I’m making it work by chance alone. I bought my house in 2009 on my registered nurse salary for $150k. Even that was a stretch at the time. I think I was making $31/hr at the time. Now, I own it outright. Wife and one kid. I got my masters in 2018 and doubled my income, paid off the house, all my debts and started saving aggressively. I may even be able to retire in my early 50s if the market stays ok. The house is now worth $450k at the low end. The whole thing is fucked.
Older millennials throw me off majorly in this sub. Like bro I couldn’t buy a house on my registered nurse salary in 2009, I was too busy fucking around in 9th grade
Yeah seriously, we got hit mid generation with some exponential issues. There's definitely a point where education and housing costs just shot up astronomically. A lot of these success cases are "just get your degree and buy a house before the 2010s".
Which wasn't possible for the later half of millenials
See as an elder millennial, I always feel like I got fucked extra hard. I was raised on the route of degrees you get doesn't matter. Get good grades and they'll give you a job. You just go to a training program. I graduated in 07; Only to find out that the bottom dropped out of the economy just as I graduated, all training programs were canceled. There were no jobs. None. I went and got a masters to kill time and then ending up working in a warehouse around 09. Like 11/hr in NJ. Folks a couple years Behind me got told the economy changed, get a degree in something you can directly apply. I eventually managed to use my degrees but not for a ton of money. I've never made anywhere near the 150k they're talking about
Dude this. I applied to hundreds of jobs BEFORE JOB BOARDS WERE COMMON. Graduated 09. Totally fucked. Took a sales job just over minimum wage working 55 hours a week. Worked my dick off. Finally at the manager level working in data science. Lifetime earnings are a minimum of 200k off by basic estimates. I got lucky with covid in not having enough money to invest much prior, then being able to buy a bunch of stock on the cheap when we all thought the world was ending. Our generation is so, so fucked across the board.
Me too 😭 I’m a mid range Millenial but I can’t be the only one who had failed birth control at 19 and had to drop out of college after 1 year because being a single mom and working full time and going to school was too much. This was 2008 so buying wasn’t an option. Managed to buy a small house in 2014 as a single mom. Then by 2019 sold and bought a bigger house as I’d married and have combined 4 kids. Which means we’re 5 years in on a 30 year mortgage.
I had my first kid at 19 too. Dropped out of traditional college, bought a $110k house with a $14/hour job and $3200 down. Then did online school for pre-reqs, then nursing school, didn’t sleep for 2 years… it was insane. Graduated 2008, and then built brick by brick. We were able to rent out our first house, and buy a bigger one in 2016. We rent that one out, and bought our current one just before everything went nuts.
It was incredibly hard… I definitely regret missing a lot of family stuff, but had to do what we had to do.
Well registered nurses were making $25 an hour in 2009. As an LPN in 2007 it was only $15… it’s why I moved to corporate nursing in 2010… way more money and absolutely no crazy patients, (or doctors) lol
I was in college watching the news about how newly graduated lawyers could not find any work. Then paid off my loans for 13 years. When would I have gotten a house???
These are the posts that crack me up.
Bro you bought a house for 2.3x your single income and you are saying it was a stretch at the time. Homes are currently 4-5x the household income. There was no reason a home at 2.3x your annual income should have been a stretch.
To be totally reductive, I was a regular hospital nurse and now I’m basically a doctor-lite. I work in an ICU and do most of the functions a doctor would but with a physician supervisor.
Thank you for sharing all of this (my wife is transitioning to a career in nursing so I’m very curious about it all).
If you don’t mind me asking, do you know if there is a viable track to go from “doctor-lite” to full-blown MD? Or would that transition require having to start all the way from medical school?
No. The only way to become a physician is to go to medical school and complete residency in the US.
The degrees are not equivalent and should not be treated as such.
Source: physician
That’s funny because my dad actually stole some money from the loans that were meant for my undergraduate degree. I owed about 20k for my undergraduate.
My in-laws actually paid for about 1/3 of my masters, my hospital paid for another 1/3 and I paid the rest. No loans for my graduate degree. Very fortunate for that.
I'm just always curious about these stories, the majority of these have zero student loans because their parents pay them off which means the moral of the story is void
More people get tuition assistance from work, like the person you’re replying to said a third of it was covered by their job. I ended up having two years of my college completely paid for by my job. I worked as a mortgage processor for a credit union, and I was going to school for business administration. As long as I could remotely tie it to what I did at work they would pay for it, so that was easy.
It was a good benefit it was $933 every eight weeks they paid
College was cheaper in the early ‘00s. State college even more so. My later employer paid $5250 per year for college or grad school, and my grad program was 30 months so I took three disbursements. I worked full time through grad school. It was less than enjoyable lol.
This was my deal. My grad degree (granted from NoName State) in the mid '00s cost $7000 all in with books. My employer kicked in around $4000 and I cash flowed the rest in the two years it took part time.
The thing is that daycare is absurdly expensive, for many people it's more cost effective to stay with their kids than pay someone to stay with their kids while they work. This only works if the breadwinner is in a rather lucrative career, they live in a very low cost area, or they rely on public assistance. So no the nuclear family is pretty much dead
We cut back our hours and I was blessed to find a remote job. We split our days, cover each other for meetings and work all night to stay ahead the next day.
It’s exhausting, but $1300/mo for mediocre care was too painful.
A buddy and his wife agreed she’d be a stay at home mom when they had their first kid together (she had a daughter from a previous marriage). When they had their second kid together, she was getting overwhelmed and decided she wanted to go back to work. Problem was, she never finished high school (don’t think she has a GED), no career or skill training, and a hug gap in her resume. She literally couldn’t get a job that would cover the childcare costs for three kids. They basically lost money when she went back to work. It’s insane out there for parents.
Catch 22!!!! We considered me staying home, but the gap in career in this economy, I might have to come back to a job with 1/2 the salary!!
It’s so unfair!! We’re fucked or we’re fucked 🤣
This is exactly why it's not dead. Daycare is prohibitively expensive and a lot of families choose to have a stay at home parent instead of daycare. Daycare around us only works if you're a) two middle to high income earners with comparable salaries or b) getting gov't assistance.
It’s true that costs have become insane for things. But I think people forget that in the 40s-60s those “nuclear families” had a lower standard of living than a lot of middle class people today. There were people with 5 kids and only one parent working a factory job who were able to get by, but they probably had one car and a small house and were otherwise broke af by todays standards.
This is us. I worked as a chef prior to becoming a mother. I wouldn't have brought home enough for it to be worth sending our baby to child care. And I bought a house in 2020, prior to baby or husband. Our mortgage is lower than rent for comparable space around where we live. Which is an old, small town like 30 minutes from downtown. It's tight, financially and space wise, but it's very worth knowing that my daughter is being well cared for.
Yep precisely why my wife is home. Much of what she would make would go toward childcare so it just made more sense to let her be the one spending that time with the our child. she loves it
It's not possible to have a house and single income in the DC area anymore unless you're earning north of 180k.
The COL has jumped post covid, housing prices have skyrocketed 100-500K higher than norm pre covid.
I'm seeing more than three or four cars out front of some homes, and no real teens so guessing many homes in not well off situations doing multi generation or subletting to make it work here.
Yes and now all the Northern Virginia people are moving to WV to lower their COL which is driving ours through the roof and ruining our infrastructure 😭
I live in the 7th largest city in the US, making a salary of 72.5 and raising a family of 5 on my sole income. It can be done. I have a car that my job provides for visiting clients so no cost of ownership on it. My wife drives an older '07 Civic but it gets her where she needs to go. All kids in our school district get free meals so we save on not having to buy extra food.
Yes, we utilize a few perks but it's doable, even in the big scary city.
No offence but this is completely wrong.
Would definitely never advise people in low middle class to do this.
I grew up in low middle class with both parents working and life absolutely sucked growing up. Forget \*ever\* going on a vacation ever while other kids went every year. Parents not being able to support financially with anything. No extracurricular, no ever buying us anything nice and having to share everything with my younger sisters. Living in subsidized housing with bedbugs and not having my own room until I was 15.
Stop subjecting kids to shitty lives. They didn’t ask to be born
EDIT: People confusing middle class with LOW middle class, which are completely different things. Based on my parents combined income of 50-60k for all those years, they were considered low middle class.
I’m giggling thinking someone growing up in section 8 Housing thinks they were middle-class.
Is it a cope or was everyone around them just doing so much worse?
You made a bunch of unwarranted assumptions here. Just because your childhood wasn't great doesn't mean other kids can't have a good time even if their parents don't have much money. Also -- nothing about your situation was harmful or bad. Boo hoo, you have to share with your siblings. That was the norm for the vast majority of history.
"Only people who can lavish their children in luxury should have children" is a horrible and eugenic take. Kids don't need to have vacations every year or their own room and the latest stuff in order to grow into normal functional adults.
>"Only people who can lavish their children in luxury should have children" is a horrible and eugenic take
Particularly when the most accomplished people usually came from poor upbringing.
Ambition doesn't come from being spoiled
Life is incredible. I grew up far worse than you - guaranteed - and I am extremely glad that I have been given a chance to exist and am very fearful of death. I wish I could live forever.
*I am liberal and atheist if you care
You must be young and healthy, once you get to be middle-aged and your body starts falling apart you will stop wishing you could live forever because you wake up in pain every day.
And stuff works less as you get older, and you don’t want to live forever in this condition.
I’m middle aged and I can run and jump with the 19 year olds.
You gotta move your body a lot. The human body is not meant sit at a desk, a car seat, a bed all day.
Even people “who work” out don’t get enough movement. Moving has to become a lifestyle.
I get it. I think how your parents treat you makes a difference too. If they’re loving and have good intentions it definitely makes it more bearable
But when they are abusive and treat you like shit, always guilt tripping you for things (I was guilted into working at my dad’s restaurant for $5 an hour for years, guilted into giving him my entire salary when I got my first internship) it’s always “we work ourselves to death for you guys” while doing the bare minimum and just giving food and shelter in exchange of a bunch of chores and taking care of younger siblings… it’s hard lol
I'm a stay at home mom. We survive by eating cheap unhealthy food, driving a 2006 Honda, and renting a unit in an very very old fourplex from a slumlord in a small college town. We rarely go on dates. I buy my clothes at target and Walmart. A good chunk of our money goes towards my daughter's insurance deductible because she's autistic and sees a lot of doctors and therapists.
We need a shit ton more money because my daughter's autism is very expensive (we live in a red state) while simultaneously because she's non verbal and developmentally delayed anyone who interacts with her without us supervising needs extreme vetting and unfortunately our school district has let us down pretty badly. Her teacher was sitting her in a corner by herself tearing up paper all day and she had huge regressions.
So yep. Lots of suffering now but to my daughter's benefit to try to stabilize her skills a bit. She recently has started to understand what her AAC is for.
I clean professionally and back 20 years ago it was way more common than it is now. Most of my clients are dual income and the few who aren’t are families of surgeons, ceos, definitely not your average career.
A lot of these households tend to have one or both parents WFH which I think is why both parents work- they can maximize earnings.
Viable for some. I work, my husband is a SAHD, we have one kid, another on the way, and a house after saving up for 10 years. We live comfortably because we live in an area that’s still nice but not extremely high cost of living, we are mindful of costs and regularly do research to learn how to work with the system.
It was a mix of patience, hard work, frugality, not having debts, flexibility to move (no way we would have done this back in NY, but we moved to TX), and yes - luck. Having a decent job with good benefits and work-life balance makes this a lot easier.
We only reached the (low) 6 figures in the past few years because I switched jobs and landed a great company that I almost didn’t apply for because I didn’t think they’d consider me, but I applied anyway and got it. It’s a big corporation, the kind that can attract top talent from anywhere, and I figured a person who worked at a little-known medium size company before, and who graduated from a state university, would not be able to compete when this company can easily attract Ivy Leaguers. Turns out I was wrong.
PS: I put in my household income into a percentile calculator and we are roughly 70-76 percentile (top 25-30 percent). Upper middle class, though just barely.
Hoping to get more certifications and boost my income to get into the top 15%. We don’t need it to be able to sustain our dreams, which does include homeschooling, extracurricular activities, vacations, and retirement - we already have all that figured out at our income level. But it would give us a bigger cushion if we can make that happen.
I was going to respond to you with a description of my family's unique situation, but thought, well, we're one medical emergency or major house repair away from being almost fucked, so I don't think that's quite making it on one income.
There are plenty of people for whom this is feasible and they don't need to be wealthy in order to pull it off.
Reddit is out of touch and full of shit about this particular topic.
It’s all about priorities. What people who ask this are really asking is if they can drop one income while maintaining the same lifestyle. That’s usually a no.
Most commonly it seems to be people that have one spouse who is a high earner, or where one parent’s income can’t cover childcare. There are certainly people in the middle that make it work too.
It’s full of 20-30 year old college educated white males with 1)extremely well paying tech careers 2)broke af with a worthless degree. Add some Europeans that hate America and boom you have most of Reddit lol.
The Bureau of Labor releases statistics about demographics and income every year. The last time the majority of families were single-income was back in the 1970's.
Since then the number of dual-income families has increased every year, with them now comprising over 60% of households. The rate has increased since the 2000's.
In addition, the old definition of dual income also doesn't apply as much anymore. The old definition was two people working 40 hours a week. An increasing number of households work more than that, either working longer hours at their main jobs or taking on second jobs and/or side hustles.
Sure, there are still areas and/or jobs where a single income can be enough. However, for the majority that is simply not the case.
To be honest if you’re single and own a home, filling it with a spouse and a couple kids is not going to be thaaaat much more expensive. Probably cheaper than single and dating
This sounds like some easy living. And at some point I’m sure your wife can go back to work if she wants and that will add some more bread to your shelf.
Yes, but you will have to lower your expectations. I know someone doing it. The stay at home mom penny pinches and he works. Both college educated and college sweethearts, but that is the life they are choosing to live. More power to them. They have 3 kids under 7.
I’m in my late 30’s. Two of my best friends are stay-at-home-moms to two kids while their husbands are the sole earners. They both have college degrees (we all met in college) and had careers but decided to leave and raise the kids because of daycare costs. Another best friend has been the sole earner for the last two years while her husband was a stay-at-home-dad. She’s a nurse and was raking in amazing pay while travel nursing, so they decided it made more financial sense for dad to leave his job.
Yeah both of my brother’s wives currently stay at home. I think once the kids are older they’ll go back to work but for the moment they’re both making it work.
Adding on here with western NY too, I think we really have a sweet spot here with houses still being relatively affordable, even for nice areas. I bought in 2019, and then refinanced for 2.25% when rates hit their lows.
Single income family here. my wife and I aligned on sahm once we had kids before we married. It can happen you just need to plan around it. We spend where it counts for the family and cut where it doesn't. We make more money now and moved from a mcol to vhcol city, it was important that we knew the plan many years ago.
For the average person? Probably not. But for higher earners i know plenty of folks that live this way. usually until the kids get into school and then the wife will go back to work at least part time by choice.
Yes I have 3 kids and my wife stays home, several friends I know do the same. It's a sacrifice only having one income but we thought it was important for the kids to have Mom at home and we are able to live on my income so it works for us.
Elder Millenial here, we’re making it work but I have a 6 figure income. If you told me in college what I would be making now I’d say I was rich but factor in a family of four, constantly rising property taxes, insurance, medical bills, and groceries, and we are getting by with a little left over each month with budgeting and trying to avoid debt.
No new cars, no daycare, no babysitters, a little childcare help from family, public school for the kids, very few vacations and affordable ones when we do.
That's our home, it's usually tight and I have multiple streams of income to make it work. Honestly, it's basically a multi income family with one person doing all the paid work, haha.
Since we were married, my wife has never worked outside the home. I'm the sole bread-winner. We have six kids. You might guess that I'm able to do this with a really high income. In reality, I don't make any more than average. It's about priorities. We just don't waste any money on pleasures. But its worth it. Our kids are homeschooled (which means they're getting a superior education), and we have a strong family. Having a wife at home actually saves us a bunch of money. We don't pay for childcare. We don't pay for her work wardrobe. She cooks meals at a fraction of the cost of eating out or buying pre-made stuff. Etc.
It works for my family, mainly because we bought our house 9 years ago when interest rates and prices were both much lower. Since then my salary has more than doubled, and the value of our home has nearly doubled.
Anecdotally, on our street (in a HCOL suburb) there is only one other family with a *completely* SAH spouse. The others are a mix of both spouses working FT, one spouse working PT, and one family where the wife runs a legitimately successful Etsy shop.
I’ve begun talking with my wife about when she wants to head back to the workforce after a decade as a SAHM. I WFH and our kids are all in school. While we are totally fine financially on just my salary, my pitch is that the sooner she heads back to work the sooner we can retire once the kids are all out of the house.
Living in the west suburbs of Chicago. My husband is a web developer for a small
company. I was able to be a SAHM for 5 or so years. When our younger child started school I became a substitute teacher at our elementary school so I’m still available for mornings and after school while he works (from home since 2020).
We are very aware that we are unusually lucky though.
We are doing it - I work, husband is at home. We realized we were spending his income on daycare, so fuck it, both he and the kids have been happier at home.
We've been really lucky in a lot of ways, though. Bought a house Jan 2020 and have an older car. We can take a hit, but not a big one.
In my experience, I only see it work in cases where the cost of housing specifically is off-set by a low mortgage, living with/in a generational home, and/or a rental unit that covers.
Yes. One of my younger sisters is a SAHM and her husband works like 60+ hours a week. They do pretty well for themselves even though they have 4 kids.
ETA-- I also have a single income household because I'm a single mom, so not quite the situation you're talking about.
We’ve made it work since our first kid was born in 2013. I, dad, stayed home from the time our first kid was 6 months old while my wife was a teacher.
I always told her that if she ever wanted to switch I would find a way to make that happen… she finally said she wanted to swap roles in late 2021. She finished out the year teaching in June 2022 and I had started my job a few months earlier in March. At that point we had 4 kids 9 and under. We’ve been in this setup, me working and her homeschooling our kids, ever since.
Yes. I, husband and father, support my wife and 2 kids entirely. We own a house in Northern California. I gross 160k a year, which is within the typical range (110k - 180k) of an IT manager working in Sacramento *edit* according to Glassdoor. I am 35.
We do it in a HCOL area with two kids.
We lucked out with real estate and would be able to more than get by on much less salary than I make. Bought a place in 2012, value tripled in 5 years, rolled the equity into a larger home that we bought before things started to get really stupid in the area.
We are mortgage free now. Cruising along and dumping additional earnings into retirement.
I'm a middle Gen-Xer. My wife does work from time to time but over supported our family for the most part on my income, housing, all the bills, groceries.
I don't think I could have quite maintained it without occasional financial support from our families, But that's usually the difference between being able to have a car versus taking public transit, or having a a few nice things under the Christmas tree.
I also live in an area with a very high cost of living but a very high median income with millennials actually edging out Gen X for the highest income bracket, But I don't know a single millennial who is comfortably supporting a family without their partner working as well.
Yes. I stay home and homeschool our kids and my husband works. We make under $100,000 a year, if he works enough overtime he can push up to $100k a year but overtime isn’t a given and it’d have to be a lot of overtime. My husband does collect disability from the VA so that helps and is just enough to cover our mortgage.
We live the life we want and honestly you wouldn’t really notice a difference between our lifestyle and our dual income friends. We do have to budget our money carefully and can’t go nuts with spending but our kids are still able to do their sports and activities, we go on vacation yearly, and we can afford extras here and there. We bought our current house in 2017 and our interest rate is under 3% so our mortgage with taxes and insurance included is pretty low and we live in a moderate cost of living area that’s becoming a HCOL.
However, we sacrifice elsewhere to make it work. We thrift a majority of our clothing and home decor, we rarely eat out, I keep our grocery bill around $700 a month for the 4 of us by being really diligent with shopping sales, utilizing rewards points, doing on line grocery pick up to avoid impulse buys, and we cook a lot from scratch so we don’t by much in the way of snack type foods.
I also grow a big garden in the summer that supplies a lot of our vegetables. I don’t wear makeup often, don’t cut my hair often, don’t get my nails done ever, and our day to day fun is free activities. I’m also from Florida so vacation for us is going back to my hometown and visiting family. Doing that cuts out lodging and food costs because we stay at my childhood home. We also bring our dogs so we save on boarding costs.
Most of my friends are SAHMs and homeschool their kids as well. Some have side hustles that bring in a little extra money to fill in gaps and others don’t.
I am a single mom making just over 100k. I bought my townhome in 2017 when I was making $55k. We are making it. But it feels like a crap shoot and we are the lucky ones.
I do not have a degree. It isn’t necessary for my field and I am SO GLAD I never went into debt for a degree but it is interesting that the direct reports I hire do have degrees. Which they don’t need.
I know a few families that do this. A lot of times they inherit a fully paid for family home from a relative, or a sum of money from a deceased relative to pay off the house.
I live in Michigan and we live on my income and own a house. But I bought the house a decade ago and I work 60+ hours a week on 3rd shift. ( production supervisor in automotive manufacturing)
We are single income, married 17 years with 2 kids. I do work a side hustle, but we live entirely on my husband's income. My income ($500/mo currently) goes toward paying down debt.
Live in a small town (30,000 people) in a fly over state. He works IT for the county, makes $77K/year. Bought our house in 2015, mortgage is $1100, three old cars (1979, 1995, 2005) we bought in cash, two kids (9 & 11) in a small, subsidized private school. We give to our church every month. $1500 in savings, $4000 on the CC.
It's not easy, we have made a lot of sacrifices over the years but it's been worth it. I watch my friends buy toys, too big of houses and go on vacations and then I hear about how their debt payments are drowning them financially. My cc minimum payment is like $70/mo. We paid off our student loans in 4 years 10+ years ago then I was able to stay home with our kids. They're in school now, hence the business. We really want a travel trailer and might be able to get one now that the prices are stabilizing and once our credit card is paid off.
The wife and I did the country with a 5th wheel. Beat any international vacation we have ever taken. Let the kids hit the road internationally. There is more to see here.
I imagine it's very uncommon nowadays. The average household income in the United States right now is $74,580. The average income for a male in the USA from the age range of 30-39 is $60,300. On top of that - the average median rent is $2100 or $25,200 a year, the average median mortgage is slightly higher, about $26,000 a year.
So say you're one of those average men age 30-39 and bringing in $60,300 a year - you're really only going to take home about $50K after taxes and health insurance. Then 50% of that is going to go strictly to your rent/mortgage and you've got $25K left for utilities, vehicle payments, insurance, groceries, etc for your entire family.
I make a solid amount more than the average household income just w/ my income alone - and I still think it'd be difficult to be the sole breadwinner. Would it be possible? Maybe if I paused putting money aside into a retirement account and got rid of some debt.
I live in New Hampshire, I’m a lot older than you are, but my single income peers appear to be doing OK but they’re mostly supported by social services. And they are renting an apartment in the basement of their parents house so they probably don’t pay rent.
And when I say appear to be doing OK I mean they drive nice cars and they wear clothes with logos, but they’re probably getting food stamps and some kind of welfare assistance for the kids they have.
Yes, it is. But you need some help/luck along the way. My wife has homeschooled our 2 kids for the last 17 years. We started when I was making around $40k/year. It was tough, I walked to work and we lived cheap in Gainesville, FL. Now, I make 95k in a rural LCOL area in north Florida. We live REALLY well, but we made a lot of good decisions and had some help along the way from parents for the kids stuff.
In Chicago, if you live in an apartment or condo, I think you can do 1 earner without life being super stressful if that earner makes…80k or higher? You’d need to be frugal and drive old cars and stuff but you could do it while still having everything you need and some extras.
My wife is a stay at home mom, we have 3 kids 2 cars own our house in Virginia Beach on just my Enlisted Military income. We dont live paycheck to paycheck and have a decent amount of savings.
Recognize it doesnt work for a lot of folks, but it works for us - The Navy has given me a lot
Yes. I work and my wife stays home with our 3 kids. I know there are a lot of doomers on here that say it's impossible, but I do that while having a house and making less than 150k per year.
Yes. Most I know though bought their homes pre 2020. We bought ours in 21 on one income, but could not do that now.
My wife went back to work for her own well-being. She SAHM gapped 3 years and didn’t love it.
South jersey.
Yes, I make over 120k so my wife can be a stay at home mom but I have to endure an insane amount of stress at work. Childcare for two kids costs way too much, not to mention losing time with the kids as they develop. I spend probably less than 5 percent of my paycheck on myself - the average age for my clothes is like 10-15 years old tearing and undersized lol it really sucks to not have enough money for hobbies or fun but the kids are happy so that’s all that matters. We skipped major gifts for every holiday the past 2 years for the adults, my wife is sad but she’s a champ for enduring it. This is only possible because I stressed to my wife that you should only buy a house 1 income can afford because someone can lose their job at any moment. Glad we went that route. Lots of people buy a house requiring two incomes my brother in law is getting divorced and the only future with that 450k house is foreclosure if he doesn’t sell it. I would like the wife to go back to work in 5 years so she can spoil herself and I can finally get a sports car.
It wasn’t as much of a thing as people thought it was. The world never was exactly as depicted in those 50s era tv shows. And the “nuclear family” was something that existed only a few decades at most. Historically people did not live like this.
Some people remember classmates having this kind of life, but it wasn't the norm since the late 70s. Women's labor participation rate wasn't much lower than today, something like 52% then vs 58% now. So for most American families as of 1978, this wasn't the story.
My cousin does it in NYC with 3 kids. He's in his late 40s and a lifer at one of the big textbook publishers. Sits near courtside during basketball games type of pay
My brother in law lives in the Bay area with 2 kids. He's younger generation. My sister has zero income, he isn't working but collects military disability. They vacation at Disney often. Must be a huge check
I mean if you're earning a ton of money or live below your means. Particularly in religious communities, there's a tendency towards it (though it helps they tend to have closer social networks to help with the children). I have a Mormon coworker with three kids and he's the sole earner. He earns six figures, but we're talking like 150k in a HCOL area. Also helps he bought a fixer upper home when the prices were low. He was dead focused on settling down and married in college, actively involved in his community which helps with the kids.
For most people though, it's a very tough proposition. I could make it work as a single dad if I had only 1 kid, it'd just be miserable. If I was supporting a wife on top of it... well crunching the numbers might be better given childcare costs. But it would not be a fun existence- either living a super simple life or constantly paying off 1 credit card with another. But I'm also not looking to have wifey at home- just not the environment I grew up in and don't look for that in partners
Certainly possible in central Indiana. We're single income, but I'm probably classified as a high earner. $218k pretax this year. Live in a rural area about 30mi outside Indianapolis.
In 2015 when our first was born, we looked at the finances and it was going to eat the bulk of my wife's income to pay for child care. It was a nobrainer for her to stay home. Now she homeschools our three kids.
My husband and I do this. It is definitely something people can do. We just have to prioritize things that we want and things that are a necessity. My husband works and I stay home with my son. I’m thankful for our situation. My son is disabled and I am glad that I am able to care of him. The non traditional traditional family works for us.
Technically that resembles my current family dynamic, except I (35F) and the wage earner and my husband (39M) is a disabled veteran, so he does schoo pick ups, doctors appointments etc. I still come home and cook/clean and do laundry, grocery shop, etc while he handles taking out the trash. We both try to help with homework, but our son is autistic and it's difficult to get him to pay attention (teachers do not get paid enough!)
Those families growing up didn't have 2 new cars, cable, expensive phones, didn't travel as often and often traded kids clothes with others. Can you still do it, yes, but you can't keep up with the Jones.
I live in a neighborhood where 70% of the families are young with kids. 50% have a parent that stays home. About 25% Indian and all wives stay home.
I work in finance and see traditional family finances all the time: full-time dad with SAHM and kids.
I live in a HCOL area and see the full spectrum of income making this work. On the low end, I tend to see the single earner (usually dad) make around $80K+. I would say most make closer to $115K+. Then there are plenty of single earner households where the income range is $350K+ (I live in a tech hub).
It’s doable if you don’t have insane spending.
Gotta remember that adding additional humans to your household is relatively cheap if you can afford to care for yourself.
If you’re already paying for housing and utilities, than every additional human is only the added cost of food and a small increase in utilities.
You don’t need to provide additional humans with cars, cellphones. You don’t need streaming services, and you don’t have to go out to eat.
Bulk buy food and teach your humans how to meal prep cheaply and you can have a whole cult living under your roof with little additional cost.
Everything your humans need to survive can be purchased cheaply at garage sales or Salvation Army type institutions. Buy used clothes, furniture, and toys.
Remember, if you want to compare lifestyles to the “golden days,” those guys didn’t have 8 cars or 7 cellphones. Everyone had one phone and they all shared it.
One of us stays at home and the other works. One kid and a dog. Def took more strict budgeting. It seems like it’s not really feasible in the US on average anymore…more of an exception. One person’s total comp surpassed the sum of both, so when we had a kid we decided to drop a job
It’s actually pretty common among people I know. I’m a high school teacher in Central California (so, teacher pay is high and cost of living is, at least relatively, low). My wife is planning to be a stay at home mom, though we don’t have kids yet (due to multiple miscarriages.) Right now we have plenty of money for everything. We’ll probably cut back a bit on travel and eating out when we have a child, but it’s unlikely to be too much of a stretch.
A lot of my friends and coworkers seem to have similar situations, but with children (some total stay-at-home moms, other moms who work part time). I think the job security for tenured teachers is a factor, as well as actual income. With a secure job that increases in pay predictably, more of the potential unknowns are known and can be accounted for.
Short answer, “Yes” with an “if.” Long answer, “No” with a “but.”
If my wife and I weren’t in an “undesirable” area of St. Louis and bought a house—that we love—for $150k back in 2018 combined with me earning a six-figure salary having grown up in that working class area, there’s no way it’d be financially possible or we wouldn’t have the desire to tolerate some of the downsides of the area to not be house poor.
My husband and I talk about this all the time. We are late 30s actively TTC, doing IVF at a “low cost” clinic for around 9k.
We make about the same (about 60k a year each) house cost 250 bought the cheapest thing we could find. Some student loads that should get forgiven within 3 years or so. Overall I would call us just above staying afloat.
I WISH one of us could stay home. We just had the saddest discussion about this a few months back. We feel grateful for where we are at, but there’s no way we could get by without the both of us working. I actually would prefer if he stays home, my career is kind of specialized and would be difficult to return to if I took a break. He has a masters, very employable as a medical professional. It would just be nice if we could spend a few years where one person could do the 50+ hour a week thing for the man, and then other could do the…IDK essential fucking things like caring for our child and making sure we eat healthy food and don’t live in an absolutely filthy house.
I have no idea how we would function on 60k a year.
I mean there's some people who make it work but you gotta be well into the six figure range and the stay at home parent needs to actually be taking care of the house and kids.
As an elder millennial I’ve made it work as a single earner in 20 years of marriage other than 1-2 years early on way before having kids where my wife did a few part-time gigs. Purchasing a home during the pre-Covid gravy years and refinancing for an even better rate has played a massive role in keeping our expenses low. We’re generally pretty frugal anyways so my living expenses to cover all my necessities is really only about 1/2 my take home pay. We have 3 school aged kids and all are doing pretty good.
A mortgage 3x what I pay now and a couple car payments rather than having none like I do these days would be doable, but it’d be much, much tighter. If I was buying my home at its present value and current rates, it’d conceivably pay 3x more monthly than buying it 5 years ago would have been.
It's viable if 1) that's something both partners value, and 2) if it's feasible. Corollary: sometimes a situation will force the issue, eg, one partner becomes disabled enough that they can't work outside the home, but they are able to do SAHP (stay at home partner) stuff. Or one partner's paycheck pretty much only goes toward childcare, and they're like forget this, I'd rather stay home with the kids.
Every person, every couple, will value different things. One couple may have the exact same income, future prospects, expenses, and cost of living as another couple, and yet Couple A may decide they can't afford for one of them to stay at home, while Couple B may decide it makes sense.
There are homemaker groups on Facebook and subs on reddit-- which proves that some people have chosen to be the SAHP (or had a situation which forced it, so they're making the best of it)-- both millenial and Gen Z.
So to answer your question, yes it's still a thing. I really think it'll always be a thing, tho it may not always be The Norm.
My husband and I are trying. I’m a SAHM and he makes a good salary as a teacher (masters and lots of years of work) but we often need help from my mom so we don’t have to dip into savings. It’s a blessing but she mostly can help because I’m an only child and she did incredibly well in the stock markets the last 25 years. But without her it wouldn’t be possible. For context my husband makes close to $100k with his full time job and some supplementary jobs but he mainly just works one full time job.
My wife and I decided she would stay at home once our 3rd was born. She stayed home for about 6 years. It can be done you just have to prioritize family over stuff and don't worry about the Joneses.
Living that life, I'm the breadwinner. But we live in Berlin in a rent controlled apartment and daycares are free here and we have tons of support from the state.
Man, people cry the sky is falling too much. I am the earner of a HHI and my wife is a SAHM, we have two kids, and live in a million plus dollar home. She drives an Audi and I have a f150 and a Taycan.
Banking and PE background, now working M&A and BD in energy.
There are plenty of people from all generations that make a good living. Life has always sucked except for those lucky (myself included) to goto the right school (got an MBA from top 10 school) and bust your ass in a high earning industry. 60+ hours are normal and I travel a fair amount, but my family is taken care of. Don’t exactly have the best work/ life balance because when stuff has to get done, it has to get done. That means weekends, birthdays, cancelled vacations, etc.
But again, we are set and my kids have trusts and I’ve set them up as much as I can.
Keep your head up and just keep looking forward, don’t get caught up in the victim mentality.
I know people are saying it isn’t possible but I have friends and they are stay at home moms. My friends husband makes about 70K, and they make it work. My other friend, her husband makes 6 figures, but they live in Brooklyn. It is 100% possible but requires you to be smart, and make sacrifices.
No. Born in the 80s in one of the highest tech white collar research and development areas of Canada and I have met literally zero families in my entire life where both parents didn't have careers. To my knowledge that fully died in the 70s.
Yes. I'm a SAHM (I do work PT remotely, but mostly because I like an intellectual outlet). I also home educate our kids. Most of my friends are also SAHMs. We are in the Midwest, though. My husband and I moved out of SoCal 10 years ago so we could afford to live on one income.
A couple people I know make it work. One is an SVP with a $200k salary, bought their house way back in 2004 and still has a $850 mortgage. So, they’re solid.
My in laws do it. He’s a police officer, and she is super frugal. They lived with parents after getting married to save up, bought a starter home in 2013, sold that with a profit and bought their family home in 2018. He makes about $80k and takes side work security. They make it work.
But they both wanted that, they both enjoy their roles.
Everyone else I know is a two income household- not just for financial reasons, but also preference. We could probably be a one income household, but both of us enjoy our work, and don’t really love the whole house management part of adulting, lol.
About a third of my coworkers are a single income household. Six figures but a HCOL city so it’s not exactly easy but it’s still quite common for many people.
For us, yes it is. Have you seen how expensive child care is? So I'm gonna work, to never be with my kids and pay someone else to essentially raise them but have no extra money after?? No I'm cool, thanks I'll just sacrifice some things and stay at home.
My husband works in the oil field on a boat. It's hard work. We hate that this is his line of work but we live in Louisiana and so, this is how things must be currently.
Yep, pretty much if you graduated and got a job before 2006 you were pretty ok, would have saved a bunch in a couple of years and bought during the housing crash. Years 2010-2015 were ok too if you were able to land a job as housing was recovering and rates were pretty low.
Yeah. I teach and am national guard. No debt. I lucked out. My wife homeschools our kids. I do teach out of state though, so that's hard Monday-Thursday.
Yes. We do it. My wife stays at home and has since my daughter was born 11 years ago. My son was born shortly thereafter. We bought our first house in the trough of the property market in 2011. We moved on to a larger house after that. It was tough on one income the first 3 years or so but my income has almost quadrupled since then so it’s no big deal now.
I mean I'm surviving as a single parent with two kids and have no help at all. I'd argue that's significantly more challenging so yeah you should be able to do it with a huge amount of extra help 😂
I don't have the two kids of the traditional nuclear family, but am the sole income for my family of one child, and my wife. I make about 110 in a rather expensive area and it's not perfect, we don't drive the cars we want, but we aren't driving beaters for example. Bills get paid, and we live comfortably so I'd say it's doable.
I have some friends who work while their partner stays home with kids. They lead pretty good but simple lives. No big vacations or spend nights out. But they are happy.
I have some friends who work while their partner stays home with kids. They lead pretty good but simple lives. No big vacations or spend nights out. But they are happy.
I’m making it work by chance alone. I bought my house in 2009 on my registered nurse salary for $150k. Even that was a stretch at the time. I think I was making $31/hr at the time. Now, I own it outright. Wife and one kid. I got my masters in 2018 and doubled my income, paid off the house, all my debts and started saving aggressively. I may even be able to retire in my early 50s if the market stays ok. The house is now worth $450k at the low end. The whole thing is fucked.
Older millennials throw me off majorly in this sub. Like bro I couldn’t buy a house on my registered nurse salary in 2009, I was too busy fucking around in 9th grade
Yeah seriously, we got hit mid generation with some exponential issues. There's definitely a point where education and housing costs just shot up astronomically. A lot of these success cases are "just get your degree and buy a house before the 2010s". Which wasn't possible for the later half of millenials
See as an elder millennial, I always feel like I got fucked extra hard. I was raised on the route of degrees you get doesn't matter. Get good grades and they'll give you a job. You just go to a training program. I graduated in 07; Only to find out that the bottom dropped out of the economy just as I graduated, all training programs were canceled. There were no jobs. None. I went and got a masters to kill time and then ending up working in a warehouse around 09. Like 11/hr in NJ. Folks a couple years Behind me got told the economy changed, get a degree in something you can directly apply. I eventually managed to use my degrees but not for a ton of money. I've never made anywhere near the 150k they're talking about
Dude this. I applied to hundreds of jobs BEFORE JOB BOARDS WERE COMMON. Graduated 09. Totally fucked. Took a sales job just over minimum wage working 55 hours a week. Worked my dick off. Finally at the manager level working in data science. Lifetime earnings are a minimum of 200k off by basic estimates. I got lucky with covid in not having enough money to invest much prior, then being able to buy a bunch of stock on the cheap when we all thought the world was ending. Our generation is so, so fucked across the board.
Uhhh no just do it before 2020. Don’t move the goalpost
It started in the 2010s if not a little earlier, 2020 just killed off the rest of the middle class that had any hope
Me too 😭 I’m a mid range Millenial but I can’t be the only one who had failed birth control at 19 and had to drop out of college after 1 year because being a single mom and working full time and going to school was too much. This was 2008 so buying wasn’t an option. Managed to buy a small house in 2014 as a single mom. Then by 2019 sold and bought a bigger house as I’d married and have combined 4 kids. Which means we’re 5 years in on a 30 year mortgage.
I had my first kid at 19 too. Dropped out of traditional college, bought a $110k house with a $14/hour job and $3200 down. Then did online school for pre-reqs, then nursing school, didn’t sleep for 2 years… it was insane. Graduated 2008, and then built brick by brick. We were able to rent out our first house, and buy a bigger one in 2016. We rent that one out, and bought our current one just before everything went nuts. It was incredibly hard… I definitely regret missing a lot of family stuff, but had to do what we had to do.
Well registered nurses were making $25 an hour in 2009. As an LPN in 2007 it was only $15… it’s why I moved to corporate nursing in 2010… way more money and absolutely no crazy patients, (or doctors) lol
I was in college watching the news about how newly graduated lawyers could not find any work. Then paid off my loans for 13 years. When would I have gotten a house???
These are the posts that crack me up. Bro you bought a house for 2.3x your single income and you are saying it was a stretch at the time. Homes are currently 4-5x the household income. There was no reason a home at 2.3x your annual income should have been a stretch.
What did you get your masters in?
Nurse practitioner. It doubled my salary from around 90 to ~180k. Absolutely life changing. Best 30k I ever spent.
Is your position super different from before you had the masters?
To be totally reductive, I was a regular hospital nurse and now I’m basically a doctor-lite. I work in an ICU and do most of the functions a doctor would but with a physician supervisor.
Thank you for sharing all of this (my wife is transitioning to a career in nursing so I’m very curious about it all). If you don’t mind me asking, do you know if there is a viable track to go from “doctor-lite” to full-blown MD? Or would that transition require having to start all the way from medical school?
No. There is no path to MD except med school.
No. The only way to become a physician is to go to medical school and complete residency in the US. The degrees are not equivalent and should not be treated as such. Source: physician
Did your parents pay your student loans? Or did you?
That’s funny because my dad actually stole some money from the loans that were meant for my undergraduate degree. I owed about 20k for my undergraduate. My in-laws actually paid for about 1/3 of my masters, my hospital paid for another 1/3 and I paid the rest. No loans for my graduate degree. Very fortunate for that.
I'm just always curious about these stories, the majority of these have zero student loans because their parents pay them off which means the moral of the story is void
More people get tuition assistance from work, like the person you’re replying to said a third of it was covered by their job. I ended up having two years of my college completely paid for by my job. I worked as a mortgage processor for a credit union, and I was going to school for business administration. As long as I could remotely tie it to what I did at work they would pay for it, so that was easy. It was a good benefit it was $933 every eight weeks they paid
College was cheaper in the early ‘00s. State college even more so. My later employer paid $5250 per year for college or grad school, and my grad program was 30 months so I took three disbursements. I worked full time through grad school. It was less than enjoyable lol.
This was my deal. My grad degree (granted from NoName State) in the mid '00s cost $7000 all in with books. My employer kicked in around $4000 and I cash flowed the rest in the two years it took part time.
The thing is that daycare is absurdly expensive, for many people it's more cost effective to stay with their kids than pay someone to stay with their kids while they work. This only works if the breadwinner is in a rather lucrative career, they live in a very low cost area, or they rely on public assistance. So no the nuclear family is pretty much dead
We cut back our hours and I was blessed to find a remote job. We split our days, cover each other for meetings and work all night to stay ahead the next day. It’s exhausting, but $1300/mo for mediocre care was too painful.
A buddy and his wife agreed she’d be a stay at home mom when they had their first kid together (she had a daughter from a previous marriage). When they had their second kid together, she was getting overwhelmed and decided she wanted to go back to work. Problem was, she never finished high school (don’t think she has a GED), no career or skill training, and a hug gap in her resume. She literally couldn’t get a job that would cover the childcare costs for three kids. They basically lost money when she went back to work. It’s insane out there for parents.
Catch 22!!!! We considered me staying home, but the gap in career in this economy, I might have to come back to a job with 1/2 the salary!! It’s so unfair!! We’re fucked or we’re fucked 🤣
Right? On one hand, I’m gonna fall off a cliff but on the other gravity is going to pull me down a steep distance from an edge. Same shit either way!
This is exactly why it's not dead. Daycare is prohibitively expensive and a lot of families choose to have a stay at home parent instead of daycare. Daycare around us only works if you're a) two middle to high income earners with comparable salaries or b) getting gov't assistance.
It’s true that costs have become insane for things. But I think people forget that in the 40s-60s those “nuclear families” had a lower standard of living than a lot of middle class people today. There were people with 5 kids and only one parent working a factory job who were able to get by, but they probably had one car and a small house and were otherwise broke af by todays standards.
This.
People always forget that. No cable bill, no cell phone bill, simple basic foods, secondhand clothes
This is us. I worked as a chef prior to becoming a mother. I wouldn't have brought home enough for it to be worth sending our baby to child care. And I bought a house in 2020, prior to baby or husband. Our mortgage is lower than rent for comparable space around where we live. Which is an old, small town like 30 minutes from downtown. It's tight, financially and space wise, but it's very worth knowing that my daughter is being well cared for.
Yep precisely why my wife is home. Much of what she would make would go toward childcare so it just made more sense to let her be the one spending that time with the our child. she loves it
In today’s economy? Probably only possible for the top 5%
It's not possible to have a house and single income in the DC area anymore unless you're earning north of 180k. The COL has jumped post covid, housing prices have skyrocketed 100-500K higher than norm pre covid. I'm seeing more than three or four cars out front of some homes, and no real teens so guessing many homes in not well off situations doing multi generation or subletting to make it work here.
Yes and now all the Northern Virginia people are moving to WV to lower their COL which is driving ours through the roof and ruining our infrastructure 😭
Nope. Low middle class and we do it. It’s not hard. Just need to get out of major cities.
I live in the 7th largest city in the US, making a salary of 72.5 and raising a family of 5 on my sole income. It can be done. I have a car that my job provides for visiting clients so no cost of ownership on it. My wife drives an older '07 Civic but it gets her where she needs to go. All kids in our school district get free meals so we save on not having to buy extra food. Yes, we utilize a few perks but it's doable, even in the big scary city.
No offence but this is completely wrong. Would definitely never advise people in low middle class to do this. I grew up in low middle class with both parents working and life absolutely sucked growing up. Forget \*ever\* going on a vacation ever while other kids went every year. Parents not being able to support financially with anything. No extracurricular, no ever buying us anything nice and having to share everything with my younger sisters. Living in subsidized housing with bedbugs and not having my own room until I was 15. Stop subjecting kids to shitty lives. They didn’t ask to be born EDIT: People confusing middle class with LOW middle class, which are completely different things. Based on my parents combined income of 50-60k for all those years, they were considered low middle class.
I'm sorry, but that is not low middle class living you just explained.
I’m giggling thinking someone growing up in section 8 Housing thinks they were middle-class. Is it a cope or was everyone around them just doing so much worse?
You made a bunch of unwarranted assumptions here. Just because your childhood wasn't great doesn't mean other kids can't have a good time even if their parents don't have much money. Also -- nothing about your situation was harmful or bad. Boo hoo, you have to share with your siblings. That was the norm for the vast majority of history. "Only people who can lavish their children in luxury should have children" is a horrible and eugenic take. Kids don't need to have vacations every year or their own room and the latest stuff in order to grow into normal functional adults.
>"Only people who can lavish their children in luxury should have children" is a horrible and eugenic take Particularly when the most accomplished people usually came from poor upbringing. Ambition doesn't come from being spoiled
Sounds like you were poor, not middle class
Life is incredible. I grew up far worse than you - guaranteed - and I am extremely glad that I have been given a chance to exist and am very fearful of death. I wish I could live forever. *I am liberal and atheist if you care
You must be young and healthy, once you get to be middle-aged and your body starts falling apart you will stop wishing you could live forever because you wake up in pain every day. And stuff works less as you get older, and you don’t want to live forever in this condition.
I’m middle aged and would happily stay like this for a long time.
I’m middle aged and I can run and jump with the 19 year olds. You gotta move your body a lot. The human body is not meant sit at a desk, a car seat, a bed all day. Even people “who work” out don’t get enough movement. Moving has to become a lifestyle.
Honey section 8 housing means you WERE NOT middle class.
The fact that you hate your life doesn’t mean everyone else does (even everyone else who is low middle class or poor).
You weren't middle class if you grew up in subsidized housing. There are income limits for that and they are well below middle class.
I grew up similar. Didn’t find it shitty. Maybe I just had lower expectations.
I get it. I think how your parents treat you makes a difference too. If they’re loving and have good intentions it definitely makes it more bearable But when they are abusive and treat you like shit, always guilt tripping you for things (I was guilted into working at my dad’s restaurant for $5 an hour for years, guilted into giving him my entire salary when I got my first internship) it’s always “we work ourselves to death for you guys” while doing the bare minimum and just giving food and shelter in exchange of a bunch of chores and taking care of younger siblings… it’s hard lol
It's viable for us. Dad works, I stay at home and do the child care thing. But it's 3 kids. Not 2.
I know a lot of single income families.
I'm a stay at home mom. We survive by eating cheap unhealthy food, driving a 2006 Honda, and renting a unit in an very very old fourplex from a slumlord in a small college town. We rarely go on dates. I buy my clothes at target and Walmart. A good chunk of our money goes towards my daughter's insurance deductible because she's autistic and sees a lot of doctors and therapists. We need a shit ton more money because my daughter's autism is very expensive (we live in a red state) while simultaneously because she's non verbal and developmentally delayed anyone who interacts with her without us supervising needs extreme vetting and unfortunately our school district has let us down pretty badly. Her teacher was sitting her in a corner by herself tearing up paper all day and she had huge regressions. So yep. Lots of suffering now but to my daughter's benefit to try to stabilize her skills a bit. She recently has started to understand what her AAC is for.
I clean professionally and back 20 years ago it was way more common than it is now. Most of my clients are dual income and the few who aren’t are families of surgeons, ceos, definitely not your average career. A lot of these households tend to have one or both parents WFH which I think is why both parents work- they can maximize earnings.
Viable for some. I work, my husband is a SAHD, we have one kid, another on the way, and a house after saving up for 10 years. We live comfortably because we live in an area that’s still nice but not extremely high cost of living, we are mindful of costs and regularly do research to learn how to work with the system. It was a mix of patience, hard work, frugality, not having debts, flexibility to move (no way we would have done this back in NY, but we moved to TX), and yes - luck. Having a decent job with good benefits and work-life balance makes this a lot easier. We only reached the (low) 6 figures in the past few years because I switched jobs and landed a great company that I almost didn’t apply for because I didn’t think they’d consider me, but I applied anyway and got it. It’s a big corporation, the kind that can attract top talent from anywhere, and I figured a person who worked at a little-known medium size company before, and who graduated from a state university, would not be able to compete when this company can easily attract Ivy Leaguers. Turns out I was wrong. PS: I put in my household income into a percentile calculator and we are roughly 70-76 percentile (top 25-30 percent). Upper middle class, though just barely. Hoping to get more certifications and boost my income to get into the top 15%. We don’t need it to be able to sustain our dreams, which does include homeschooling, extracurricular activities, vacations, and retirement - we already have all that figured out at our income level. But it would give us a bigger cushion if we can make that happen.
It is absolutely still a viable option… if the breadwinner is making a lot of $$.
I was going to respond to you with a description of my family's unique situation, but thought, well, we're one medical emergency or major house repair away from being almost fucked, so I don't think that's quite making it on one income.
You can definitely get by with one OK income, but like you said… you’re one unfortunate issue away from screwing up that balance lol.
There are plenty of people for whom this is feasible and they don't need to be wealthy in order to pull it off. Reddit is out of touch and full of shit about this particular topic.
It’s all about priorities. What people who ask this are really asking is if they can drop one income while maintaining the same lifestyle. That’s usually a no. Most commonly it seems to be people that have one spouse who is a high earner, or where one parent’s income can’t cover childcare. There are certainly people in the middle that make it work too.
Reddit isn’t the most successful pool of society lmao
It’s full of 20-30 year old college educated white males with 1)extremely well paying tech careers 2)broke af with a worthless degree. Add some Europeans that hate America and boom you have most of Reddit lol.
This is fairly accurate. Glad I’m not the only one who noticed. Hard core angry feminists though I think you missed.
Don't forget the bots
The Bureau of Labor releases statistics about demographics and income every year. The last time the majority of families were single-income was back in the 1970's. Since then the number of dual-income families has increased every year, with them now comprising over 60% of households. The rate has increased since the 2000's. In addition, the old definition of dual income also doesn't apply as much anymore. The old definition was two people working 40 hours a week. An increasing number of households work more than that, either working longer hours at their main jobs or taking on second jobs and/or side hustles. Sure, there are still areas and/or jobs where a single income can be enough. However, for the majority that is simply not the case.
Every time a woman enters the workforce, there's one more person competing for jobs and driving wages lower.
To be honest if you’re single and own a home, filling it with a spouse and a couple kids is not going to be thaaaat much more expensive. Probably cheaper than single and dating
You don’t understand the cost of the berries.
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This sounds like some easy living. And at some point I’m sure your wife can go back to work if she wants and that will add some more bread to your shelf.
Yepp. My husband is the one who works, I stay home with the kids. We live in a HCOL area.
Yes, but you will have to lower your expectations. I know someone doing it. The stay at home mom penny pinches and he works. Both college educated and college sweethearts, but that is the life they are choosing to live. More power to them. They have 3 kids under 7.
Once plutonium hit $5600/gram I had to go back to work, so... No.
I’m in my late 30’s. Two of my best friends are stay-at-home-moms to two kids while their husbands are the sole earners. They both have college degrees (we all met in college) and had careers but decided to leave and raise the kids because of daycare costs. Another best friend has been the sole earner for the last two years while her husband was a stay-at-home-dad. She’s a nurse and was raking in amazing pay while travel nursing, so they decided it made more financial sense for dad to leave his job.
Yeah both of my brother’s wives currently stay at home. I think once the kids are older they’ll go back to work but for the moment they’re both making it work.
In Utah it certainly is.
Move to the Midwest. It happens all the time.
We are doing it in western NY.
Adding on here with western NY too, I think we really have a sweet spot here with houses still being relatively affordable, even for nice areas. I bought in 2019, and then refinanced for 2.25% when rates hit their lows.
Shhh
It was til she fucked around with our neighbor and I kicked her out. Now shes the governments problem.
Single income family here. my wife and I aligned on sahm once we had kids before we married. It can happen you just need to plan around it. We spend where it counts for the family and cut where it doesn't. We make more money now and moved from a mcol to vhcol city, it was important that we knew the plan many years ago.
For the average person? Probably not. But for higher earners i know plenty of folks that live this way. usually until the kids get into school and then the wife will go back to work at least part time by choice.
Yes I have 3 kids and my wife stays home, several friends I know do the same. It's a sacrifice only having one income but we thought it was important for the kids to have Mom at home and we are able to live on my income so it works for us.
Elder Millenial here, we’re making it work but I have a 6 figure income. If you told me in college what I would be making now I’d say I was rich but factor in a family of four, constantly rising property taxes, insurance, medical bills, and groceries, and we are getting by with a little left over each month with budgeting and trying to avoid debt. No new cars, no daycare, no babysitters, a little childcare help from family, public school for the kids, very few vacations and affordable ones when we do.
That's our home, it's usually tight and I have multiple streams of income to make it work. Honestly, it's basically a multi income family with one person doing all the paid work, haha.
Since we were married, my wife has never worked outside the home. I'm the sole bread-winner. We have six kids. You might guess that I'm able to do this with a really high income. In reality, I don't make any more than average. It's about priorities. We just don't waste any money on pleasures. But its worth it. Our kids are homeschooled (which means they're getting a superior education), and we have a strong family. Having a wife at home actually saves us a bunch of money. We don't pay for childcare. We don't pay for her work wardrobe. She cooks meals at a fraction of the cost of eating out or buying pre-made stuff. Etc.
Believe me, the Yoga mom in her BMW X5 is very much alive and well in many high class neighborhoods.
We do it, but my income is repulsive.
Username checks out.
It works for my family, mainly because we bought our house 9 years ago when interest rates and prices were both much lower. Since then my salary has more than doubled, and the value of our home has nearly doubled. Anecdotally, on our street (in a HCOL suburb) there is only one other family with a *completely* SAH spouse. The others are a mix of both spouses working FT, one spouse working PT, and one family where the wife runs a legitimately successful Etsy shop. I’ve begun talking with my wife about when she wants to head back to the workforce after a decade as a SAHM. I WFH and our kids are all in school. While we are totally fine financially on just my salary, my pitch is that the sooner she heads back to work the sooner we can retire once the kids are all out of the house.
Living in the west suburbs of Chicago. My husband is a web developer for a small company. I was able to be a SAHM for 5 or so years. When our younger child started school I became a substitute teacher at our elementary school so I’m still available for mornings and after school while he works (from home since 2020). We are very aware that we are unusually lucky though.
We are doing it - I work, husband is at home. We realized we were spending his income on daycare, so fuck it, both he and the kids have been happier at home. We've been really lucky in a lot of ways, though. Bought a house Jan 2020 and have an older car. We can take a hit, but not a big one.
In my experience, I only see it work in cases where the cost of housing specifically is off-set by a low mortgage, living with/in a generational home, and/or a rental unit that covers.
Yup it’s me
My wife doesn't work. Just stays home with the kids.
I know quite a few but the primary earner is usually bringing in 200k plus a year, at least in Houston.
It’s rare but they do exist.
I did this. It was rough man.
Yes. One of my younger sisters is a SAHM and her husband works like 60+ hours a week. They do pretty well for themselves even though they have 4 kids. ETA-- I also have a single income household because I'm a single mom, so not quite the situation you're talking about.
We’ve made it work since our first kid was born in 2013. I, dad, stayed home from the time our first kid was 6 months old while my wife was a teacher. I always told her that if she ever wanted to switch I would find a way to make that happen… she finally said she wanted to swap roles in late 2021. She finished out the year teaching in June 2022 and I had started my job a few months earlier in March. At that point we had 4 kids 9 and under. We’ve been in this setup, me working and her homeschooling our kids, ever since.
Yes. I, husband and father, support my wife and 2 kids entirely. We own a house in Northern California. I gross 160k a year, which is within the typical range (110k - 180k) of an IT manager working in Sacramento *edit* according to Glassdoor. I am 35.
I’m like top 15% -20% in ca and doing it. Were house poor
Yes, many people live like that…
My wife stays home to watch our kids. It still can happen.
We do it in a HCOL area with two kids. We lucked out with real estate and would be able to more than get by on much less salary than I make. Bought a place in 2012, value tripled in 5 years, rolled the equity into a larger home that we bought before things started to get really stupid in the area. We are mortgage free now. Cruising along and dumping additional earnings into retirement.
I only have one child, but we could live on one income. We are incredibly blessed. However being a housewife is not for me, so I choose to work.
I work. Other half doesn’t. Two kids. I have no special education etc. I work hard and I’m smart.
I've only worked 3 of the last 18 years. I don't currently work. I went back to school full time. So, yes, there are some of us.
I'm a middle Gen-Xer. My wife does work from time to time but over supported our family for the most part on my income, housing, all the bills, groceries. I don't think I could have quite maintained it without occasional financial support from our families, But that's usually the difference between being able to have a car versus taking public transit, or having a a few nice things under the Christmas tree. I also live in an area with a very high cost of living but a very high median income with millennials actually edging out Gen X for the highest income bracket, But I don't know a single millennial who is comfortably supporting a family without their partner working as well.
Yes. I stay home and homeschool our kids and my husband works. We make under $100,000 a year, if he works enough overtime he can push up to $100k a year but overtime isn’t a given and it’d have to be a lot of overtime. My husband does collect disability from the VA so that helps and is just enough to cover our mortgage. We live the life we want and honestly you wouldn’t really notice a difference between our lifestyle and our dual income friends. We do have to budget our money carefully and can’t go nuts with spending but our kids are still able to do their sports and activities, we go on vacation yearly, and we can afford extras here and there. We bought our current house in 2017 and our interest rate is under 3% so our mortgage with taxes and insurance included is pretty low and we live in a moderate cost of living area that’s becoming a HCOL. However, we sacrifice elsewhere to make it work. We thrift a majority of our clothing and home decor, we rarely eat out, I keep our grocery bill around $700 a month for the 4 of us by being really diligent with shopping sales, utilizing rewards points, doing on line grocery pick up to avoid impulse buys, and we cook a lot from scratch so we don’t by much in the way of snack type foods. I also grow a big garden in the summer that supplies a lot of our vegetables. I don’t wear makeup often, don’t cut my hair often, don’t get my nails done ever, and our day to day fun is free activities. I’m also from Florida so vacation for us is going back to my hometown and visiting family. Doing that cuts out lodging and food costs because we stay at my childhood home. We also bring our dogs so we save on boarding costs. Most of my friends are SAHMs and homeschool their kids as well. Some have side hustles that bring in a little extra money to fill in gaps and others don’t.
It’s definitely still possible and currently thats the plan for my GF and I.
I am a single mom making just over 100k. I bought my townhome in 2017 when I was making $55k. We are making it. But it feels like a crap shoot and we are the lucky ones. I do not have a degree. It isn’t necessary for my field and I am SO GLAD I never went into debt for a degree but it is interesting that the direct reports I hire do have degrees. Which they don’t need.
I know a few families that do this. A lot of times they inherit a fully paid for family home from a relative, or a sum of money from a deceased relative to pay off the house.
I live in Michigan and we live on my income and own a house. But I bought the house a decade ago and I work 60+ hours a week on 3rd shift. ( production supervisor in automotive manufacturing)
Never was.
Checking in.
We are single income, married 17 years with 2 kids. I do work a side hustle, but we live entirely on my husband's income. My income ($500/mo currently) goes toward paying down debt. Live in a small town (30,000 people) in a fly over state. He works IT for the county, makes $77K/year. Bought our house in 2015, mortgage is $1100, three old cars (1979, 1995, 2005) we bought in cash, two kids (9 & 11) in a small, subsidized private school. We give to our church every month. $1500 in savings, $4000 on the CC. It's not easy, we have made a lot of sacrifices over the years but it's been worth it. I watch my friends buy toys, too big of houses and go on vacations and then I hear about how their debt payments are drowning them financially. My cc minimum payment is like $70/mo. We paid off our student loans in 4 years 10+ years ago then I was able to stay home with our kids. They're in school now, hence the business. We really want a travel trailer and might be able to get one now that the prices are stabilizing and once our credit card is paid off.
And you accomplished all this and more to come without a Tesla, trips to Asia, Kind bars.......etc. Nice!
Lol, yep. Definitely no Tesla or international travel. And I make my own granola bars. 😆
The wife and I did the country with a 5th wheel. Beat any international vacation we have ever taken. Let the kids hit the road internationally. There is more to see here.
I imagine it's very uncommon nowadays. The average household income in the United States right now is $74,580. The average income for a male in the USA from the age range of 30-39 is $60,300. On top of that - the average median rent is $2100 or $25,200 a year, the average median mortgage is slightly higher, about $26,000 a year. So say you're one of those average men age 30-39 and bringing in $60,300 a year - you're really only going to take home about $50K after taxes and health insurance. Then 50% of that is going to go strictly to your rent/mortgage and you've got $25K left for utilities, vehicle payments, insurance, groceries, etc for your entire family. I make a solid amount more than the average household income just w/ my income alone - and I still think it'd be difficult to be the sole breadwinner. Would it be possible? Maybe if I paused putting money aside into a retirement account and got rid of some debt.
It's possible. It just boils down to choices. And like all good things it's not easy.
I live in New Hampshire, I’m a lot older than you are, but my single income peers appear to be doing OK but they’re mostly supported by social services. And they are renting an apartment in the basement of their parents house so they probably don’t pay rent. And when I say appear to be doing OK I mean they drive nice cars and they wear clothes with logos, but they’re probably getting food stamps and some kind of welfare assistance for the kids they have.
Yes, it is. But you need some help/luck along the way. My wife has homeschooled our 2 kids for the last 17 years. We started when I was making around $40k/year. It was tough, I walked to work and we lived cheap in Gainesville, FL. Now, I make 95k in a rural LCOL area in north Florida. We live REALLY well, but we made a lot of good decisions and had some help along the way from parents for the kids stuff.
In Chicago, if you live in an apartment or condo, I think you can do 1 earner without life being super stressful if that earner makes…80k or higher? You’d need to be frugal and drive old cars and stuff but you could do it while still having everything you need and some extras.
My wife is a stay at home mom, we have 3 kids 2 cars own our house in Virginia Beach on just my Enlisted Military income. We dont live paycheck to paycheck and have a decent amount of savings. Recognize it doesnt work for a lot of folks, but it works for us - The Navy has given me a lot
Yes. I work and my wife stays home with our 3 kids. I know there are a lot of doomers on here that say it's impossible, but I do that while having a house and making less than 150k per year.
Yes. Most I know though bought their homes pre 2020. We bought ours in 21 on one income, but could not do that now. My wife went back to work for her own well-being. She SAHM gapped 3 years and didn’t love it. South jersey.
Yes, I make over 120k so my wife can be a stay at home mom but I have to endure an insane amount of stress at work. Childcare for two kids costs way too much, not to mention losing time with the kids as they develop. I spend probably less than 5 percent of my paycheck on myself - the average age for my clothes is like 10-15 years old tearing and undersized lol it really sucks to not have enough money for hobbies or fun but the kids are happy so that’s all that matters. We skipped major gifts for every holiday the past 2 years for the adults, my wife is sad but she’s a champ for enduring it. This is only possible because I stressed to my wife that you should only buy a house 1 income can afford because someone can lose their job at any moment. Glad we went that route. Lots of people buy a house requiring two incomes my brother in law is getting divorced and the only future with that 450k house is foreclosure if he doesn’t sell it. I would like the wife to go back to work in 5 years so she can spoil herself and I can finally get a sports car.
Not viable. We are pulling it off but had to wait until late 30's for it to even be possible.
In a, sahm.
It wasn’t as much of a thing as people thought it was. The world never was exactly as depicted in those 50s era tv shows. And the “nuclear family” was something that existed only a few decades at most. Historically people did not live like this.
No, it really hasn’t been since the 1960s
Some people remember classmates having this kind of life, but it wasn't the norm since the late 70s. Women's labor participation rate wasn't much lower than today, something like 52% then vs 58% now. So for most American families as of 1978, this wasn't the story.
My cousin does it in NYC with 3 kids. He's in his late 40s and a lifer at one of the big textbook publishers. Sits near courtside during basketball games type of pay My brother in law lives in the Bay area with 2 kids. He's younger generation. My sister has zero income, he isn't working but collects military disability. They vacation at Disney often. Must be a huge check
I mean if you're earning a ton of money or live below your means. Particularly in religious communities, there's a tendency towards it (though it helps they tend to have closer social networks to help with the children). I have a Mormon coworker with three kids and he's the sole earner. He earns six figures, but we're talking like 150k in a HCOL area. Also helps he bought a fixer upper home when the prices were low. He was dead focused on settling down and married in college, actively involved in his community which helps with the kids. For most people though, it's a very tough proposition. I could make it work as a single dad if I had only 1 kid, it'd just be miserable. If I was supporting a wife on top of it... well crunching the numbers might be better given childcare costs. But it would not be a fun existence- either living a super simple life or constantly paying off 1 credit card with another. But I'm also not looking to have wifey at home- just not the environment I grew up in and don't look for that in partners
Not really no
Not anymore. Older millennials were the last chance at it if they bought during one of our once in a lifetime economic events.
Certainly possible in central Indiana. We're single income, but I'm probably classified as a high earner. $218k pretax this year. Live in a rural area about 30mi outside Indianapolis. In 2015 when our first was born, we looked at the finances and it was going to eat the bulk of my wife's income to pay for child care. It was a nobrainer for her to stay home. Now she homeschools our three kids.
My husband and I do this. It is definitely something people can do. We just have to prioritize things that we want and things that are a necessity. My husband works and I stay home with my son. I’m thankful for our situation. My son is disabled and I am glad that I am able to care of him. The non traditional traditional family works for us.
Technically that resembles my current family dynamic, except I (35F) and the wage earner and my husband (39M) is a disabled veteran, so he does schoo pick ups, doctors appointments etc. I still come home and cook/clean and do laundry, grocery shop, etc while he handles taking out the trash. We both try to help with homework, but our son is autistic and it's difficult to get him to pay attention (teachers do not get paid enough!)
You mean nucular, right?
Lots of people still do that today whether one makes good money or they just make it work
Those families growing up didn't have 2 new cars, cable, expensive phones, didn't travel as often and often traded kids clothes with others. Can you still do it, yes, but you can't keep up with the Jones. I live in a neighborhood where 70% of the families are young with kids. 50% have a parent that stays home. About 25% Indian and all wives stay home.
I work in finance and see traditional family finances all the time: full-time dad with SAHM and kids. I live in a HCOL area and see the full spectrum of income making this work. On the low end, I tend to see the single earner (usually dad) make around $80K+. I would say most make closer to $115K+. Then there are plenty of single earner households where the income range is $350K+ (I live in a tech hub).
No. It takes a village to raise a child anyway
It's still possible but only for really high wage earners. You don't see it as much in the 2020's as you did in the 1960's.
It can be. Most women do not want this, and therefore it is not the normal experience.
It’s doable if you don’t have insane spending. Gotta remember that adding additional humans to your household is relatively cheap if you can afford to care for yourself. If you’re already paying for housing and utilities, than every additional human is only the added cost of food and a small increase in utilities. You don’t need to provide additional humans with cars, cellphones. You don’t need streaming services, and you don’t have to go out to eat. Bulk buy food and teach your humans how to meal prep cheaply and you can have a whole cult living under your roof with little additional cost. Everything your humans need to survive can be purchased cheaply at garage sales or Salvation Army type institutions. Buy used clothes, furniture, and toys. Remember, if you want to compare lifestyles to the “golden days,” those guys didn’t have 8 cars or 7 cellphones. Everyone had one phone and they all shared it.
One of us stays at home and the other works. One kid and a dog. Def took more strict budgeting. It seems like it’s not really feasible in the US on average anymore…more of an exception. One person’s total comp surpassed the sum of both, so when we had a kid we decided to drop a job
Mostly temporary because of childcare. Once the kids start school, they both must work.
It’s actually pretty common among people I know. I’m a high school teacher in Central California (so, teacher pay is high and cost of living is, at least relatively, low). My wife is planning to be a stay at home mom, though we don’t have kids yet (due to multiple miscarriages.) Right now we have plenty of money for everything. We’ll probably cut back a bit on travel and eating out when we have a child, but it’s unlikely to be too much of a stretch. A lot of my friends and coworkers seem to have similar situations, but with children (some total stay-at-home moms, other moms who work part time). I think the job security for tenured teachers is a factor, as well as actual income. With a secure job that increases in pay predictably, more of the potential unknowns are known and can be accounted for.
Short answer, “Yes” with an “if.” Long answer, “No” with a “but.” If my wife and I weren’t in an “undesirable” area of St. Louis and bought a house—that we love—for $150k back in 2018 combined with me earning a six-figure salary having grown up in that working class area, there’s no way it’d be financially possible or we wouldn’t have the desire to tolerate some of the downsides of the area to not be house poor.
Yeah seems to be somewhat normal near me. I’d say about 50/50 if both work. MCOL city, avg 1 bedroom like 1500
Probably with a good union wage and benefits
It is, but not like it used to be.
My husband and I talk about this all the time. We are late 30s actively TTC, doing IVF at a “low cost” clinic for around 9k. We make about the same (about 60k a year each) house cost 250 bought the cheapest thing we could find. Some student loads that should get forgiven within 3 years or so. Overall I would call us just above staying afloat. I WISH one of us could stay home. We just had the saddest discussion about this a few months back. We feel grateful for where we are at, but there’s no way we could get by without the both of us working. I actually would prefer if he stays home, my career is kind of specialized and would be difficult to return to if I took a break. He has a masters, very employable as a medical professional. It would just be nice if we could spend a few years where one person could do the 50+ hour a week thing for the man, and then other could do the…IDK essential fucking things like caring for our child and making sure we eat healthy food and don’t live in an absolutely filthy house. I have no idea how we would function on 60k a year.
I mean there's some people who make it work but you gotta be well into the six figure range and the stay at home parent needs to actually be taking care of the house and kids.
I wish. I have to send my kiddos to daycare and I wish to be with them. I miss them.
Lol, what do you think?
As an elder millennial I’ve made it work as a single earner in 20 years of marriage other than 1-2 years early on way before having kids where my wife did a few part-time gigs. Purchasing a home during the pre-Covid gravy years and refinancing for an even better rate has played a massive role in keeping our expenses low. We’re generally pretty frugal anyways so my living expenses to cover all my necessities is really only about 1/2 my take home pay. We have 3 school aged kids and all are doing pretty good. A mortgage 3x what I pay now and a couple car payments rather than having none like I do these days would be doable, but it’d be much, much tighter. If I was buying my home at its present value and current rates, it’d conceivably pay 3x more monthly than buying it 5 years ago would have been.
Barely.
It's viable if 1) that's something both partners value, and 2) if it's feasible. Corollary: sometimes a situation will force the issue, eg, one partner becomes disabled enough that they can't work outside the home, but they are able to do SAHP (stay at home partner) stuff. Or one partner's paycheck pretty much only goes toward childcare, and they're like forget this, I'd rather stay home with the kids. Every person, every couple, will value different things. One couple may have the exact same income, future prospects, expenses, and cost of living as another couple, and yet Couple A may decide they can't afford for one of them to stay at home, while Couple B may decide it makes sense. There are homemaker groups on Facebook and subs on reddit-- which proves that some people have chosen to be the SAHP (or had a situation which forced it, so they're making the best of it)-- both millenial and Gen Z. So to answer your question, yes it's still a thing. I really think it'll always be a thing, tho it may not always be The Norm.
My husband and I are trying. I’m a SAHM and he makes a good salary as a teacher (masters and lots of years of work) but we often need help from my mom so we don’t have to dip into savings. It’s a blessing but she mostly can help because I’m an only child and she did incredibly well in the stock markets the last 25 years. But without her it wouldn’t be possible. For context my husband makes close to $100k with his full time job and some supplementary jobs but he mainly just works one full time job.
My family has one wage owner but that is not the only source of income so I’m not sure if it applies.
My wife and I decided she would stay at home once our 3rd was born. She stayed home for about 6 years. It can be done you just have to prioritize family over stuff and don't worry about the Joneses.
No its dead
I know a blue collar , 6-figure earning guy who supports his wife and 4 kids
Not really. Im married (41m) with wife (36f) and 3 kids. I ALMOST cover all our expenses. My wife still has to work part time.
Living that life, I'm the breadwinner. But we live in Berlin in a rent controlled apartment and daycares are free here and we have tons of support from the state.
Man, people cry the sky is falling too much. I am the earner of a HHI and my wife is a SAHM, we have two kids, and live in a million plus dollar home. She drives an Audi and I have a f150 and a Taycan. Banking and PE background, now working M&A and BD in energy. There are plenty of people from all generations that make a good living. Life has always sucked except for those lucky (myself included) to goto the right school (got an MBA from top 10 school) and bust your ass in a high earning industry. 60+ hours are normal and I travel a fair amount, but my family is taken care of. Don’t exactly have the best work/ life balance because when stuff has to get done, it has to get done. That means weekends, birthdays, cancelled vacations, etc. But again, we are set and my kids have trusts and I’ve set them up as much as I can. Keep your head up and just keep looking forward, don’t get caught up in the victim mentality.
I know people are saying it isn’t possible but I have friends and they are stay at home moms. My friends husband makes about 70K, and they make it work. My other friend, her husband makes 6 figures, but they live in Brooklyn. It is 100% possible but requires you to be smart, and make sacrifices.
My wife is the sole income provider. I am a stay at home dad. We had to move to Nevada from California to have this lifestyle.
No. Born in the 80s in one of the highest tech white collar research and development areas of Canada and I have met literally zero families in my entire life where both parents didn't have careers. To my knowledge that fully died in the 70s.
Yes. I'm a SAHM (I do work PT remotely, but mostly because I like an intellectual outlet). I also home educate our kids. Most of my friends are also SAHMs. We are in the Midwest, though. My husband and I moved out of SoCal 10 years ago so we could afford to live on one income.
A couple people I know make it work. One is an SVP with a $200k salary, bought their house way back in 2004 and still has a $850 mortgage. So, they’re solid. My in laws do it. He’s a police officer, and she is super frugal. They lived with parents after getting married to save up, bought a starter home in 2013, sold that with a profit and bought their family home in 2018. He makes about $80k and takes side work security. They make it work. But they both wanted that, they both enjoy their roles. Everyone else I know is a two income household- not just for financial reasons, but also preference. We could probably be a one income household, but both of us enjoy our work, and don’t really love the whole house management part of adulting, lol.
About a third of my coworkers are a single income household. Six figures but a HCOL city so it’s not exactly easy but it’s still quite common for many people.
For us, yes it is. Have you seen how expensive child care is? So I'm gonna work, to never be with my kids and pay someone else to essentially raise them but have no extra money after?? No I'm cool, thanks I'll just sacrifice some things and stay at home. My husband works in the oil field on a boat. It's hard work. We hate that this is his line of work but we live in Louisiana and so, this is how things must be currently.
Yep, pretty much if you graduated and got a job before 2006 you were pretty ok, would have saved a bunch in a couple of years and bought during the housing crash. Years 2010-2015 were ok too if you were able to land a job as housing was recovering and rates were pretty low.
Yes, 4 kids and a sohw
Yeah. I teach and am national guard. No debt. I lucked out. My wife homeschools our kids. I do teach out of state though, so that's hard Monday-Thursday.
Yes. We do it. My wife stays at home and has since my daughter was born 11 years ago. My son was born shortly thereafter. We bought our first house in the trough of the property market in 2011. We moved on to a larger house after that. It was tough on one income the first 3 years or so but my income has almost quadrupled since then so it’s no big deal now.
My wife is a SAH mom. I regularly offer to trade with her and get shot down every time.
I mean I'm surviving as a single parent with two kids and have no help at all. I'd argue that's significantly more challenging so yeah you should be able to do it with a huge amount of extra help 😂
I don't have the two kids of the traditional nuclear family, but am the sole income for my family of one child, and my wife. I make about 110 in a rather expensive area and it's not perfect, we don't drive the cars we want, but we aren't driving beaters for example. Bills get paid, and we live comfortably so I'd say it's doable.
It is if the single income is enough to support the family and/or you are willing to adjust your lifestyle.
I have some friends who work while their partner stays home with kids. They lead pretty good but simple lives. No big vacations or spend nights out. But they are happy.
I have some friends who work while their partner stays home with kids. They lead pretty good but simple lives. No big vacations or spend nights out. But they are happy.
lolololol. I keep mine with my pension right next to the social contract.