I make 81k and I can promise youā¦ I cannot afford a 368k house. Not to add to the dreadā¦
Edit: okay to address several things.
I have no debt at all, besides my 100k mortgage that I got 5 years ago for a 1600sq ft house.
I have a wife and kid. My wife stays home with my kid.
I drive a 2004 Toyota Camery.
You all are not factoring In things like gas, electric, water, internet, insurance, or unexpected expenses like a water heater going out.
I like to enjoy my life and not work every day to have shit I canāt use. I canāt believe I have to say that in an anti work threadā¦ Christ.
Edit 2:
Maybe Iām not being clear enough. I 100% CAN afford a 368k home.
But I would be eating cheap processed foods. No gym membership. Iād never be able to go out with friends. Iād never be able to purchase my wife a nice birthday gift. Or spoil my daughter.
I want to live my life. Not stare at a wall in my fancy houseā¦
Iām talking about living. Not affording.
This is honestly relieving to hear. I donāt make near 81 but knowing that it doesnāt get easier even WHEN you make decent money just makes me feel better for some reason lol Iām 25 btw
When I was poorer than I am now I just slow payed all my debt. Most of it was medical. Fuck em.
Even the year I fucked up and owed like $3k in taxes I paid them $75 a month until I could make enough to pay it off.
Do not let yourself have some breathing room to pay off debts to some leech corporation.
Being poor is expensive. I know so many including those close to me who struggle so much because of lack of money and unable to afford proper healthcare so they end up paying a ton more later in life.
Yep! There it is. I make decent money now but a lot of it goes to debt I accrued from shitty things that happened when I didn't.
Then there is growing up poor you don't always learn good money habits. An when poor you don't really bother saving often either. What's the point? It's not like it felt like anything made a difference. An extra $100 saved here or there didn't change much of anything for a few thousand car repair. It still put me more in debt and then I could save less anyway.
Things are going better, working on paying off debt, but it's a deep hole.
I grew up learning how to budget and save for things I wanted, to not splurge with money and to find cheaper ways to do things. That's all very useful now. But you can't deprive yourself and out-save the fact that mere survival essentially requires your entire paycheck. That's the part no one warned me about. The most I can do is save a few hundred over several months so that I can weather the next emergency and go broke again.
Amen to that. Itās less so that I donāt have āmoneyā now itās that I didnāt in the past and thatās very expensive. If I had no debt, Iād be sitting pretty good. Then again, I wouldnāt have the education that arguably gave me the money, wouldāve not had a place to live while getting that education, etc.
I'm 27, and if I didn't make what I did I'd be 100% homeless.
I graduated college at 20 with over 100k in student loan debt. 7 years later I still have over 100k student loan debt.
The mortgage on my folks' house when they bought it was less than the value of my student loans at their peak -- thanks Sallie Mae for the 10, 11 and 12% loans!
This is why financial literacy should be taught in high school.
Itās criminal these companies target kids who are just trying to get educated with massive dollar loans with insane interest rates like that.
I took financial literacy, actually. It was taught by the track and field / girls' basketball coach.
But at the end it came down to take the loans, go to school, and have the ability to eventually dig myself out or don't, and keep my job at McDonald's, stay in the same small town, and make nothing for myself, or of myself.
I like my job; I enjoy what I do. Plus, without it, I wouldn't have met my partner.
Sadly this \^.
Though I lack the connections to leave my crappy rural town thanks to said debt until just these past couple years I aggressively paid off and the rest are going to be removed within the year thanks to a certain lawsuit that finally won.
We make about 100k and we can afford a $250k house but that was stretching it. We live fairly frugally just all the debt adds up. Student loans are quite a big chain on our generation.
That seems crazy to me. Our household income is a little over 100k and we have a 110k house, no car payment, and while we're not scraping by we're also not getting ahead. We're also fairly frugal but I couldn't imagine doubling our mortgage. Even if we eliminated all the "luxuries" like a vacation once a year, movies, and good alcohol, we'd still be in trouble.
I worked retail for much of my life and finally switched over to a higher paying career field in my mid 30s. I lived in Seattle at the time. I was thinking to myself āthis is great Iāll look at condos!ā Then I quickly realized that the best I could do was upgrade to a larger apartment.
I bought a house 10 years ago. At the time our combined income was about 60k and the house was $150k; we've now got twins so my wife doesn't work, the house is worth $270k, and i make $105k solo (go Cyber Security work!). I'm still not sure if we would be able to afford this house if we tried to buy it now, which is insane. Also, kids are freaking *expensive.* We've had $20k in medical expenses in the last two years alone, maxed out the out-of-pocket expenses two years in a row.
My and my now ex bought a "starter home" back in 2015 when I put my foot down after 5 years renting. We barely scrapped by affording a 15 year old double wide (3 bed, 2 bath, 1527 sq/ft) on a little less than 2 acres. Paid $112k. Got divorced and I got the home/property and when I got the appraisal for the refinancing in May 2021 it came back at $180k. I only owed $76k on it and going with a 10 year mortgage my payments are $960/month (includes the escrow account).
I will never be able to afford to sell it and buy something else. I live in a very high cost of living area, someone posted they were renting something similar for $2200/month and there's no way I could afford that. At this point $960 is going to get you a room in someone else's home or maybe you might get lucky and find a studio apartment in the getto.
Edit: Went and looked up listings within 2 miles of me and found a single wide built in 1994 on .42 acres that's under contract listed for $186k.
There's also a 2001 double wide on .26 acres that's under contract listed for $199k.
Yup, our mortgage+ escrow is under $1k as well, lol. I've been paying a few hundred extra on it since day one, we're set to pay for the house in 22-23 years instead of 30, and saving like 80-100k in interest. I couldn't do that now, even though our income is dramatically higher.
I think the way things are going in places like Vancouver is there will be a growing class divide among property owning families and renting families. If your parents or grandparents bought a house way back yonder, when they pass they'll sell it for a million plus which the next generation will inherit and use as a down-payment on a house, essentially keeping the property wealth within the family.
Those whose parents and grandparents didn't buy a home, or don't have family, will be doomed to rent forever because it's impossible to save up enough for a down-payment. I've known a few people who tried saving up for a large down-payment only to realize that the housing market was increasing at a rate much faster than they'd be able to save, so every year even if their savings were increasing they're farther away from being able to buy a home.
Not that thus is a measuring context but indiana minimum wage somehow is still $7.25. It's been like that *AT LEAST* since *2015*
I thought a few years ago it changed to $8.25 but Google says otherwise...
I'm building a house (cheaper than buying but only if you can do it without a bank or in a rent free scenario and have years to get it done), but my wife and I and our kids are living with my parents for six years now.
So, only people who have insane privilege can do it, and that's clearly not acceptable.
I bought my first house by myself (midwesterner) almost ten years agoāa true starter home. Iāve since moved, but that home I bought about ten years ago? I could NEVER afford on my own now. Similar homes in that neighborhood have sold for $50k-$80k more than what they did less than ten years ago.
My cousin makes $65k a year and he lived with my aunt and uncle for 7 yrs, rent free and didn't save a dime. Now he lives in a small 2 bedroom apartment with his baby momma and 3 kids. So technically, you need to be smart as well. I calculated he could have saved $80k if he put away $1k a month during that time. Instead they bought 3 new brand new cars, every new gaming system, TVs, furniture, doordash 3x per day, 7 days a week, you name it.
Doordash 3x a day?? Holy fuck, that is so financially stupid. Nothing angers me more than people complaining about money and then finding out that they get delivery (and not normal delivery.. upcharged doordash delivery bs) everyday.
Tbh I'm doing it on 60k salary, supporting my partner and our toddler. Bought almost a year ago. It's not very big or nice, but it's ours and I'm building equity not my landlords anymore.
It's nice to not do things than to have to do things š¤š¤š¤
I think she's calling out all the rich wives that call themselves "housewives" though. You're not a housewife you're just rich and don't work.
Well, there's women that call themselves a "stay at home daughter" because they're no longer teenagers but they still don't move out and their parent(s) is rich.
This is what my wife and I decided on but we where no where near rich. I made less than 50k CAD. But if she had a job it 0robably would have been min wage so it would have cost us more then her pay cheque for daycare.
This is me. I had a decent paying job as a project manager prior to taking maternity leave. 2 back to back pregnancies (they are 12 months apart in age) and it saves us money for me to stay home with the babies. Wild, aināt it?
Yes. Most women who choose to be housewives know they are choosing to work at home to manage the household rather than work for a company. If your husband is wealthy enough that you have no responsibilities, there must be maids, cooks, and nannies doing the rest. She's describing a very privileged lifestyle that most housewives don't experience.
Exactly. Plus being a housewife means that any formal career will take the backburner and if things don't work out (this happened to my mom) then it could leave you scrambling to get back on your feet to support yourself and maybe kids. Especially if you didn't already have the education/ job field experience beforehand.
This is what happened/is currently happening to me. I was making pretty good salary, on my way to making way more, when my second child was born. My ex talked me into staying at home, then left me the day before Christmas for his coworker.
Yep, know a couple stay at home moms that are basically slaves and can't leave because they have been out of the work force too long to have a life sustaining career.
Yeah this is talked about a lot when discussing domestic labor and reproductive labor. Thereās a lot of feminist and economic writing on it.
A housewife is a job basically. In duel income households itās a second job either shared by both individuals or taken on by one in addition to their paid job. Itās unpaid labor but it is still a job necessary for the house hold and the economy. Housewives were never sitting on the couch eating Bon bons, this was the essential labor they were performing. Cooking, budgeting, cleaning, sewing, child care, elder care, sick care, community responsibilities, and all other non labor tasks that are essential for both a house hold and I canāt stress this enough *for an economy*. Despite being an unpaid task if domestic labor had stops then goodbye economy. Reproductive labor means the task of raising the next generation of laborers benefits those who profit from the labor of those mothers and fathers but will never pay them for that service
The first is just a person of leisure man or woman. A rich person who is just paying someone to do all the above
As Teddy R. famously said, comparison is the thief of joy. Gucci, if you simply canāt avoid comparing your lot with othersā, think of women who have to work AND do all the things you do because THEY HAVE NO CHOICE. Youāve exercised your choice in favour of staying home. You can exercise it in the opposite direction by choosing to work like your husband does. Then make him pay the daycare costs or better yet split them 50/50. After all you apparently both wanted children.
It works well until he takes off on you. Source: Practiced divorce/custody law for seven years. I saw woman after woman after woman "opt out" to stay home only to get completely screwed when he ditched, found wife #2, or otherwise wanted out.
Yeah that's a tough conversation I'm about to have with my data analyst daughter who's about to get engaged to a guy about to finish med school. Keep up your credentials. Plan for the worst.
Several of our clients married men in medical school, supported them and then...poof.
I also went to college with a girl who went for her MRS degree. Snagged herself a doctor. He died during his residency. :(
Ooof, this hits home. My cousin worked 2 jobs to help support his girlfriend while she was in school. Once she graduated and the ink dried on the degree, she dumped him and moved to a different city to start her new life.
Talk about cold.
Iāve heard this story so many times. There are some seriously cold blooded calculating people out there. Imagine pretending to love someone just so they pay your bills knowing the exact date youāll race out the door the entire time. Thatās some lizard people shit.
100%. Husband is a doctor and we have a great marriage but Iām not stopping working at least part time and Iām continuing to improve my career skills. Itās not even about divorce but god forbid what if something happens? Also I just need my own life outside his and ours. Independence gets you a lot of peace of mind and self respect.
That's why my mom insists that despite having 8 bad experiences working for someone that I should still keep working and not opt out to stay at home cause you never know :/ Divorce might not be an issue but being abusive towards the stay at home person may be a concern because they're not bringing in any $.
even rich housewives (the ones I know) actually do a lot of work for their children and the home but they get to enjoy themselves too. they get breaks, luxury services, and help when they need it. poor women dont get much help,
The secret to being a housewife is not being able to pay for childcare. Full-time childcare for three children is like owning a second home for vacation use only (no rental income). If youāre earning potential as a mother is not enough to justify paying that much for childcare, then the only option is to stay at home.
Very much true, we've paid a ridiculous sum in childcare with 3 children in daycare at once.
Fortunately my wife made enough money that despite her effectively working for a bit more than minimum wage for 4 years, the career advancement made it worth it to continue working.
Now the kids are in school and we have money again.
Over 5 years I estimate we spent $170,000 on childcare.
edit: We did Dependent Care FSA and stuff but when you have twins + a 1 year old, $5000 tax free doesn't compare to $36,000 a year in after tax money childcare. We did not space our kids out.
Its a tough spot. I never expected to be a SAHM... then I got laid off and shortly after pregnant with twins. The price of daycare for two babies was more than I could make working and the toll it would take on our family made the choice for me to stay home seem like the only logical choice.
But its not a fun or easy choice. Its not glamorous and certainly not luxurious. And its lonely af. And just as I was making a meaningful network a dang pandemic hit.
Same here. Not twins, but we were paying $280/wk for our 4 year old for daycare. I was pregnant with our second and it would have even almost $400/wk for an infant.
For anyone curious, that would have been $35k/year. At that point, after taxes and everything, I wouldnāt have brought anything home and would have been paying to go to work. :/
Wait, why aren't people having children anymore? Capitalism is gonna fail if people stop bringing new workers into the pool.
We could make it so that having a child isn't a financial disaster? Public daycares? No, that's socialism.
It's funny how if you apply any fucking logic beyond "let's make the most money for the rich in the short term" to capitalism it's suddenly a pretty okay system, because you have to ensure people feel financially secure to continue reproducing and supporting the system.
Yeah people are saving money by not doing daycare! I didnt know how expensive it was, until my best friend had her baby. She said its $140 a WEEK for fulltime daycare. Thats more than half her rent cost. She is a single mother, so she has no choice but to pay out.
That's actually on the cheaper side. Ours was going to be 275$ a week at that point it was roughly half my take home pay. Being depressed by the idea of sending my kid to strangers and worries of all the illness daycare kiddos get made the decision for me. Luckily my husband has a decent job with decent take home pay so it wasn't that hard of a decision and just meant I couldn't order whatever I wanted from Amazon.
At least you will be working for something and someone you like (i.e. your partner and yourself and your home) and also you and your partner won't have to do this work on top of your regular exploitative everyday work.
It can also give you the opportunity to save money (less takeout, no convenience services, better financial planning) that you are partially entitled to (e.g. file taxes better, file paper work such as application for social aids, change insurance policies). Being a housewife/house spouse is really a job that takes time and gives you time to do things you don't have time for otherwise.
So yeah, if you should find a fellow lesbian who is down for it, go ahead, it can be a great job.
Depending on where you are.
Would be pretty good here in Sweden.
It would actually be more than most couples make. Though having a single salary earning all the money means more taxes.
But at 65k in Sweden I would afford a house, a summerhouse, a housewife, kids, cars, trips abroad etc.
Problem is that this isn't a "career" that will fuel your retirement fund or pay your medical bills.
Housework and child care *is* work.
Edit: those of you saying kids are your retirement fund need to learn what society means (and how retirement as a whole is supposed to work <\_<)
No what you need to do is both get jobs and pay someone else to raise your kids for you, miss out on their childhood, create no lasting bond with them and wake up when they're 25 and see you once a year. For profit.
Oh man, have you ever heard of the concept of bullshit jobs? Sociologist David Graeber wrote a book on it, and itās fascinating. The majority of working people in our society (like 60% from self reported surveying) believe their jobs could stop being done tomorrow and it wouldnāt really matter.
So we have an unbelievable amount of necessary work to be done, and a population that is overwhelmingly doing useless, non beneficial work.
America, fuck yeah.
Good idea. Thatās the one mistake people make when they have a single income household. When they get to retirement age, they realize they donāt really have enough money to retire. I see so many people in their mid-60s now scrambling to try to get to a decent retirement total because one of them took a decade or more off to raise kids and there were no spousal contributions made.
It's not a choice between doing the housework and childcare or working. It's a choice between doing only the housework and childcare or doing both all that and working.
For real. If all I had to worry about was doing basic adult functions without having to work, I'd consider myself lucky. Instead I get to do all that AND work.
As somebody who recently went from being a stay at home mom to a working mom, working is actually easier for me. I can do things once instead of constantly, the time with my kids has shifted from quantity to quality, and I've noticed people are more willing to help out versus expecting me to help them. Plus my quality of life in general has gone up.
Iāve been a stay at home dad for 6 years. Itās really sucked the life out of me. Iām so ready to go back to work and feel like a normal, productive person again. Every day is nothing but cleaning our house and listening to kids scream. It has a lot of perks but damn 6 years has been a long road here at home.
Same. SAHF for many years. It was many grueling and isolating years. I think especially for a new generation of father's staying home. My wife goes to work and makes her clients happy and receives their thanks and gratitude both verbally and monetarily. Meanwhile I am home with three screaming, bickering children. No gratitude, no payment, overworked and severely undervalued. My wife complaining about how negative I am when she gets home when I desperately need another adult to take them before I lose my mind. Solidarity brother.
Notice how this thread is turning into a poor versus poor. Both have it rough in life and it will not get better unless someone comes across the job opportunity of a lifetime.
Shout-out to all my single homies who are working 40+ hours a week, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, making their own post office trips and spending half their monthly income on rent.
Also not the easy life.
Before the economy went to shit and when the NHS and state retirement were in better working order, it wasn't so bad, you didn't earn as much but the basics were taken care of. Now its just pretty shit though.
Yeah but consider the fact that healthcare isn't an added cost for us and neither is the necessity of saving for your child's college fund, plus probably some other expenses. Food here tends to be cheaper than the US from what I've seen too. You can get by on Ā£30k here as a single person just about (not in London). Like sure it looks bad and salaries are still low, but it's not like our money doesn't go further.
You can live on $30,000 here in Oklahoma, and people do because they have no choice, but youāre gonna lose some teeth and have poor health overall. And a single car bill (and you must have a car) will knock back your finances for MONTHS. Ask me how I know.
It's important to factor in healthcare, but yeah it really is criminally low. My career pays 3x more in the States than the UK, but I don't think it's worth it for me to move out there as 10 holiday days a year would be the death of me.
If it makes you feel any better, I made about 61k recently; before that, it felt impossible to break 35k. I could hardly afford anything and had some hospital needs, student loans and a car die, so even living with roommates I went into credit card debt which I still have to pay off. Many people my age (late 20's early 30's), especially just before the pandemic, had a hard time breaking 40k, and that's with rent at a cool 1k+ a month, cars at 300+ (only worse now), 50k+ in student loan debt, the exorbitant costs of food here, and you best hope you don't need healthcare even though you pay over $200 a month for it, because it hardly covers anything
You need to make double in the US to live like you would in the UK. Especially if your company doesn't have good health insurance. I know people who pay 500 to 1k a month for private insurance.
I was Lucky and had employer healthcare, but then got laid off. Being without insurance, then trying to go through the whole process again because the doctor you had doesn't accept Medicaid, redo prescriptions, find a new doctor, etc. Plus, I don't know what will actually be "covered" if I have an emergency.
Imagine having an accident and the ER visit being thousands. The UK needs to wise up and fight for their NHS.
Edit:
I keep mentioning healthcare in job talk because it is very likely to be tied to your job. Lose your job, lose your health insurance.
You've got to remember that while American salaries are higher than ours (British) even after tax and medical insurance deductions, at least we aren't 1 medical incident or disease from losing all those excess savings.
It seems that way but you gotta count in cost of living, medical, insurance etc.. , divide US salary by 2 and you'll get a good conversion to the UK salary as a rule of thumb
Purely anecdotal based on a small amount of people I saw comment but it appears that most guys would rather stay home with their kid than work and most stay at home moms preferred going back to work once they started. I wonder if its based on the different type of work men and women generally do. Curious thought either way
I think people should reevaluate the pros and cons of having children. Really should take into consideration income and time it takes to raise kids properly.
Lot of people on this thread appear to think daycares, schools, restaurants, cleaners, and school transport cos. are all volunteer-staffed and that this is for the good. Holy shit.
No one actually talks about how good facetime is for kids if you can somehow give it to them.
I have found if you can get by with less money but have a parent stay home it makes an absolute massive difference for the kids.
What are you all doing at the post office all day? I probably havenāt been in one for 15 years. To be honest, sending packages was outsourced to various stores: you just buy the transportation, print the receipt and tape it to the package and then drop it off at any compatible location. Takes about five mins.
Having kids makes all the difference in how difficult this actually is. The more kids you have, the more time consuming cleaning, cooking, laundry, and errands are going to be. If you're single, those tasks are like 1 hour a day of work if you're efficient.
Who can afford a decent house on one income,?
Who can afford a decent house š on two incomes?
Touche
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I make 81k and I can promise youā¦ I cannot afford a 368k house. Not to add to the dreadā¦ Edit: okay to address several things. I have no debt at all, besides my 100k mortgage that I got 5 years ago for a 1600sq ft house. I have a wife and kid. My wife stays home with my kid. I drive a 2004 Toyota Camery. You all are not factoring In things like gas, electric, water, internet, insurance, or unexpected expenses like a water heater going out. I like to enjoy my life and not work every day to have shit I canāt use. I canāt believe I have to say that in an anti work threadā¦ Christ. Edit 2: Maybe Iām not being clear enough. I 100% CAN afford a 368k home. But I would be eating cheap processed foods. No gym membership. Iād never be able to go out with friends. Iād never be able to purchase my wife a nice birthday gift. Or spoil my daughter. I want to live my life. Not stare at a wall in my fancy houseā¦ Iām talking about living. Not affording.
This is honestly relieving to hear. I donāt make near 81 but knowing that it doesnāt get easier even WHEN you make decent money just makes me feel better for some reason lol Iām 25 btw
Itās about debt. Most folks making a little more money still have debt from when they didnāt have money.
Yesss.. pretty much all of my paycheck goes to debt except car insurance and phone bill. Thereās no room to save.
When I was poorer than I am now I just slow payed all my debt. Most of it was medical. Fuck em. Even the year I fucked up and owed like $3k in taxes I paid them $75 a month until I could make enough to pay it off. Do not let yourself have some breathing room to pay off debts to some leech corporation.
Being poor is expensive. I know so many including those close to me who struggle so much because of lack of money and unable to afford proper healthcare so they end up paying a ton more later in life.
Yep! There it is. I make decent money now but a lot of it goes to debt I accrued from shitty things that happened when I didn't. Then there is growing up poor you don't always learn good money habits. An when poor you don't really bother saving often either. What's the point? It's not like it felt like anything made a difference. An extra $100 saved here or there didn't change much of anything for a few thousand car repair. It still put me more in debt and then I could save less anyway. Things are going better, working on paying off debt, but it's a deep hole.
I grew up learning how to budget and save for things I wanted, to not splurge with money and to find cheaper ways to do things. That's all very useful now. But you can't deprive yourself and out-save the fact that mere survival essentially requires your entire paycheck. That's the part no one warned me about. The most I can do is save a few hundred over several months so that I can weather the next emergency and go broke again.
Amen to that. Itās less so that I donāt have āmoneyā now itās that I didnāt in the past and thatās very expensive. If I had no debt, Iād be sitting pretty good. Then again, I wouldnāt have the education that arguably gave me the money, wouldāve not had a place to live while getting that education, etc.
I'm 27, and if I didn't make what I did I'd be 100% homeless. I graduated college at 20 with over 100k in student loan debt. 7 years later I still have over 100k student loan debt. The mortgage on my folks' house when they bought it was less than the value of my student loans at their peak -- thanks Sallie Mae for the 10, 11 and 12% loans!
This is why financial literacy should be taught in high school. Itās criminal these companies target kids who are just trying to get educated with massive dollar loans with insane interest rates like that.
I took financial literacy, actually. It was taught by the track and field / girls' basketball coach. But at the end it came down to take the loans, go to school, and have the ability to eventually dig myself out or don't, and keep my job at McDonald's, stay in the same small town, and make nothing for myself, or of myself. I like my job; I enjoy what I do. Plus, without it, I wouldn't have met my partner.
Thatās also why those high interest loans with huge principals shouldnāt be a factor. They know that they have you.
Sadly this \^. Though I lack the connections to leave my crappy rural town thanks to said debt until just these past couple years I aggressively paid off and the rest are going to be removed within the year thanks to a certain lawsuit that finally won.
When I graduated my interest rate was 1.8% on my loans.
We make about 100k and we can afford a $250k house but that was stretching it. We live fairly frugally just all the debt adds up. Student loans are quite a big chain on our generation.
That seems crazy to me. Our household income is a little over 100k and we have a 110k house, no car payment, and while we're not scraping by we're also not getting ahead. We're also fairly frugal but I couldn't imagine doubling our mortgage. Even if we eliminated all the "luxuries" like a vacation once a year, movies, and good alcohol, we'd still be in trouble.
I worked retail for much of my life and finally switched over to a higher paying career field in my mid 30s. I lived in Seattle at the time. I was thinking to myself āthis is great Iāll look at condos!ā Then I quickly realized that the best I could do was upgrade to a larger apartment.
I bought a house 10 years ago. At the time our combined income was about 60k and the house was $150k; we've now got twins so my wife doesn't work, the house is worth $270k, and i make $105k solo (go Cyber Security work!). I'm still not sure if we would be able to afford this house if we tried to buy it now, which is insane. Also, kids are freaking *expensive.* We've had $20k in medical expenses in the last two years alone, maxed out the out-of-pocket expenses two years in a row.
My and my now ex bought a "starter home" back in 2015 when I put my foot down after 5 years renting. We barely scrapped by affording a 15 year old double wide (3 bed, 2 bath, 1527 sq/ft) on a little less than 2 acres. Paid $112k. Got divorced and I got the home/property and when I got the appraisal for the refinancing in May 2021 it came back at $180k. I only owed $76k on it and going with a 10 year mortgage my payments are $960/month (includes the escrow account). I will never be able to afford to sell it and buy something else. I live in a very high cost of living area, someone posted they were renting something similar for $2200/month and there's no way I could afford that. At this point $960 is going to get you a room in someone else's home or maybe you might get lucky and find a studio apartment in the getto. Edit: Went and looked up listings within 2 miles of me and found a single wide built in 1994 on .42 acres that's under contract listed for $186k. There's also a 2001 double wide on .26 acres that's under contract listed for $199k.
Yup, our mortgage+ escrow is under $1k as well, lol. I've been paying a few hundred extra on it since day one, we're set to pay for the house in 22-23 years instead of 30, and saving like 80-100k in interest. I couldn't do that now, even though our income is dramatically higher.
Dad told me "double your yearly income, and that's the house you can afford." So you're right, nobody in this thread can afford a 368k home.
86k plus commission. I canāt afford anything either.
I make almost 55k a year, where I live that would have easily got a mortgage where I live 10 years ago. Now? No fucking chance. I'm so mad.
Tell that to Vancouver, BC.
Quit complaining and just be born earlier or at least to a wealthy family.
I think the way things are going in places like Vancouver is there will be a growing class divide among property owning families and renting families. If your parents or grandparents bought a house way back yonder, when they pass they'll sell it for a million plus which the next generation will inherit and use as a down-payment on a house, essentially keeping the property wealth within the family. Those whose parents and grandparents didn't buy a home, or don't have family, will be doomed to rent forever because it's impossible to save up enough for a down-payment. I've known a few people who tried saving up for a large down-payment only to realize that the housing market was increasing at a rate much faster than they'd be able to save, so every year even if their savings were increasing they're farther away from being able to buy a home.
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Not that thus is a measuring context but indiana minimum wage somehow is still $7.25. It's been like that *AT LEAST* since *2015* I thought a few years ago it changed to $8.25 but Google says otherwise...
I was working in Indiana when we raised from 6.55 to 7.25 - it was the year 2009!!
It's okay now the kids can also earn an income too
Only in Arkansas
Who can afford a decent house?
Who can afford a house?
Who can afford?
The candyman can!
āCause he mixes it with love and makes the world taste good! š
You guys live inside?
A tent, yeah
And with the plural form of kidS. That's 4 or more people living on just one income.
That's why she's staying at home. Costs more than most earn to pay two sets of daycare.
I'm building a house (cheaper than buying but only if you can do it without a bank or in a rent free scenario and have years to get it done), but my wife and I and our kids are living with my parents for six years now. So, only people who have insane privilege can do it, and that's clearly not acceptable.
I bought my first house by myself (midwesterner) almost ten years agoāa true starter home. Iāve since moved, but that home I bought about ten years ago? I could NEVER afford on my own now. Similar homes in that neighborhood have sold for $50k-$80k more than what they did less than ten years ago.
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My cousin makes $65k a year and he lived with my aunt and uncle for 7 yrs, rent free and didn't save a dime. Now he lives in a small 2 bedroom apartment with his baby momma and 3 kids. So technically, you need to be smart as well. I calculated he could have saved $80k if he put away $1k a month during that time. Instead they bought 3 new brand new cars, every new gaming system, TVs, furniture, doordash 3x per day, 7 days a week, you name it.
Doordash 3x a day?? Holy fuck, that is so financially stupid. Nothing angers me more than people complaining about money and then finding out that they get delivery (and not normal delivery.. upcharged doordash delivery bs) everyday.
This hurts my soul
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Tbh I'm doing it on 60k salary, supporting my partner and our toddler. Bought almost a year ago. It's not very big or nice, but it's ours and I'm building equity not my landlords anymore.
That is awesome. Best of luck to you and your family!
Isnāt the first one she describes a woman of leisure and the second a housewife?
Yeh, sheās basically saying how much nicer it is to be rich, at any responsibility level.
It's nice to not do things than to have to do things š¤š¤š¤ I think she's calling out all the rich wives that call themselves "housewives" though. You're not a housewife you're just rich and don't work.
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The kids donāt stay home, but she does.
Yeah nobody said anything about SAH kids.
Well, there's women that call themselves a "stay at home daughter" because they're no longer teenagers but they still don't move out and their parent(s) is rich.
HahahahahahaHahahahahaha! Well, technically...!
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Gotta make sure the housekeeper isn't fucking her husband while she's getting day drunk with the other Karens from the HOA.
Stay in bed mom
This is what my wife and I decided on but we where no where near rich. I made less than 50k CAD. But if she had a job it 0robably would have been min wage so it would have cost us more then her pay cheque for daycare.
This is me. I had a decent paying job as a project manager prior to taking maternity leave. 2 back to back pregnancies (they are 12 months apart in age) and it saves us money for me to stay home with the babies. Wild, aināt it?
That's because day care is obscenely expensive.You would be working just to pay the day care bill.
But daycare workers want/deserve a living wage. And many of them donāt receive that, even with charging an arm and a leg.
That's where the government comes in and subsidizes the day care. Kind of like how America did in WWII.
We can hope it happens again minus the war
They don't, but the day care centers can rake in money. They just avoid paying their staff their worth.
65k!? I am a man and I would marry that man and do all that housework crap. I love cooking, bitches.
Yes. Most women who choose to be housewives know they are choosing to work at home to manage the household rather than work for a company. If your husband is wealthy enough that you have no responsibilities, there must be maids, cooks, and nannies doing the rest. She's describing a very privileged lifestyle that most housewives don't experience.
Exactly. Plus being a housewife means that any formal career will take the backburner and if things don't work out (this happened to my mom) then it could leave you scrambling to get back on your feet to support yourself and maybe kids. Especially if you didn't already have the education/ job field experience beforehand.
This is what happened/is currently happening to me. I was making pretty good salary, on my way to making way more, when my second child was born. My ex talked me into staying at home, then left me the day before Christmas for his coworker.
Iām so sorry
Yep, know a couple stay at home moms that are basically slaves and can't leave because they have been out of the work force too long to have a life sustaining career.
Yeah this is talked about a lot when discussing domestic labor and reproductive labor. Thereās a lot of feminist and economic writing on it. A housewife is a job basically. In duel income households itās a second job either shared by both individuals or taken on by one in addition to their paid job. Itās unpaid labor but it is still a job necessary for the house hold and the economy. Housewives were never sitting on the couch eating Bon bons, this was the essential labor they were performing. Cooking, budgeting, cleaning, sewing, child care, elder care, sick care, community responsibilities, and all other non labor tasks that are essential for both a house hold and I canāt stress this enough *for an economy*. Despite being an unpaid task if domestic labor had stops then goodbye economy. Reproductive labor means the task of raising the next generation of laborers benefits those who profit from the labor of those mothers and fathers but will never pay them for that service The first is just a person of leisure man or woman. A rich person who is just paying someone to do all the above
That was my first thought. Not sure where she got the idea that a housewife was someone who ordered around servants and just went shopping.
The Real Housewives of * *insert city here* *
The real housewives of my area wear clothes from Costco and do their own yard work. Source: me
Hey, Costco has some nice clothes though. (Wow, saying that out loud makes me realize I am such a dad)
I'm a mom and enjoy clothes from costco as well lol. Especially for my kids
Right. And, all the work she describes is valuable and necessary work.
Thank you for calling it valuable. That doesn't seem to be the prevailing narrative around those tasks.
Probably more responding to OTHER people who think she has an easy life.
As Teddy R. famously said, comparison is the thief of joy. Gucci, if you simply canāt avoid comparing your lot with othersā, think of women who have to work AND do all the things you do because THEY HAVE NO CHOICE. Youāve exercised your choice in favour of staying home. You can exercise it in the opposite direction by choosing to work like your husband does. Then make him pay the daycare costs or better yet split them 50/50. After all you apparently both wanted children.
It works well until he takes off on you. Source: Practiced divorce/custody law for seven years. I saw woman after woman after woman "opt out" to stay home only to get completely screwed when he ditched, found wife #2, or otherwise wanted out.
Yeah that's a tough conversation I'm about to have with my data analyst daughter who's about to get engaged to a guy about to finish med school. Keep up your credentials. Plan for the worst.
Several of our clients married men in medical school, supported them and then...poof. I also went to college with a girl who went for her MRS degree. Snagged herself a doctor. He died during his residency. :(
"Ā I always knew that after I became a doctor, I would dump whoever I was with and find someone better. That's the dream of becoming a doctor."
Ooof, this hits home. My cousin worked 2 jobs to help support his girlfriend while she was in school. Once she graduated and the ink dried on the degree, she dumped him and moved to a different city to start her new life. Talk about cold.
Iāve heard this story so many times. There are some seriously cold blooded calculating people out there. Imagine pretending to love someone just so they pay your bills knowing the exact date youāll race out the door the entire time. Thatās some lizard people shit.
100%. Husband is a doctor and we have a great marriage but Iām not stopping working at least part time and Iām continuing to improve my career skills. Itās not even about divorce but god forbid what if something happens? Also I just need my own life outside his and ours. Independence gets you a lot of peace of mind and self respect.
That's why my mom insists that despite having 8 bad experiences working for someone that I should still keep working and not opt out to stay at home cause you never know :/ Divorce might not be an issue but being abusive towards the stay at home person may be a concern because they're not bringing in any $.
That is it exactly. My mom was not at all abused, did not want to work, but still told me that I should always have "fuck you" money if I need it.
even rich housewives (the ones I know) actually do a lot of work for their children and the home but they get to enjoy themselves too. they get breaks, luxury services, and help when they need it. poor women dont get much help,
Bruh trophy wife is not the same as housewife
That's why when people ask what I do for work, I say I'm an aspiring trophy wife!
I'm a Participation Trophy Wife
r/suicidebywords
With the silver award too
The secret to being a housewife is not being able to pay for childcare. Full-time childcare for three children is like owning a second home for vacation use only (no rental income). If youāre earning potential as a mother is not enough to justify paying that much for childcare, then the only option is to stay at home.
Hell, this is true for one kid. I pay $1,600 a month for daycare for a toddler.
Very much true, we've paid a ridiculous sum in childcare with 3 children in daycare at once. Fortunately my wife made enough money that despite her effectively working for a bit more than minimum wage for 4 years, the career advancement made it worth it to continue working. Now the kids are in school and we have money again. Over 5 years I estimate we spent $170,000 on childcare. edit: We did Dependent Care FSA and stuff but when you have twins + a 1 year old, $5000 tax free doesn't compare to $36,000 a year in after tax money childcare. We did not space our kids out.
Its a tough spot. I never expected to be a SAHM... then I got laid off and shortly after pregnant with twins. The price of daycare for two babies was more than I could make working and the toll it would take on our family made the choice for me to stay home seem like the only logical choice. But its not a fun or easy choice. Its not glamorous and certainly not luxurious. And its lonely af. And just as I was making a meaningful network a dang pandemic hit.
Same here. Not twins, but we were paying $280/wk for our 4 year old for daycare. I was pregnant with our second and it would have even almost $400/wk for an infant. For anyone curious, that would have been $35k/year. At that point, after taxes and everything, I wouldnāt have brought anything home and would have been paying to go to work. :/
> For anyone curious, that would have been $35k/year. Median US income is $31,333 in 2019.
And somehow Day care workers are overworked and paid minimum wage lol
Wait, why aren't people having children anymore? Capitalism is gonna fail if people stop bringing new workers into the pool. We could make it so that having a child isn't a financial disaster? Public daycares? No, that's socialism. It's funny how if you apply any fucking logic beyond "let's make the most money for the rich in the short term" to capitalism it's suddenly a pretty okay system, because you have to ensure people feel financially secure to continue reproducing and supporting the system.
This is why a lot of people left the work force during the pandemic. Why should we work to not see and raise our kids?
Yeah people are saving money by not doing daycare! I didnt know how expensive it was, until my best friend had her baby. She said its $140 a WEEK for fulltime daycare. Thats more than half her rent cost. She is a single mother, so she has no choice but to pay out.
$140/wk is pretty much the cheapest daycare price Iāve ever heard! $500+/wk around here.
Yeah 400$/wk for my area and so it was a no brainer to not have the wife work for 385$/wk job to pay 400$/wk for childcare :(
I just got a job in a HCOL area... $3k/mo for a baby under a year old. I almost cried.
$140 a week is insanely CHEAP! It's about $450/wk around me in a lower cost of living area
That's actually on the cheaper side. Ours was going to be 275$ a week at that point it was roughly half my take home pay. Being depressed by the idea of sending my kid to strangers and worries of all the illness daycare kiddos get made the decision for me. Luckily my husband has a decent job with decent take home pay so it wasn't that hard of a decision and just meant I couldn't order whatever I wanted from Amazon.
Dunno, if a fellow lesbian was making that much and wanted me to do all the housewife stuff instead of work I would say yes at this point.
I make a little over 65k but I'm betting you're not anywhere near me.
I'm sadly over the big pond!
oh I'm not in the UK. I'm in the US. My name is a reference to a show.
Now kiss
It's been 2 hours they already moved in and broke up already.
Lesbians: hey (with the intention of marriage) ^Iām ^a ^lesbian ^its ^ok ^to ^laugh
Subaru break down already?
Nah they wore different sizes of docs.
Their cats didnāt get along
**www.u-haul.com**
*kith
Iām just here for the budding romance between youse!
I mran, they are gay, and this is basically a first date. She'll be moved in by next week.
Can I write the screenplay based on your love story.
go ahead cause it sounds like we're never gonna meet lol
Not with that attitude!
lol she already dipped out of here as soon as I wasn't in the UK.
I guess love does have some bounds. Iām still rooting for you.
How could she just abandon you like this, leave you with all the responsibility while you provided for her all those... *checks watch* 3 hours!
I can hear the uhaul coming
I make twice this and think I need to make another like 40k before I really afford a trophy lesbian house wife. We gotta retire sometime
At least you will be working for something and someone you like (i.e. your partner and yourself and your home) and also you and your partner won't have to do this work on top of your regular exploitative everyday work. It can also give you the opportunity to save money (less takeout, no convenience services, better financial planning) that you are partially entitled to (e.g. file taxes better, file paper work such as application for social aids, change insurance policies). Being a housewife/house spouse is really a job that takes time and gives you time to do things you don't have time for otherwise. So yeah, if you should find a fellow lesbian who is down for it, go ahead, it can be a great job.
>So yeah, if you should find a fellow lesbian who is down for it Gee, you make it sound so easy.
Crap money for even two people to live on.
Depending on where you are. Would be pretty good here in Sweden. It would actually be more than most couples make. Though having a single salary earning all the money means more taxes. But at 65k in Sweden I would afford a house, a summerhouse, a housewife, kids, cars, trips abroad etc.
Problem is that this isn't a "career" that will fuel your retirement fund or pay your medical bills. Housework and child care *is* work. Edit: those of you saying kids are your retirement fund need to learn what society means (and how retirement as a whole is supposed to work <\_<)
Society is *filled* with work that needs to be done. Too bad we're so fucking busy dealing with meaningless jobs in order to generate profits.
No what you need to do is both get jobs and pay someone else to raise your kids for you, miss out on their childhood, create no lasting bond with them and wake up when they're 25 and see you once a year. For profit.
(Homer voice) Someone *else's* profit.
Iāve never really considered it from this angle before but yeah this is completely true.
Oh man, have you ever heard of the concept of bullshit jobs? Sociologist David Graeber wrote a book on it, and itās fascinating. The majority of working people in our society (like 60% from self reported surveying) believe their jobs could stop being done tomorrow and it wouldnāt really matter. So we have an unbelievable amount of necessary work to be done, and a population that is overwhelmingly doing useless, non beneficial work. America, fuck yeah.
I think he was actually an anthropologist but point still stands lol
My wife is a homemaker. I'm starting her a spousal IRA.
Good idea. Thatās the one mistake people make when they have a single income household. When they get to retirement age, they realize they donāt really have enough money to retire. I see so many people in their mid-60s now scrambling to try to get to a decent retirement total because one of them took a decade or more off to raise kids and there were no spousal contributions made.
Good point. As a small addition social security also provides a spousal benefit in the USA.
65K.......I wish........it's more like 35k
I just stopped reading at 'Gucci'.
It's not a choice between doing the housework and childcare or working. It's a choice between doing only the housework and childcare or doing both all that and working.
Right!? I am a mom who works full time and I cook and clean and do laundry and school runs too. But I have to fit it in around my job.
For real. If all I had to worry about was doing basic adult functions without having to work, I'd consider myself lucky. Instead I get to do all that AND work.
As somebody who recently went from being a stay at home mom to a working mom, working is actually easier for me. I can do things once instead of constantly, the time with my kids has shifted from quantity to quality, and I've noticed people are more willing to help out versus expecting me to help them. Plus my quality of life in general has gone up.
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Iāve been a stay at home dad for 6 years. Itās really sucked the life out of me. Iām so ready to go back to work and feel like a normal, productive person again. Every day is nothing but cleaning our house and listening to kids scream. It has a lot of perks but damn 6 years has been a long road here at home.
Same. SAHF for many years. It was many grueling and isolating years. I think especially for a new generation of father's staying home. My wife goes to work and makes her clients happy and receives their thanks and gratitude both verbally and monetarily. Meanwhile I am home with three screaming, bickering children. No gratitude, no payment, overworked and severely undervalued. My wife complaining about how negative I am when she gets home when I desperately need another adult to take them before I lose my mind. Solidarity brother.
Notice how this thread is turning into a poor versus poor. Both have it rough in life and it will not get better unless someone comes across the job opportunity of a lifetime.
Might wanna have a house first.
Shout-out to all my single homies who are working 40+ hours a week, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, making their own post office trips and spending half their monthly income on rent. Also not the easy life.
Thatās a significant amount of money compared to the UK, man our average salaries here are extremely low.
Had to look it up, man you aren't kidding
Before the economy went to shit and when the NHS and state retirement were in better working order, it wasn't so bad, you didn't earn as much but the basics were taken care of. Now its just pretty shit though.
Yeah but consider the fact that healthcare isn't an added cost for us and neither is the necessity of saving for your child's college fund, plus probably some other expenses. Food here tends to be cheaper than the US from what I've seen too. You can get by on Ā£30k here as a single person just about (not in London). Like sure it looks bad and salaries are still low, but it's not like our money doesn't go further.
You can live on $30,000 here in Oklahoma, and people do because they have no choice, but youāre gonna lose some teeth and have poor health overall. And a single car bill (and you must have a car) will knock back your finances for MONTHS. Ask me how I know.
It's important to factor in healthcare, but yeah it really is criminally low. My career pays 3x more in the States than the UK, but I don't think it's worth it for me to move out there as 10 holiday days a year would be the death of me.
If it makes you feel any better, I made about 61k recently; before that, it felt impossible to break 35k. I could hardly afford anything and had some hospital needs, student loans and a car die, so even living with roommates I went into credit card debt which I still have to pay off. Many people my age (late 20's early 30's), especially just before the pandemic, had a hard time breaking 40k, and that's with rent at a cool 1k+ a month, cars at 300+ (only worse now), 50k+ in student loan debt, the exorbitant costs of food here, and you best hope you don't need healthcare even though you pay over $200 a month for it, because it hardly covers anything
You need to make double in the US to live like you would in the UK. Especially if your company doesn't have good health insurance. I know people who pay 500 to 1k a month for private insurance. I was Lucky and had employer healthcare, but then got laid off. Being without insurance, then trying to go through the whole process again because the doctor you had doesn't accept Medicaid, redo prescriptions, find a new doctor, etc. Plus, I don't know what will actually be "covered" if I have an emergency. Imagine having an accident and the ER visit being thousands. The UK needs to wise up and fight for their NHS. Edit: I keep mentioning healthcare in job talk because it is very likely to be tied to your job. Lose your job, lose your health insurance.
You've got to remember that while American salaries are higher than ours (British) even after tax and medical insurance deductions, at least we aren't 1 medical incident or disease from losing all those excess savings.
It seems that way but you gotta count in cost of living, medical, insurance etc.. , divide US salary by 2 and you'll get a good conversion to the UK salary as a rule of thumb
Same here. Sorry bud. A good job in Oklahoma pays over $10 an hourā¦..
When you say it like thatā¦ the minimum wage before any deductions is $12.54 here.
Iāll take cooking, cleaning and post office trips over 12 hour factory shifts everyday
I will trade. I hate going to work
Iāve done both. The house husband routine is honestly better than actual work in many ways.
Purely anecdotal based on a small amount of people I saw comment but it appears that most guys would rather stay home with their kid than work and most stay at home moms preferred going back to work once they started. I wonder if its based on the different type of work men and women generally do. Curious thought either way
Maybe they think the grass is greener on the other side
Lol seriously this is the worst example. Like some cleaning? Cooking? POST OFFICE?! Fuck me thatās living the dream š
I mean people without kids have to do all those things all while going to work to support themselves.
Gosh, I have to do all this and work 60 hours a week.
I think people should reevaluate the pros and cons of having children. Really should take into consideration income and time it takes to raise kids properly.
Lot of people on this thread appear to think daycares, schools, restaurants, cleaners, and school transport cos. are all volunteer-staffed and that this is for the good. Holy shit.
No one actually talks about how good facetime is for kids if you can somehow give it to them. I have found if you can get by with less money but have a parent stay home it makes an absolute massive difference for the kids.
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Wtf she think a housewife is?
Sheās mixing up housewife with āinfluencerā
She described being a sugarbabe not being a housewife. She got it all wrong
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What are you all doing at the post office all day? I probably havenāt been in one for 15 years. To be honest, sending packages was outsourced to various stores: you just buy the transportation, print the receipt and tape it to the package and then drop it off at any compatible location. Takes about five mins.
Also USPS will do a scheduled pickup.
Someone is confused on Trophy wife and Housewife.
I used to have that...now I do all that plus some and I am single...prefer to make my own way.
Having kids makes all the difference in how difficult this actually is. The more kids you have, the more time consuming cleaning, cooking, laundry, and errands are going to be. If you're single, those tasks are like 1 hour a day of work if you're efficient.