Living off one income question

[killramos]

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Did you MMM by MLM?

Fuck...

Good show.

[RX_EVOLV]

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This is going to be me soon. Wife just started the 18 month mat leave end of September, so after that’s done we will be down to a single income. We are a bit nervous and will have to adjust our lifestyle but it should be better for our 2 kids long term.

Nice to hear it worked out for you guys

We have started planning for this too. It's definitly hard to be a single household income I think, and for us alot of things will have to change in order to do so. Wife's mat leave is done in 3 months and we were crunching the numbers to see if we can pull single income. The short answer was yes, but only because of our other sources of income like rental property and investments, so it's tight. Luckily work is giving her great flexibility when she gets back to work (working from home for at least 3 days/week) and the grandparents are willing to help, so we will get back to two income again with no near term day care costs, which will take some stress off. However once we have our second kid for now we have decided that she will be a stay at home mom, so once she's back to work we will be in full saving mode to get us ready to be a single income family, while I try to make more money

[Xtrema]

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Curious how people interpret this question. My wife and I were discussing how a couple of our family always talk about how they only 'live on one persons income'. While none of you can speak for them, I am curious do you guys do this? If so does that mean that your monthly required debt servicing payments can be made by 1 person? Or literally everything? Gas, electricity, spending, food, property taxes, maintenance, etc.

Looking at our own family budget, if I were to be a complete bum at home, bring in 0 money (no EI/CPP/welfare/CBB, etc), and we were to live off my wifes salary. Not only would we need to have everything paid off, no daycare, no RESP savings, we would also need about $1500 extra a month just to continue to live the way we do. So when people say they 'live off one salary' how do you interpret that? And if you say it, are you saying for your debt servicing or do you literally mean 1 persons complete income can go into savings or be blown?

I don't think we spend crazy amount of money monthly on things but perhaps I'm wrong.

If it comes to that, you may have to downsize unless you have significant investment/saving to keep your life style going.

I find that if one partner make less than $50K, 2 kids is where that partner keep on working and paying daycare starting to make less sense.

The key is we definitely tends to inflate what we need but end up a lot of it are just wants under scrutiny.

[Buster]

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If it comes to that, you may have to downsize unless you have significant investment/saving to keep your life style going.

I find that if one partner make less than $50K, 2 kids is where that partner keep on working and paying daycare starting to make less sense.

The key is we definitely tends to inflate what we need but end up a lot of it are just wants under scrutiny.

I'm pretty sure the crossover is a lot higher than $50k nowadays, isn't it?

[bjstare]

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I'm pretty sure the crossover is a lot higher than $50k nowadays, isn't it?

Definitely higher than that. Esp when you take into account other stuff you spend more money on like ordering food instead of someone cooking, maybe housecleaning, even snow removal. The loaded rate equivalent of a stay at home mom is without question higher than 50k.

[ExtraSlow]

How much would you pay NOT to stay home with your kids. For many people it's not primarily a financial decision, but a mental health one. Kids are animals.

[Tik-Tok]

A working parent can't cook, clean, or shovel snow?

Two kids in a dayhome is around $22g, so any gross income after $30g is "extra" income. Whether it's worth it VS the value of having kids raised by a parent is obviously debatable, but some homes might need the extra, if the main income earner doesn't bring that much in.

You also have to include the cost of having someone stay at home full time. After a certain age where the kids are somewhat self sufficient, the stay at home parent is going to start getting into hobbies to offset boredom, and hobbies aren't cheap.

I know of a few working dad's, with spouses that go through hobbies like underwear, and each one costs a small fortune before they get bored of it.

[Mitsu3000gt]

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How much would you pay NOT to stay home with your kids. For many people it's not primarily a financial decision, but a mental health one. Kids are animals.

This. Almost all the people I know who are fortunate enough to live off one income choose not to, so that their kids can still go to Daycare, giving the parents a break or letting them work, and keeping them socialized, building their immune system, making friends, and interacting with other kids, etc.

I also see a surprising number of people that get caught living beyond their means, or who have done very poor planning in terms of mortgage size, not taking into account the possibility of one parent losing their jobs (or not working) when budgeting.

[The Cosworth]

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How much would you pay NOT to stay home with your kids. For many people it's not primarily a financial decision, but a mental health one. Kids are animals.

It's true. This is all hypothetical on our side. I was just curious what our bills end up being. I was shocked how much $ we spend only on food, property tax / electricity, insurance, a couple small vacations, and spending money. Our debt servicing was much lower than I imagined it would be, which means that our monthly living costs were much higher.

And it isn't like my wife does terrible as a teacher but yeah after her pension comes off I was surprised we couldn't do it. We would have to supplement with investments or another income for now. I was hoping once the mortgage and daycare was done we would be living this life on one income. I was sadly mistaken.

[ExtraSlow]

I heartily commend anyone who actually LOVES to stay home with the kiddies. My wife and I looked at it, we could have afforded it, but neither of us wanted to be home full time. Turned into a great decision when I was severely under-employed for those 3+ years, we had a lot of flexibility for me to try the self-employment thing and deal with household stuff part-time. Turns out, both of us are much happier working "for the man" full time and dealing with family things outside of that, even if the scheduling is a little tougher.

[Manhattan]

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It's true. This is all hypothetical on our side. I was just curious what our bills end up being. I was shocked how much $ we spend only on food, property tax / electricity, insurance, a couple small vacations, and spending money. Our debt servicing was much lower than I imagined it would be, which means that our monthly living costs were much higher.

And it isn't like my wife does terrible as a teacher but yeah after her pension comes off I was surprised we couldn't do it. We would have to supplement with investments or another income for now. I was hoping once the mortgage and daycare was done we would be living this life on one income. I was sadly mistaken.

Perhaps stating the obvious but if you're shocked to see your actual spending levels on a monthly basis then you definitely haven't been budgeting or paying much attention to cash going out the door. I've found keeping a budget and an eye on monthly bills helps to keep spending manageable and helps you focus and adjust on the important things. We've found that we're happier and healthier living on less rather than more. The whole 'mo money mo problems' is only a dilemma if you're actually spending more.

Being able to live off a single income is a good rule of thumb in terms of a safety net and in our current situation with 1 kid we'd be able to swing it and still put a bit of savings away. I'll need to crunch some numbers for two possibilities in the near future - upgrade into a bigger home and a 2nd kid. It might get pretty tight with a single income at that point but wife will likely always work for her sanity as she's lucky enough to find work that she enjoys and wouldn't consider not working until retirement age. We could probably do the single income thing with 2 kids if I considered investment income which I'm hesitant to do. The biggest variable totally within our control would be the size of the home we buy.

[Xtrema]

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It's true. This is all hypothetical on our side. I was just curious what our bills end up being. I was shocked how much $ we spend only on food, property tax / electricity, insurance, a couple small vacations, and spending money. Our debt servicing was much lower than I imagined it would be, which means that our monthly living costs were much higher.

And it isn't like my wife does terrible as a teacher but yeah after her pension comes off I was surprised we couldn't do it. We would have to supplement with investments or another income for now. I was hoping once the mortgage and daycare was done we would be living this life on one income. I was sadly mistaken.

Everybody's situation is different. But budgeting helps. Discipline helps. My co-worker has been DINKS and seriously their careers didn't really start until late 40s and neither are making 6 digits. Wife insist on living off 1 income and everything else goes into savings and they were able to paid off $350K house and amass $1M of retirement from nothing in 15 years.

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I'm pretty sure the crossover is a lot higher than $50k nowadays, isn't it?

Straightly base off $22K of daycare + may be $200-300/mth of maid service.

OR

I believe a live in nanny is around $40K/year. Basically a bit more than your $50K after tax ($38K).

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Did you MMM by MLM?

My dyslexic ass read MMM as MLM anyway.

[benyl]

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Did you MMM by MLM?

No. haha. Just a side hustle. Trying to get the side hustle to match my full time income, but it's not easy. I can do nearly everything after work, but motivation is hard when you have a long day in your full time gig.

[pheoxs]

Living off one income = Everything is covered by that income. Really the only way I see that happening is cars fully paid off, no debt besides mortgage, and living frugally (not much eating out / modest with groceries), likely not vacations every year. It's definitely do-able and depending both of your income potentials might be more cost effective than day cares.

That being said a stay at home mom/dad can also help bring in income too. If they're crafting they could do something online like a etsy store, or they could work part time evening/weekends when the other spouse is home, they could help look after a neighbours kid as well or something. Could also work as a virtual assistant to a small business. None of these are going to rake in tons of cash but even a modest ~500 a month would be a nice supplement to the budget.

[Xtrema]

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That being said a stay at home mom/dad can also help bring in income too. If they're crafting they could do something online like a etsy store, or they could work part time evening/weekends when the other spouse is home, they could help look after a neighbours kid as well or something. Could also work as a virtual assistant to a small business. None of these are going to rake in tons of cash but even a modest ~500 a month would be a nice supplement to the budget.

There are jobs that will cater to stay at home parents too. Like call center gigs.

And given almost 50% the people with kids at my office clears out by 3pm, there are other jobs that will accommodate child care needs.

[pheoxs]

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There are jobs that will cater to stay at home parents too. Like call center gigs.

And given almost 50% the people with kids at my office clears out by 3pm, there are other jobs that will accommodate child care needs.

Oh for sure. I was mostly trying to suggest options to avoid the daycare route. One parent home to watch them and then swap over when the other is off work.

[89coupe]

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There are jobs that will cater to stay at home parents too. Like call center gigs.

And given almost 50% the people with kids at my office clears out by 3pm, there are other jobs that will accommodate child care needs.

I have a friend who re-sells on EBay, makes around $5k/mth. This is on top of his regular day job.

[RX_EVOLV]

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I have a friend who re-sells on EBay, makes around $5k/mth. This is on top of his regular day job.

My former colleague started an Ali dropshipping store 3 years ago to supplement his income and for his wife to potentially not work as she wasn't feel well. First year they did ~$5K profit. Second year they did ~$50K profit. It looks like this year the store will be doing about ~$300K profit (!!!!), and he's only doing this in the evening after the kids are in bed. He still has his day job that pays almost $200K so he's a pretty happy guy to say the least. I tired to replicate what he did but no luck..lol

[pheoxs]

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My former colleague started an Ali dropshipping store 3 years to supplement his income and for his wife to potentially not work as she wasn't feel well. First year they did ~$5K profit. Second year they did ~$50K profit. It looks like this year the store will be doing about ~$300K profit (!!!!), and he's only doing this in the evening after the kids are in bed. He still has his day job that pays almost $200K so he's a pretty happy guy to say the least. I tired to replicate what he did but no luck..lol

It's pretty crazy what you can do selling goods online. My etsy store makes more than my engineering job by a long shot. Makes for a fun side hussle but you have to be smart and put a lot of energy and creativity into it. Lots of people open up stores and just think they'll magically sell stuff.

[hampstor]

We did the single income household for 11 years now. Started with 1 child, and now with 3 (+ 2 in laws... but that is another story). We did it because raising our own kids, not having someone else do it for us, was more important than the financial sacrifices we had to make. I didn't want someone else to instill their values on my kids.

Financially, it was hard (We made this decision when I made $58K a year and had a mortgage that was $2.2K/month). Learned some hard lessons along the way about budgeting and making choices:

- It seems obvious, but budgeting was key. The way I started was we looked at the last credit card expenses and highlighted all the "nice to haves". When we added them up... the biggest expense we discovered we had was dining out (breakfast/lunch/dinner). For the 2 of us it was almost a grand a month. That was cut out quickly.
- Make some lifestyle decisions. (eg. How often do you use that gym membership now that i had a child? Do you spend a lot on gifts at Christmas/birthdays? How often are cell phone upgrades done?)
- Learn how to cook. I mean really learn to cook - how to turn cheaper foods into good eats. That way, you cut down on groceries, and you can start buying whatever groceries are on sale for the week. It's a running joke, but I have a friend who refuses to believe you can do anything good with a beef shank other than turn it into hamburger . Limit the number of convenience and fast foods in the house.
- Don't try to keep up with the Jones'. This was a trap i fell into when I was younger.
- Treat bonuses exactly like what they are, bonuses which you may not get. Don't spend your bonus before you get it. I used mine for family trips, buying vehicles, and retirement. I remember once year we waited for the bonus to be in the bank before booking a family trip.
- Consumer debt is a demoralizing if you can't pay it off. Servicing costs are heartbreaking if you have to make a choice between things you want to do for your family and 'paying interest'.
- Lastly, have a long term plan so you don't fuck up your financial plan forever. For a while we didn't make any lump sum payments on my house or into retirement. We decided that whenever my wife went back to work, her income would be primarily for that.

Over time as my income increased, we eased up on some of these. Some habits we still do (we still buy the groceries on sale for the week, and limit the amount of convenience foods in the house, we treat bonuses like we won't get them).

With some hard work, and downright luck, we managed to make it work. My wife will be going back to work in January so hopefully I won't retire with a mortgage!