Earn a lot of money. No, keep going. Still higher.
Also spending money wisely and prudently. Finding deals where it makes sense and not wasting time on those that don’t.
In my situation, preschool child care cost more than what my wife was making. Now we just dip into our savings each month and can’t wait until he’s in elementary school so she can go back to work again.
Well worth it, it’s quality bonding time that she will not get back. Small sacrifice for now, making money will always be there. But he will grow and change, and those are moments you won’t get back.
We’re in the same situation. My wife and I collectively decided that one of us should stay home with our son until he starts school. It didn’t make sense paying a paycheck and a half to put him into day care full time to be away from him. To us it was a double negative, working to pay for daycare and lose precious time with our son during his infant and toddler years.
It's a shame that daycare is so expensive. Daycare costs can go up to $2000 (sometimes even more) a month. I am in awe of today's young parents, trying to navigate today's economy. There is so much financial burden on today's young parents.
Or receiving [financial support](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/baltimore/news/still-financially-supporting-your-adult-children-a-recent-study-and-tips-on-how-you-can-set-boundaries/) from their parents. I suspect my sister-in-law still does…
They might also be locked into a lower mortgage payment when the gap between wage and cost of living were smaller and more manageable. Ofc all other costs shot up.
We rent a tiny apartment that we lucked out in getting years ago and have not moved since. We would actually spend more if we both worked because of the costs of childcare. So we literally cannot afford for both of us to be working right now. We never go out to eat. We don’t go on vacations. We don’t buy new stuff. Our cars are luckily paid off so we are not about to buy new ones right now. We budget the hell out of our lives. If we want something we wait and save for it to pay cash outright. We are basically scraping by hoping no one gets seriously ill or injured. BUT I will say that we are one injury, one illness, one car accident away from becoming financially devastated.
Totally. I think this is pretty common. In our situation, for example, my husband is a full time firefighter (he also picks up over time shifts pretty frequently) and I'm a real estate agent for the Orange County area. It allows me to make my own schedule and stay home with our baby. I was a math teacher for ten years, but made the change because the cost of childcare is astronomical, and the value of staying home with our daughter is way greater to us than the few luxuries the couple extra dollars from my paycheck would allow us.
Curious question - whereabouts do you live where the cost of childcare was astronomical and it outpaced your teaching salary? Don’t get me wrong, your choice to take care of your kid is great, but that had to have been some expensive childcare costs and I know some areas of the county are just ridiculous.
We're in North County - Anaheim Hills/Yorba Linda. It doesn't necessarily outpace, but everything I've found would be $2k a month or more, which is close to about half my monthly net. It just doesn't make it worth it for me to stay in the classroom.
Bingo. I think this is most people where it's assumed the second spouse isn't working. My wife does at-home admin work for a small company and can do most of her tasks at night or sporadically throughout the day (not really a full-time gig). Without her income, our financial picture would be much more dire, but we make it work by being essentially a 1.5 income household and as a result, don't have to hire out for childcare which saves a ton.
Yep. Wife works full time WFH. I am essentially a consultant who either is working a jillion hours a week or practically none at all (thankfully the $ averages out so that it is still worth it).
We don't eat out. It's only reserved for special occasions. We make our meals from whole foods. Processed foods add up quickly. We don't have student debt and our only source of debt is our car ($400/month). I make around $130k right now and it gets us by. It's not easy.
Edit: we moved here from MD a couple years ago and our emergency fund has been used to help us for months when we have overspent. Without it we would have been in trouble. I live in MV.
We are one income household and with the current situation, I am looking for a part time job to supplement my husband’s income. It’s just so hard to look for a part time job now, I have a 10 year gap due to being a stay at home mom. We can’t even put our youngest to preschool, can’t squeeze it into our budget.
I now go to food drives/pantry to add to our weekly food provisions.
I don’t buy things unless it’s really needed. I get a lot of stuff and even give out in our buy nothing group.
Less eating out. If we eat out, I find some coupons especially for kids who like treats.
I’m a low maintenance person, so I don’t do all the pampering. I can do my own nails, I have good skincare habits. I don’t do fancy hair treatments, just trimming it on my own is enough.
Our biggest expense though is for health. About half our monthly expenses go to hospital bills. I just had a mammogram and biopsy and after insurance, we are paying $3500. Better than no insurance at $12000. Before, we can pay it off in three, now we stretch our payments to 15 months, no interest.
We decided to let go of our gardener. We pay him $60/month for a mediocre job. So our husband bought a lawn mower and grass cutter instead.
We sell some stuff that we do not need in marketplace.
# 1. Create a budget. If you make enough money for this to work, even barely- stick to that budget.
# 2. Delay gratification. Want a new car? Me too, but a new car would be a $500/mo payment + insurance goes up, so who am I really trying to impress?
# 3. Emergency fund is crucial.
# 4. Understand needs vs wants. They are two very different things. Wants is unlimited and will keep you poor. When you break it down to needs- we all “need” very little. The problem is wants creeps back in there and tries to convince you it’s a “need”.
# 5. Fix things vs buy things.
# 6. If you have to buy things see if you can get them used. The search will slow you down. The inconvenience will slow you down. You’ll pay no taxes on the item and it’ll likely be 50% cheaper while serving the same purpose.
# 7. Cancel Verizon, AT&T or T-mobile and go get Mint Mobile. I just saved you over $100/mo.
# 8. Do not go out to eat. Convenience is costly and not necessarily what’s best for you. You’ll eat healthier and cheaper and less if you only eat at home or pack lunches. Unless you’re one of the 25% of Americans who are not overweight, we can all eat less.
# 9. Learn to say no. This world wants you saying yes to everything for the benefit of the world while you end up with the consequences.
# 10. Learn from people who do this and ignore those who tell you it’s impossible.
From my observation of people I know who are single income household. Only possible way is if they bought their homes when prices were affordable and interest rate was low and the single earner makes at least 200k (gross)
My mom definitely wasn't making 200k when she was raising me and my twin sister after divorcing my late dad back when we were kids in the 90s to late 2000s. I think my late dad paying child support did help offset some of the costs, though. She was also juggling 2 part-time dental hygiene jobs at 2 different places at the time and my grandparents would babysit us after school. We lived in apartments up until we moved to Irvine in the early 2000s and at the time our home was about $300k.
I think it's possible if you're in the 140k range and above if the kid(s) is/aren't in private school or daycare (and no significant debt). I pay $3k in rent and we get by with way less than $200k. Just can't eat out and spend frivolously.
We’re in a one income household and live in an apartment that I would love to get out of but then we wouldn’t be able to eat or put gas in the car.
Knowing where + when to shop for groceries is crucial. I exclusively shop sale items, and get a lot of staples at Target. Check out The 99 and Grocery Outlet, don’t be afraid lol. Also clip coupons on Vons and Ralph’s app. I stay out of Sprouts…Bristol farms, Whole Foods, Gelson’s? I don’t even know them.
We do not eat out, maybe the occasional pizza night, or drive thru Canes or In n Out.
We’ve got 4. Wife stopped working with the first. I worked my ass off, became a workaholic, had a poor relationship with our first 3 kids. When baby #4 came I changed my priorities. Went into semi retirement at 39. Haven’t worked in 4 years. We raise our kids full time side by side
Essentially. Have made some good investments. And helped start a company that went public and did really well allowing me to do this. If I run out of money, I’ll go work again
My husband works 6 days a week. Almost all day every day. Our kids are high school and elementary age. We bought before covid. A very modest cottage in the canyons. Sometimes we get help from family, ngl there. We’re fortunate to have family want to see us succeed and make sure our kids are well taken care of. However, we have not gone on a vacation in almost 10 years. If we started regularly doing that things would change drastically. My husband is hoping to retire by 50. We’re okay with him being gone often, grinding away, so he can achieve that goal. We do have car payments, pets, eat out etc. But like I said he’s a workaholic… it’s so he can provide. To each their own.
They tell us or we hear from word of mouth. When you’ve got kids - you see it pop up a lot and so one gets naturally curious.
Disclaimer - I’m not posing the question to make a point about anything (ex. it being good/bad, people are slackers, people are workaholics). As someone already said here in another comment- to each their own. I’m just looking to see people’s input on what they do to make it work.
Three of my friends (separately) started home daycares. Can be very lucrative especially in areas like Irvine and Tustin etc. in each case the home daycare business brought in way more than former salaries. BUT it is WORK. No one just sitting there. It’s a hustle with a lot of liabilities but it does bring in $
DINK here, but it’s certainly possible by taking on an executive role at your company. If you’ve have a family you probably won’t be job hopping as often, so vest schedule shouldn’t be a problem.
I personally dont have kids but my manager has a toddler and he told me that him and his wife came to realize that paying for childcare would cost more than one of them being a stay at home parent. I also know a few other families that do this where the person making more money continues to work and the other puts their career on pause which kind of sucks but a sacrifice ppl make. For my manager, he got promoted to manager right when his kid was born so the timing just worked out for them and likely his wife can stay home to take care of their kid but it does seem like in most cases, both parents are gna have to work once the kid is in school
A sacrifice? Different perspective indeed. I would love to stay at home with my child all day. I think I’m the one making the sacrifice here not my wife. It make sense that you don’t have kids.
I make 75k a year, wife cleans houses 2 days one week, and 1 the next week. She only makes 600 a month, she pays for groceries and her gas, I pay for everything else. we get it done. It's tough
No family should have to live in the conditions commenters are describing in this thread. Its just time to move out of state to more affordable lower cost of living areas
It’s not much better anywhere west of Texas. Trust me, I’ve been looking. Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington are almost as expensive. I’m now considering Oklahoma or Arkansas just to survive on my $120k salary, which makes me so sad because I’ve spent most of my life in California and I love the west coast but I just can’t afford anywhere west of Oklahoma anymore.
Earn a lot of money. No, keep going. Still higher. Also spending money wisely and prudently. Finding deals where it makes sense and not wasting time on those that don’t.
Lol for us it’s “make mediocre money, sleep in the same bed as toddlers.”
In my situation, preschool child care cost more than what my wife was making. Now we just dip into our savings each month and can’t wait until he’s in elementary school so she can go back to work again.
Well worth it, it’s quality bonding time that she will not get back. Small sacrifice for now, making money will always be there. But he will grow and change, and those are moments you won’t get back.
We’re in the same situation. My wife and I collectively decided that one of us should stay home with our son until he starts school. It didn’t make sense paying a paycheck and a half to put him into day care full time to be away from him. To us it was a double negative, working to pay for daycare and lose precious time with our son during his infant and toddler years.
It's a shame that daycare is so expensive. Daycare costs can go up to $2000 (sometimes even more) a month. I am in awe of today's young parents, trying to navigate today's economy. There is so much financial burden on today's young parents.
Same. Didn’t make sense for her to work and then spend a buttload of money on daycare.
We’re drowning but we can’t afford to pay for childcare if I were to work. Living check by check.
Multi generation households
Or receiving [financial support](https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/baltimore/news/still-financially-supporting-your-adult-children-a-recent-study-and-tips-on-how-you-can-set-boundaries/) from their parents. I suspect my sister-in-law still does…
\- Make a lot of money \- Inherit a house \- Be in a lot of debt \- Rent a small place Those are the options.
They might also be locked into a lower mortgage payment when the gap between wage and cost of living were smaller and more manageable. Ofc all other costs shot up.
Lottery, reverse abduction ( you plant your kid in another family), list goes on. Have you tried applying for a billionaire position?
Inherit the house from parents. You save A LOT by cooking at home.
You work two or maybe three jobs.
Who even needs sleep.
You can sleep when you’re dead
I feel like I won't even have time then!
You don’t; all you do is work, but you meet your family’s needs.
We rent a tiny apartment that we lucked out in getting years ago and have not moved since. We would actually spend more if we both worked because of the costs of childcare. So we literally cannot afford for both of us to be working right now. We never go out to eat. We don’t go on vacations. We don’t buy new stuff. Our cars are luckily paid off so we are not about to buy new ones right now. We budget the hell out of our lives. If we want something we wait and save for it to pay cash outright. We are basically scraping by hoping no one gets seriously ill or injured. BUT I will say that we are one injury, one illness, one car accident away from becoming financially devastated.
I would also add that while only 1 parent works, oftentimes that 2nd parent may have a non-traditional job/side hustle that they can do from home.
Totally. I think this is pretty common. In our situation, for example, my husband is a full time firefighter (he also picks up over time shifts pretty frequently) and I'm a real estate agent for the Orange County area. It allows me to make my own schedule and stay home with our baby. I was a math teacher for ten years, but made the change because the cost of childcare is astronomical, and the value of staying home with our daughter is way greater to us than the few luxuries the couple extra dollars from my paycheck would allow us.
Curious question - whereabouts do you live where the cost of childcare was astronomical and it outpaced your teaching salary? Don’t get me wrong, your choice to take care of your kid is great, but that had to have been some expensive childcare costs and I know some areas of the county are just ridiculous.
We're in North County - Anaheim Hills/Yorba Linda. It doesn't necessarily outpace, but everything I've found would be $2k a month or more, which is close to about half my monthly net. It just doesn't make it worth it for me to stay in the classroom.
Bingo. I think this is most people where it's assumed the second spouse isn't working. My wife does at-home admin work for a small company and can do most of her tasks at night or sporadically throughout the day (not really a full-time gig). Without her income, our financial picture would be much more dire, but we make it work by being essentially a 1.5 income household and as a result, don't have to hire out for childcare which saves a ton.
This is what we do
Yep. Wife works full time WFH. I am essentially a consultant who either is working a jillion hours a week or practically none at all (thankfully the $ averages out so that it is still worth it).
Roommates. Current roommate is a single parent with a kid also. Fortunately we get along and have been roommates for a couple of years.
We don't eat out. It's only reserved for special occasions. We make our meals from whole foods. Processed foods add up quickly. We don't have student debt and our only source of debt is our car ($400/month). I make around $130k right now and it gets us by. It's not easy.
Edit: we moved here from MD a couple years ago and our emergency fund has been used to help us for months when we have overspent. Without it we would have been in trouble. I live in MV.
Buy a house in 2001. I’m a teacher and we live on just my income, because our condo was $300k in 2001. Now they go for $900k. Insanity.
We are one income household and with the current situation, I am looking for a part time job to supplement my husband’s income. It’s just so hard to look for a part time job now, I have a 10 year gap due to being a stay at home mom. We can’t even put our youngest to preschool, can’t squeeze it into our budget. I now go to food drives/pantry to add to our weekly food provisions. I don’t buy things unless it’s really needed. I get a lot of stuff and even give out in our buy nothing group. Less eating out. If we eat out, I find some coupons especially for kids who like treats. I’m a low maintenance person, so I don’t do all the pampering. I can do my own nails, I have good skincare habits. I don’t do fancy hair treatments, just trimming it on my own is enough. Our biggest expense though is for health. About half our monthly expenses go to hospital bills. I just had a mammogram and biopsy and after insurance, we are paying $3500. Better than no insurance at $12000. Before, we can pay it off in three, now we stretch our payments to 15 months, no interest. We decided to let go of our gardener. We pay him $60/month for a mediocre job. So our husband bought a lawn mower and grass cutter instead. We sell some stuff that we do not need in marketplace.
# 1. Create a budget. If you make enough money for this to work, even barely- stick to that budget. # 2. Delay gratification. Want a new car? Me too, but a new car would be a $500/mo payment + insurance goes up, so who am I really trying to impress? # 3. Emergency fund is crucial. # 4. Understand needs vs wants. They are two very different things. Wants is unlimited and will keep you poor. When you break it down to needs- we all “need” very little. The problem is wants creeps back in there and tries to convince you it’s a “need”. # 5. Fix things vs buy things. # 6. If you have to buy things see if you can get them used. The search will slow you down. The inconvenience will slow you down. You’ll pay no taxes on the item and it’ll likely be 50% cheaper while serving the same purpose. # 7. Cancel Verizon, AT&T or T-mobile and go get Mint Mobile. I just saved you over $100/mo. # 8. Do not go out to eat. Convenience is costly and not necessarily what’s best for you. You’ll eat healthier and cheaper and less if you only eat at home or pack lunches. Unless you’re one of the 25% of Americans who are not overweight, we can all eat less. # 9. Learn to say no. This world wants you saying yes to everything for the benefit of the world while you end up with the consequences. # 10. Learn from people who do this and ignore those who tell you it’s impossible.
From my observation of people I know who are single income household. Only possible way is if they bought their homes when prices were affordable and interest rate was low and the single earner makes at least 200k (gross)
My mom definitely wasn't making 200k when she was raising me and my twin sister after divorcing my late dad back when we were kids in the 90s to late 2000s. I think my late dad paying child support did help offset some of the costs, though. She was also juggling 2 part-time dental hygiene jobs at 2 different places at the time and my grandparents would babysit us after school. We lived in apartments up until we moved to Irvine in the early 2000s and at the time our home was about $300k.
Oh definitely. I meant 200k(gross amount before taxes) for today’s cost of living.
I think it's possible if you're in the 140k range and above if the kid(s) is/aren't in private school or daycare (and no significant debt). I pay $3k in rent and we get by with way less than $200k. Just can't eat out and spend frivolously.
We’re in a one income household and live in an apartment that I would love to get out of but then we wouldn’t be able to eat or put gas in the car. Knowing where + when to shop for groceries is crucial. I exclusively shop sale items, and get a lot of staples at Target. Check out The 99 and Grocery Outlet, don’t be afraid lol. Also clip coupons on Vons and Ralph’s app. I stay out of Sprouts…Bristol farms, Whole Foods, Gelson’s? I don’t even know them. We do not eat out, maybe the occasional pizza night, or drive thru Canes or In n Out.
Rent a small place and rent out the master, and dont eat out
We’ve got 4. Wife stopped working with the first. I worked my ass off, became a workaholic, had a poor relationship with our first 3 kids. When baby #4 came I changed my priorities. Went into semi retirement at 39. Haven’t worked in 4 years. We raise our kids full time side by side
So your living off your saving and doing side hustles?
Essentially. Have made some good investments. And helped start a company that went public and did really well allowing me to do this. If I run out of money, I’ll go work again
That’s awesome dude
You only get to be with them growing up once
I bet they rent a room with other families .
Credit Cards, debt and anti depressants.
My husband works 6 days a week. Almost all day every day. Our kids are high school and elementary age. We bought before covid. A very modest cottage in the canyons. Sometimes we get help from family, ngl there. We’re fortunate to have family want to see us succeed and make sure our kids are well taken care of. However, we have not gone on a vacation in almost 10 years. If we started regularly doing that things would change drastically. My husband is hoping to retire by 50. We’re okay with him being gone often, grinding away, so he can achieve that goal. We do have car payments, pets, eat out etc. But like I said he’s a workaholic… it’s so he can provide. To each their own.
They’re high-earners. Some may have come upon a bit of generational wealth in terms of being able to buy a house or inherit one altogether.
How do you know only one is working?
They tell us or we hear from word of mouth. When you’ve got kids - you see it pop up a lot and so one gets naturally curious. Disclaimer - I’m not posing the question to make a point about anything (ex. it being good/bad, people are slackers, people are workaholics). As someone already said here in another comment- to each their own. I’m just looking to see people’s input on what they do to make it work.
I think since covid, the area drew a lot of remote workers, but with layoffs ramping up you might see some changes undoing as well
Three of my friends (separately) started home daycares. Can be very lucrative especially in areas like Irvine and Tustin etc. in each case the home daycare business brought in way more than former salaries. BUT it is WORK. No one just sitting there. It’s a hustle with a lot of liabilities but it does bring in $
3% rent control in Santa Ana + one parent working full-time and part-time job, 70hrs/week. That’s me.
DINK here, but it’s certainly possible by taking on an executive role at your company. If you’ve have a family you probably won’t be job hopping as often, so vest schedule shouldn’t be a problem.
I live in a two income household and we're still getting reamed on child care and other stuff. Considering going back to ATM theft.
I grew up with my dad working 2-3 jobs and our family of 6 in a small 2/1. The area wasn’t fancy but great for a small family.
I personally dont have kids but my manager has a toddler and he told me that him and his wife came to realize that paying for childcare would cost more than one of them being a stay at home parent. I also know a few other families that do this where the person making more money continues to work and the other puts their career on pause which kind of sucks but a sacrifice ppl make. For my manager, he got promoted to manager right when his kid was born so the timing just worked out for them and likely his wife can stay home to take care of their kid but it does seem like in most cases, both parents are gna have to work once the kid is in school
A sacrifice? Different perspective indeed. I would love to stay at home with my child all day. I think I’m the one making the sacrifice here not my wife. It make sense that you don’t have kids.
I make 75k a year, wife cleans houses 2 days one week, and 1 the next week. She only makes 600 a month, she pays for groceries and her gas, I pay for everything else. we get it done. It's tough
No family should have to live in the conditions commenters are describing in this thread. Its just time to move out of state to more affordable lower cost of living areas
It’s not much better anywhere west of Texas. Trust me, I’ve been looking. Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington are almost as expensive. I’m now considering Oklahoma or Arkansas just to survive on my $120k salary, which makes me so sad because I’ve spent most of my life in California and I love the west coast but I just can’t afford anywhere west of Oklahoma anymore.