 - 30 minutes crying over having left the baby. Why not just stay home? Oh, no, she needed the money. Of course, her husband had a fantastic executive salary at a major corporation. They needed a huge new house, two new cars every other year, vacations at ski resorts, etc., etc. That was what she was working for IMHO.

I was glad to scrimp for about 9 years while my kids were young, and we managed o.k. one just my husband’s salary. During those years we did not buy new furniture, rarely ate at a restaurant. I stretched the food budget, made my own bread, hung clothes on the line to dry instead of using an electric dryer, etc. I could do it again.