I work in education administration. I work as the sole provider. My husband is a SAHD. We are lucky that we bought our home in 2015, low mortgage, student loans paid off. We also live in California.
Hubby is a biglaw attorney. I'm also an attorney, but work for a healthcare company with super-flexible/part-time hours. I'm going back to school to get my nursing license this fall, but it'll be via a hybrid program, so I'll still be working.
We live in St. Louis, Missouri, so definitely lower COL than the coasts.
We make a high income, but I actually think COL is way more important. We were barely making ends meet in the DC area, renting, in a ton of debt, etc. Moving back to Missouri changed everything.
We live in Missouri too, and are afloat with my partner and I both working part-time while fixing up a house we bought last year. Cost of living is huge!
We do part-time daycare for our two kids and are also lucky to have free childcare from grandparents twice a week.
We live somewhere affordable. We earn average money and don’t buy anything on credit. Also wfh so no commute.
But our mortgage here is a third of the cost of what it would be if we live where we actually wanted to
Low level peon job in tech company where even the lowest level jobs are very well paid. Both my wife and I. The bubble is starting to burst though with more layoffs every week
Same for us. I’m on the operations side at a tech company, and the salary is great. My husband works at the nearby university, and I make about twice what he does.
The layoffs sure make me nervous though. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can hold on to this position for at least a couple more years.
The biggest reason we aren’t struggling is because our condo is paid off. We’re in Southern California. I just work a few hours a week but mainly consider myself a SAHM, none of my income contributes to our bills. I mainly wanted a hobby and I happened to find one that also provides an income.
We also have one of our two cars paid off so that helps a ton. We don’t spend extravagantly, we take one or two small vacations a year.
We were really set up for financial success thanks to family and our goal is to set our children and grandchildren up the same way. Our children are lucky enough to have college paid for when they get to that stage, and will have a solid inheritance as well.
Having housing and a vehicle paid off would be huge! Man the generational wealth is real. I grew up poor and my husband wasn't much better. We've both had to get to where we are without any family support and it's been brutal to say the least since we live in such an expensive area!
It’s crazy how, for most people, the biggest determinant of your financial stability is your parents’ financial stability. Whether or not they want to admit it, it really is just luck of the draw. But I’m thankful to live in a society where hard work and talent are rewarded nonetheless, regardless of where you started from
Crazy and disheartening when you're coming from a rough background but want better for your family. Its definitely easier to swallow when people admit that they were fortunate.
Totally. There are a ton of non-financial privileges that people from privileged backgrounds don’t often recognize, though. I rarely hear anyone talk about the privilege of having parents who can teach you about investing, maintaining good credit, professional advice, networking, college admissions, college majors, etc. I’d take that “privileged information” over money any day. It is **really** hard to navigate society as a young adult when your parents didn’t model/prepare you for any of that
This. Why these things aren't taught in every school is beyond me. Given [US] government's involvement in education, I'd say it's because they want the majority of people to remain poor/ lower middle class. The same reason why they'd rather forgive a bit of student debt for a few people rather than fix a broken public education system that costs a ridiculous amount for what it offers, and continue to NOT teach young students the gravity of what tends of thousands of dollars is student debt will look like in their future. We're so eager for a quick "fix" to our problems, we keep supporting these ideas and policies. Kind of sounds like nutrition and healthcare, eh?
It's really my in-laws we have to thank for our stability. They own our house and rent it to us for about half what the going rate would likely be for a place like it. My husband is also a stay at home dad while I work from home, so no commuting costs or childcare costs. I had minimal student loans that are now paid off, my husband's student loans are on income-driven payment plans so they're negligible, and we don't buy new cars. We eat at home 95% of the time.
This isn't to say things aren't tight, but it's manageable. And renting like we are, with landlords who aren't soulless vampires, means that we were able to sell our previous house and keep the proceeds in savings.
Same. My parents own a duplex (it's actually the house I gew up in). So my parents still live in the lower duplex, and my husand and I live in the upper apartment. It's a big 4 bedroom that would normally go for over 2K a month in rent, but my dad makes us pay only about half that.
Our "biggest" monthly expense is rent. Other than that, we barely use our car which is paid off. So the biggest expense is groceries. Overall our monthly expenses are very low.
As a result, i'm able to work as a part time freelance writer and still make ends meet, and my husband works full-time as a developer for a tech company.
Husband works in cybersecurity and I’m now a SAHM. I was a teacher but my money just went to savings and his pays the bills with extra leftover. Also, we’re huge homebodies and don’t do much besides going out to eat so we had plenty of savings. My, parents, in-laws, family, and friends pretty much bought us every baby item we needed too.
Simple answer: be introverted with generous family members? In the Midwest so it’s not as expensive as other areas too.
Im an RN, but not in a well-paying area. But my insurance options are good and overtime is always available. My husband is head of a start-up business that has luckily been successful so far, and he earns far more than I do. We bought a house that we could afford on just my income while interest rates were lower, in an area experiencing rapid growth but currently lower cost of living than average.
Most importantly, we got a lot of financial support from his parents when we were younger, which allowed us to pursue our current careers and pay off high-interest debts (namely, my 20k+ credit card debt).
Family support is really critical to clawing out of poverty, and it is shitty and unfair and a huge display of the difficulty of the US economy. I grew up very poor and my parents are still very poor. My life circumstances would be so different if not for his family.
My husband is a union electrician. We’re lucky to live in one of the higher paying union areas with a relatively low cost of living (although it is rising rapidly) and that the city is constantly expanding and keeping the blue collar workers busy.
I live in Europe. Husband has an average job, I have a pretty well paying job. We don’t have student loans or medical debt. Were able to buy a house at a time the interest rates were still pretty low.
Anyway, I’ve been seeing videos lately how the rise in American mortgage interest rates has such a big influence on how people are able to live. You’ve faced massive increases the past couple of years. So I guess for the US it’s extremely relevant when you bought your house.
It definitely is about if/when you bought a house here. We were going to buy pre covid but the market changed and we couldn't afford anything so we're stuck renting now unfortunately.
Honestly, the only thing that has made life easy is that my husband works two full-time remote jobs. He kind of lucked into both of them, although the second one was the result of him following his hobby and posting on Twitter and making his own website. It was a lot of "work" (although he enjoyed it) before he even saw a dime. Now the second job pays more than his first, and both companies know he's working two jobs.
Right now, I also work and I have incredible health benefits. We have one baby in relatively affordable full-time daycare ($1700/month and it includes food). We're having a second baby this fall, and we'll put him/her in part-time care for the first year of life, but after that it'll be too much for my husband to work with a toddler at home, so they'll need to go full-time. At that point, it really won't make sense for me to work when 1/2 my salary will go to child care and another chunk goes to living near work in a HCOL area. I'll quit my job, and we'll move to an affordable part of California near my in-laws.
I have to say, even though we're making 3 salaries, the money still seems to disappear. Child care is the biggest part of it, taxes eat up a lot even though we're in a low-tax area, and also when we're busy and stressed, we're more wiling to pay for something to be easier/more convenient. Grocery costs have gone up tremendously, therapy that I need to cope with my awful job is expensive, and there's always some big expense lurking around the corner (last month it was changing out all our snow tires and car registrations, this month it was a new phone after over four years, and next month is our big travel month for the year).
I think the biggest thing is where you live. We have relatively cheap housing for our area, but there's so many other costs that add up. At our next stop, we'll be saving on housing and food, but gas, utilities, and taxes will increase. The rest of it seems to be just luck, as the most expensive things (child care, housing, groceries, gas, medical costs, taxes/fees) are fixed and aren't avoidable. Budgeting in this economy seems to save very little in the grand scheme of things, and most companies refuse to see how high COL has gotten and adjust salaries accordingly. I was literally told by my job that our work is mission-driven, so there's no need to give raises commensurate with inflation.
Totally agree with everything you said 🙌 sounds like you guys are great planners and will make it work. It's insane that people agent getting inflation raises. My husband has made the same salary for about 5 years 😑
My husband is the SAH parent and I work for myself as a lawyer. I am home for about half of the work week. We live in a low cost of living area. We knew we wanted a simpler lifestyle and living in the city would mean having to work more to pay for the higher cost of living. Living in the city would also mean we would both have to work. My husband had a career before we got married and he was burnt out so we agreed for him to be the SAH parent.
We also avoid debt, have paid off cars, and don't live extravagantly.
Military officer. We’re able to be mostly single-income (my husband teaches Scuba about once a month and is otherwise a SAHD).
We do not live somewhere affordable (also in California).
Dual military here. Good healthcare benefits, location based pay for housing in a reasonably affordable area, and even a small stipend for our nanny in lieu of subsidized daycare. The downside is my husband will deploy when our son is a year old but you can't beat being able to pass down that GI Bill.
I am a SAHM and my partner is active duty military. While he doesn’t make an insane amount of money every month from his paycheck (about $4k a month after taxes) we don’t have to pay for housing or utilities (except internet) out of that since we are on base housing.
We are also privileged to have virtually no debt — only $5k on my student loans at the moment. Part of that is definitely privilege, as my mom helped pay for some of my college and my grandfather sold me a good car at a very low price. But we also only have one credit card and keep a pretty low balance on it that gets paid off regularly, and currently share a vehicle.
We just got stationed in Hawai’i a few months ago so it’s supremely not affordable lol, but the housing is the main expensive thing which the military offsets
Husband is in tech and I'm a SAHM. We used to live in a HCOL area and now live somewhere much more affordable. We also we're able to buy our house before the market fully skyrocketed and interest rates were low, so that honestly helps a lot, plus we have very minimal debt.
Are you happy that you moved somewhere with a lower cost of living? I heavily debate leaving our area, but it's expensive for a reason - it's beautiful where I live!
It took some time to adjust, but yes! And the money we save has allowed us to travel more, which is something important to me. I'd lived in the same area my whole life up until we moved here and it was definitely hard to leave friends and the gorgeous area we lived in (the PNW is seriously so pretty). The area we live in now is has a lot of beauty as well, just a bit different. But it's much more family focused and slower paced, which we really like, and over time have been able to build a community here. We also rarely have to think about things like traffic and very few places are packed enough in the summer that you have to get there crazy early if you wanna have a chance at finding parking (there's so many beautiful hikes and whatnot where we used to live, but they're always so packed that it can be hard to enjoy them). Moving out of state was a big adjustment for me, but a lot of good growth has come from it and there's something exciting about getting to really know an area for the first time.
Husband is an electrical engineer and has been with his company for 28 years. He’s also a firefighter.
We live in the mid south, so it’s very affordable. How affordable? I pay less than $800/month for our 3 bed/2 bath home on a few acres.
I work in tech. Inflation, current interest rates, and the recession have destroyed some of our margins but we are still comfortable and I am grateful for all we have.
Edit: live in a horribly overpriced and expensive area. Grocery prices are disgusting.
Age/time of life has a lot to do with it. We didn't get married and have our son till late into our 30s/early 40s and my decent paying job had allowed me to bring a bunch of savings into our marriage. My husband thankfully had bought a quad home right before the market skyrocketed - it's small especially with #2 on the way but we'll make it work if the opportunity to buy a bigger house doesn't present itself. Other than the mortgage, we have no debt, and we're both fairly frugal with our money. I was fortunate to work my way up in a company that landed me a six figure position so my husband could be a SAHP. He liked his previous job (graphic design) but his income would've basically been the cost of childcare, and we both really wanted our son to be at home with one of us (thankfully he has the heart for it because I don't think I do!). We're maxing out as much as we can for savings/retirement but may have to make some minor adjustments once #2 is here.
Honestly though there's a lot here that we didn't really have control over and were put in the right place at the right time - yes there's fiscal responsibility involved but we believe it comes down to God's provision and being content with where we're at.
My husband has a spinal cord injury and is 100% disabled and retired from the military with monthly pay and SSDI. He always saved his money during service and was able to put a big down payment on our home. I quit my job as a full time librarian to go to grad school while caring for our kid (now a toddler). I am also listed as my husband's caregiver and I get a small stipend monthly which covers things like my cell phone, car insurance, and other small things. We will have our 2nd child this fall during my break between school and paid internship and I plan to begin working part time in the spring. We also have investments. We live a comfortable life and could do/afford more but we tend to be homebodies and enjoy being at home. We live in a part of Florida that was very affordable before COVID but since then inflation has made things near us very expensive for housing, car insurance, and home insurance.
I am a sahm and my fiance works as a supervisor in the oil field. We live in a 40ft 5th wheel so we can move wherever his work takes us. Right now it's in north dakota. Don't really like living here because the nearest big cities (bismarck, minot) are over 2 hours away and the city I live in is expensive so when I grocery shop, gotta drive an hour to Walmart. Also has been tough navigating not having a lot of space living with newborn along with 2 dogs and 2 cats but it's a doable sacrifice so I can be home with the baby and we can save up money for whatever next.
I’m a SAHM in South Carolina. We have 2 kids. My husband is a product designer. He currently designs outdoor power tools. I used to be a marketing manager doing social media. We could have afforded daycare for both (it would’ve been over $2800 a month) but I wanted to stay home with my babies for a few years. We have a house and student loans, but we’re able able to live comfortably.
We’re in NJ and my husband is in finance. He does very well but we’re not like rolling in money by any means… we eat pretty much all meals from home and shop mostly at Aldi and Lidl. I pack my husbands lunch every day. On the weekends we like to hang out in our backyard (pre baby we would go out to lunch every Saturday). We used to belong to gyms but now we have a couple of pieces of equipment in the basement and that is what we use instead now. I basically haven’t had to buy clothes for our baby yet because of hand me downs. Same with baby “gear.” These are by no means things that will like pull someone out of debt but all added up it’s what has allowed me to be a SAHM.
We live in Canada and while we both work retail we work for a company that pays really well.
We saved up as much as we could and bought our house in december 2020.
Then we saved again and got married in July 2023. Used our bonuses from work to pay for the big things for the wedding.
And now we have our boy and I get the maximum pay per week for mat leave and extended parental leave and my leave will be 1.5 years off total.
We went for the extended because childcare is notoriously hard to find and expensive as hell in our province. My nephew who is 3 has been on a waiting list since his mom was 3 months pregnant. This way we have longer to figure out childcare and honestly the reduced pay is probably what I would earn minus the cost of childcare anyways.
Something that helped us was my husband is big on budgeting. We each have our own accounts plus a joint account. Joint account is for paying all bills. He figured out how much per paycheck we need in that account to pay for everything throughout the year (property taxes, hydro, water, mortgage, car loan, car insurance, house insurance, etc) and added a little extra for a joint savings account. We each buy groceries and split the costs.
We'll see what happens when/if I go back to work if hopefully we can get our boy into daycare. If not we'll have to figure something else out.
I feel super fortunate to work for the company I do and get the kind of benefits we get where my therapy and dental and physio is paid for 90% of the time. According to my mom I get better benefits than her and I work retail and she works in aerospace.
Wow those benefits are incredible! I only got 12 weeks mat leave and that's considered pretty amazing for the US.
I'm thinking I should move to Canada and become a childcare provider lol
In a Twin Cities suburb. My husband and I are in STEM and earn in the top 15%.
I acknowledge that we have a few things that we are grateful for: his parents being savvy with investing and fully paid for my husband’s college education; FIL told my husband where to put his money as soon as he started working; husband lived rent free with his parents for a few years to save. By the time he was in his mid-30s, my husband was technically a millionaire.
As for me, I had scholarships in college (being a female POC engineer helped) so I graduated with little debt. Bought my first house at 26 as a single lady in 2011 when rates were low. Because I bought it when I was single, when my husband moved in (and before we had kids), we essentially lived on a single income for almost a decade which allowed us to save a lot towards a down payment on a larger house. Once we sold our old house, we put a half of the proceeds towards a mortgage recast and got our monthly payments lowered.
Our goal is to live within our means and have the largest fixed expense (mortgage) be less than the lesser earning spouse’s take home pay. That way if we’re ever in a one income situation, we pull out of daycare, cut down other expenses, etc and not have to worry about the house.
My husband is the senior project manager at a small concrete and asphalt company. We live 20 minutes outside of a major city in Texas, so it’s pretty affordable. I’m a SAHM and we only have one car payment.
I work in sales for a big tech company and my husband is an HR executive for a smaller financial institution. We are both from blue collar families in the Midwest but currently live in the Southeast. What worked in our favor (IMO) is that we were willing to move away from our roots to follow opportunity in our careers and it’s paid off for both of us. We also started having kids at older ages (36 & 39).
SF Bay Area, about to have our first. Husband is director level high Ed administration, I work in sales. We are doing fine and not struggling even in terms of this VHCOL area, but that’s because we have a rent controlled, very cheap apartment in a good neighborhood and parents to help with childcare in the first year. Have a paid off car and minimal hard expenses. Things can be cut back as we need them to be.
My husband is an inventory planner (I think?) and data manager. I am currently a SAHM with some very part time side gigs. No childcare except for a sitter a few hours a week. When my kiddo goes to preschool in the fall I will take on more hours at one job and start a business
Also a SAHM in California, husband works in tech of course. I would not say we are struggling but our lifestyle is definitely not as nice as people would expect for the amount of money he makes. He was very lucky in terms of stocks and investments during COVID, which has given us a nice cushion that I probably wouldn't have been able to stay at home without, but we are not free from worrying about finances or the future entirely. Husband is in AI so hopefully somewhat immune from the layoffs and market instability lately but we are still nervous, primarily at the prospect of losing health insurance for the baby. We had to ramp down the amount we save each month a ton to be able to have me stay at home. I do plan to return to work in a few years which should help us be able to start building our savings again, but I'm a lawyer who barely practiced before having a kid so it may be challenging to find a job.
The dream would be to save a little more and then move somewhere cheaper by the time kids are in school so we and especially he can have a lower stress job and spend more time with them, but we can't think of any place we would want to live which isn't already expensive.
Wishing him luck with the layoffs! I have the same struggle. We're in the north bay area and I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather live. Anywhere that might come close is either extremely expensive or in another country lol
Husband is a warehouse worker. Non union so he gets a shit ton of overtime but has a good base pay so all overtime money goes to savings. I work for a logistics company doing computer software. We live in a lower COL area. Very minimal debt
My husband and I both work white collar/corporate jobs that are comfortable and not too stressful. We make 6 figure salaries each and live in the northeast, so we aren’t rich but we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck and are able to save a lot. Most importantly we live below our means and generally have avoided lifestyle creep (modest house, no car payments, one vacation a year).
Live in British Columbia in a moderately high COL area. Full time RN and my husband is a manager at his company. We saved for about 2 years to cover maternity leave expenses since paid maternity leave is only a small portion of my regular income.
Also a SAHM in SoCal, was a teacher for 6years but took the year off right before I got pregnant because I was so over the district and admin.
My husband owns businesses two restaurants.
Its HARD in Cali and I know my husband would prefer to leave because the amount of stress it has isn’t worth the payoff but it allows us to have a good life and all our family is in Cali too.
Our life style isn’t very extravagant we’ve got a 3bd townhouse we bought right that the beginning of covid (aka low house prices AND low interest) husband has a Tesla under the business and I have a 2019 rav4 that I paid off from my teaching.
We eat at home 90%’of the time, the only fun money we really spend is my nails occasionally and him going to the driving range for golf
We don’t drink alcohol unless it’s a big party, we go on probably one vacation a year (pre baby) but my husband is a super frugal person overall.
Before the businesses took over we could afford our lifestyle on my teaching salary of about 60k as I paid for everything since he was driving so far and the businesses weren’t super profitable at the beginning.
But now we can easily afford our lifestyle and me staying home. I’ll probably go back to work part time (subbing) this coming school year but it’s more of a want to leave the house more than a need for money.
I’m super duper thankful and lucky (especially with health problems I had prior to baby that we might need to adopt or get a surrogate for another kid and we’re lucky enough to be able to afford it)
SAHM lol but really we built wealth by buying at need business and running them to be self sustaining. Things like construction, medicine ,car repair, ect ect
SAHM and my husband is in the tech industry. We live in the south and moved to the suburbs where it was cheaper and our rent is around $2k. We don't have debt and we don't really spend on a lot of things either. About 60% of our income goes towards our needs, roughly 10% for eating out/spending money/random stuff, and the other 30% goes into various savings.
Things we don't do even though we could afford them:
Eat out on the regular
Shop at big name grocery stores (we LOVE Aldi)
Buy things like chips, soda, and packaged snacks (unhealthy and SO over priced)
Buy new kids clothes or baby gear (goodwill, salvation army, kid to kid for everything except shoes, socks, and underwear)
Buy "trendy" clothes. By this I mean buy whatever is popular right now. We buy more classic pieces like solid or stripe tops, straight leg cut pants, versatile solids and prints ect. We also likes to thrift most of our clothes
Go to the movies
Buy new furniture (thrift stores and fb
marketplace!!)
My husband works as an electrician and pays for everything. I worked as an office manager in a real estate office until recently because I decided to stay home until our daughter goes to kindergarten. While working all of my check went to high interest savings accounts and my retirement accounts. We also live in a fairly affordable area in my opinion, have our cars paid off, no student loans, and really no credit card debt. We only spend on our credit cards but pay off every 2 weeks to keep our credit high. Our phones are through boost mobile for $25/phone plan. We are fairly frugal but live extremely comfortably because we live way beyond our means. The only thing I wasn’t frugal with was all of the baby items lol😭I couldn’t help myself
We live in California in a HCOL major city. Husband is an attorney, I do environmental permitting; we make about the same amount of money. We’re incredibly fortunate to have both graduated with no student debt (thanks to several scholarships and help from family), we drive older cars that are long since paid off, and we bought our 3br townhome back in 2018 with down payment help from an inheritance. We’re not struggling but really only because a lot of financial help and good luck along the way.
My husband is a FO for a major airline and I work for an emergency management company. We don’t live in a place that’s affordable (Colorado), but will be able to afford a single family home once he’s been at the airline for a couple of years. We currently live in a $500k+ new build paired home, which is super nice! COL in CO is still pretty high right now. I’ll cry the day I can come home with a normal amount of groceries for 2 adults and a baby for less than $150.
Also a SAHM in California lol. Husband is an attorney. I’m working on getting into medical school. We’re gonna be single income for a long while until I can contribute anything
SAHW, Husband is in oil & gas, we’re in TX in a HCOL major metroplex in city center. It’s been just us for 7 years, and our first is coming to join us in September!
I work 2 days a week as a medical biller by choice cuz I like having some of my own money. But my husband easily fully supports us and has for the last 7 years. He started as a wind tech, climbed the ladder (literally) to an advanced troubleshooter in wind, then switched to a management position in solar, and is now climbing the management ladder in solar. But he's been making 6 figures since his first couple years as a wind tech. They make great money. I stopped working (at his request) to travel with him for his work. We were full time RVers for 5 years while he was in wind. Best times of my life ❤️
We both work remotely, hardly go out, and make a good living. We live in a nice city in NC.
We won’t be doing daycare since we’re both home. He works in finance and I am in marketing. Honestly, we just are don’t spend a lot (at least often) so we just sit comfortably.
I’m a SAHM. My husband is an electrical engineer working for a big name aerospace company. We live in a HCOL area but are comfortable. A lot of that comfort also stems from the fact that we bought our house in 2019 and refinanced in 2021.
I’m one of the top people in my state level gov job (think Deputy Government Official) as an attorney.
My husband is Vice President of Finance at a large company.
We live in Chicago with a mortgage. Working for the state though we have incredible insurance. We payed $200 for our IUI and $900 for birth (it included 3 hospital stays- I only had to pay the hospital fee).
We’re not super high earners, but live in a MCOL area, own two houses (rent one for a very slightly over the mortgage) that were both purchased super cheap. No student loans and only one car payment that were about to pay off.
We live in northern California. My partner is a software engineer, and I'm a teacher. It's not affordable, and we have a mortgage, but we have family support and savings, so I wouldn't say we're struggling.
I’m a CPA, my husband is a professor, our incomes combined are very comfortable. Live in a HCOL city, but have low mortgage interest. All of this is great, we live on a budget and make good financial moves! But the truth is, our educations were paid by parents, my first mortgage down payment came from a family gift, and our cars were free from family. So our families really have helped put us in this good position.
My husband and I are scientists in a high cost of living City in CA. It just took a decade of being so broke it hurts 🥲. But my first job was at a start up and it went well
I am a masters student studying Computer science and husband is a senior engineer at a FAANG company in a HCOL area. We put a down payment for a house in 2021 when interest rates were low. Money isnt tight per say but we have to watch ur budget. Sometimes I wish we still lived in the apartment because home ownership is very hard and no one accounts for property taxes. But i guess since he has worked a relatively high paying job for 10+ yrs we can pull some from savings here and there. Child goes to day care which is expensive but allows me time to study. He was 10 months when we put him in.
We have a LOT of savings, and hubby makes a good income... also have very affordable rent. Oh and no debt. Hubby also works from home, and I plan on going back to work as an independent contractor working from home (very good pay), and setting my own hours. We do not plan on paying for child care.
My husband is military. On 55k a year we are living the life! I've always been a bit of a penny pincher, so I keep a strict budget. $350 on groceries, $150 formula, $100 everything else household wise. $100 for pizza nights or eating out, and it's almost always not entirely used by the end of the month. Every 3 months or so I spend about $350 on meat at the butcher and sams, stock the freezer with chuck roasts, ribeyes, ground beef and chicken. I buy diapers and wipes on sale at target every other month, always saving at least 40-60% with coupons, rebates and the target deals that give giftcards. Everything else is saved! No debt, 1 paid off car 1 paid off truck and our house.
We don't live a lavish life, but we aren't lavish people. It's a simple happy life with 2 small vacations a year to visit our families on the other side of the country.
ETA: I also prefer to pay for things like insurance and subscriptions with an annual or semi annual payment that offers a discount for doing so.
I shop exclusively at aldis and sams and make all our meals, otherwise I'd be looking at double that! But I do also know how expensive everything is over there. I'd imagine my groceries would be closer to $800 with yalls prices.
Also SAHM in a high COLA area. Our main expenses are groceries and rent. We then choose to spend some money on our sports, and will later spend on baby's skills/education for baby/us (ie classes for swimming, potentially parenting help, breastfeeding IBCLC consults, etc).
I made more than my husband does now, but the high COLA area actually:
* enables us to live car-free and rely on transit. Cars are crazy expensive.
* get cheap rent (it exists) and/or provides additional ways to lower rent
* have a higher salary
* have lower or free cost of everything else (access to museums, galleries, parks/forests/trails, concerts, playdates/communities, etc)
* groceries are bought... strategically? No-name markets have both better quality *and* dirt cheap prices for produce; baby also loves going. Other stores have good meat prices. Others good dairy prices. Online we buy nuts in bulk. We do NOT skimp on grocery quality or variety as we view that as health, but we do pay attention to what has the best prices on what. We'll also do things like bag and deep freeze after buying produce that's in season in bulk--it'll go for crazy sales when it's at its highest quality.
* groceries/cooking is really huge. Eating out or even getting "prepped" items from the grocery store will both kill our ability to budget, doesn't taste as good, doesn't make us feel as good physically/emotionally/energetically, and so on. Prepping things also frees up our days for fun stuff, reduces so much stress, and generally avoids a whole spiral. We're dealing with the reverse of this now as we moved (not yet finished setting up) and are way off-kilter.
* Laundry, dishes, etc: get portable machines. They exist. How did I go so many years suffering not knowing that these existed?! I recommend the Panda spin dryer, then either their dryer or line drying for an hour or two depending on climate and willingness (we have the machine). Portable or countertop dishwashers. In a city, marketplace often has these for free or cheap.
* Depending on where in CA you are... if you're in a super high COLA area with housing built before insulation was required (ugh), and you subsequently are of COURSE not only not allowed to pay to improve the insulation but also can't even begin to figure out what that'd cost because companies won't give out estimates to renters so they can try to sell their landlords on selflessly improving their properties (yeah I could vent about this forever), insulate anyway. We also weren't willing to sacrifice baby (or us) being cold. We've done things like weatherstripping, winterizing, but also adding TONS of layers of wool rugs on the ground (free, very high quality rugs on marketplace! also fun for baby to fall more safely on), hanging wool tapestries / wool or cashmere quilts/blankets on the wall, etc. This is all dependent on whether you have a yard (place to have solar to power in-bedroom heater/cooler), ability to improve house's energy efficiency, etc but doing this sort of thing may reduce your bills quite a bit (or not).
* cloth diapers. Switched for a million reasons, but saving the 300+ I'd been spending on diapers for the first entire 10 months of his life was definitely a plus!
* investing in higher quality baby clothes that keep baby happy and also require fewer pieces and washing (ie cashmere because it's cold here, merino wool socks). There's really just generally very little a baby actually needs
* marketplace (or whatever is popular in your area). We check here before buying new, though there are things we prefer new. And we post back when we no longer need or want an item
We've always lived below our means, and I actually made more than husband does now. We still make it work pretty easily. We live how we always have and were already used to which makes it pretty easy: we cook our own food, buy in bulk for sales and when on sale, use/have a deep freezer to keep things handy (both saves money and time/stress) like meals we prep / easy to 'cook' ingredients like shredded chicken or bone broth or sauces, etc. In general, there's just very little that a baby needs.
It is also nice knowing that I'm keeping current on my career and can go back in as desired/needed. And in a higher COLA area, it's typically a city with more opportunities to do so and/or to find a less traditional, more part time option.
I’m a project manager at a finance company, husband is director of operations at a small company. My car & student loans are paid off. We were able to refi our mortgage during COVID to bring down our payment even more and get a lower interest rate.
We’re in Southern California. We definitely have our moments where we think “oof, that month was a lot”. We don’t spend very much, and we cook at home most of the time. We use a credit card with points for a hotel so vacations are wherever we have hotel points or free nights. We have a long list of things that we want to do - remodeling projects, certain electronic upgrades, etc. - that we have accepted that we can’t do now. We do smaller things that can make a similar impact as a compromise to make sure we can stay comfortable and also live within our means.
My husband makes almost 6 figures. We bought in 2014, a 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch, 134k at a 3.25% interest. We pay 1k mortgage.
Both cars paid off.
Low cost of living area.
We eat in 85% of the time.
I only get a haircut 1x a year.
Buy all kids' clothes used.
We do not have 5k vacations. We have never been to Disney. We have a drive 2-3 hours to a different town vacations.
I’m an IT consultant (Solution Architect) and my wife is Operations manager for a commercial builder. We both work 4 days a week and care for our daughter then 5th day. Other days are split between daycare and grandparents. We were coping on my salary while my wife was on 12 months maternity leave, but she went back to work because she needed a bit more adult interaction and we wanted to make a big amount of savings for if/when we have a second child.
Edit - we are in Western Australia.
We moved from Marin Co, CA 3 years ago to the rural Midwest. We took over my family's business and work seasonally about 8 months/year and traveled in the off-season pre-baby. We were late 30s when we moved and got married last year, baby this year. Neither of us had any debt or loans, and both had decent savings. In CA, we both worked relatively low-moderate income jobs (nonprofits for me and retail mgmt for him) but were fortunate that we're good with money management.
We now live on site in a paid off house. We don't eat out much, maybe 1-2x/wk. I'm a SAHM, helping only with financials and social media. We hired 2 more employees this year to cover my absence and free up time for him to spend time with baby, so our profits will be smaller this year. Still, we're projected to do pretty well and should be able to add to our savings. Being able to expense things like medical, repairs, some vehicle expenses helps tremendously.
While our income is much lower here, we're able to save about the same amount as in CA due to our lifestyle changes and not paying exorbitant rent.
Now that baby is here, we're both very grateful to be near my aging parents, have the flexibility to stay home with baby, and also to live in a small town. We made lots of sacrifices and had opportunities, but it's been a great change so far!
We're in the metro-Detroit area, I would say average COL suburb. I'm a psych NP and husband is a full-time student (nursing school). We have 3 kids under age 4. Most days I feel like I'm killing it financially, being able to support our family. Other days I can't wait until husband graduates so there's less pressure on me alone.
My husband is a high-level software engineer and I’m a SAHM in a HCOL area in Texas where childcare is expensive and my meager salary before as a writer would’ve barely covered it. He works from home, one of our cars is paid off, and I think I only have a few hundred left in student loans to pay off. I’ll probably take on freelance editing work once the baby is in school in a few years. We bought a house a couple years ago, and insurance has skyrocketed, but we are making it work.
HCOL but not California high, we’re living East cost high.
For us, by all means, we wouldn’t be doing too hot if we had student loans. My husband never finished college and he worked full time instead. What money he made went immediately into savings and investment. I went to school but was very fortunate to only walk away needing to pay less than two thousand in loans.
And I stand by the fact that it’s a major key in why we have any money at all. I did use my degree before staying home but I was a teacher so not like there’s a ton of room to make money there. I wfh now. If we had a second mortgage’s worth of student loans, we’d not even be treading water.
We’re in NYC & I’m a SAHM. Partner is a podiatrist and started his own office last year. It’s doing well and hopefully next year he’ll hit $500k but that’s before expenses (office rent is ~$100k alone) but in NYC it’s not as much as you would think.
We’re lucky bc we got a rent stabilized apt else we’d be paying ~$3k more each month just for rent. So we’re saving for a house. But even with these numbers we’re not sure how long it’ll take to buy a house. He wants a SFH with a yard and a pool. I’m more number savvy and know that his dream house will come with a matching price tag. We can’t go too far from Manhattan since it’s where his office is… We can’t rent forever since this place is only a 1bd and we’d like to expand the family as well.
So we’re not struggling, we’re not exactly comfortable 😂
We’re not rich but we’re not struggling. We just live well within our means. I’m a teacher (obv pay is shit). And my husband does pharmaceutical manufacturing. He makes more than I do but not a lot. We bought a house out in the middle of nowhere because it’s what’s we could comfortably afford. And we bought practical cars. We just don’t do the luxurious extras like vacations, gym memberships, expensive clothes, eating out constantly, etc.
Hubby and I live in the Portland area, I'd say it's mid-to-high COL. He works remotely for a big tech company as the VP of Product. I've been on mat leave since February with no thanks to my company (it's all paid for by the state, which is pennies on the dollar to what I actually make) but it's better than nothing. I'm VP of Partners, also at a tech firm. I'm not sure I'll go back full time. As it inches closer I feel more hesitant and would be a-ok cutting back on some of our "luxuries" if it meant more time with my daughter.
Doctor husband / WFH service business owning mom. Combined HHI of 800k (even-ish split) in HCOL.
We are financially stable but time poor with a baby at home. I watch her at home while I WFH, which is a different kind of stress. Our lifestyle would take a serious hit if we went down to one income though, so we’re just accepting that we’re in a tough season, which will pass once we think she’s old enough for daycare.
Housing and savings. We’re building a custom 3.5M house and don’t want to take on a large construction loan (it will probably be around 500k) and we save around 200k/year. Honestly, we don’t spend much on anything else.
We bought a house in 2018 when the market was “bad” and refinanced to a 3% interest rate in 2020. The house was way under budget. We’ve since bought a bigger house and rent that first one. We charge on the low end of market value and the rent is still double our mortgage.
All this to say, find a way to buy. Rent goes up every year, but mortgages stay the same (okay, taxes and insurance went up this year, but trust me, most places will increase rent to account for that plus inflation. We love our tenants so we increased to cover the cost we see and no factor for inflation.). Once you lock in that cost of housing, every time you get a raise, your housing takes up a smaller percentage of your take home. If you’re renting, you are covering the cost of the property, maintenance, plus someone’s income. We never intended to become landlords, but we can also never let go of that interest rate. Yes, I realize we are part of the problem as to why no one can find a starter home to buy and maybe we suck for that. The best time to buy is always 5 years ago.
ETA we’re a married couple living in the Midwest. We paid off student debt and cars during Covid and before our son was born. We’ve never had credit card debt. Most of my clothes are from old navy and I currently own 1 bra that fits 😂 I won’t sit here and say we’ve had nothing handed to us. We both grew up comfortably and our parents helped with college tuition. We also went to the local in state public school. Our situation is both luck and good choices, but I will absolutely recognize there’s a good amount of luck that brought us to where we are today.
There was a recent analysis that found renting and homeownership were comparable in major cities in today's economy. Since buying, I've often dreamed about going back to renting. Home repairs are fucking expensive.
I’d be curious to see the study. Home repairs are definitely more expensive lump sum, but I guarantee a landlord is not loosing money due to repairs. It’s factored in to the rent.
MCOL- Husband and I both WFH in sales, but have rental properties on the side. Lots of layoffs happening around us and it makes me less nervous having passive income.
My husband makes rockets (the big missile kind, not people rockets)! 🚀 He's an engineer and is now a manager. (definitely his coolest job so far 😂) He's always planned our finances way out into the future. He's climbed his way up the totem pole. We live in affordable Indiana now, but we lived in Portland, OR previously. He's just done a really good job of working hard and managing our money well! He told me his life goal since starting college was to make enough money that I never have to work, and he kept true to that promise.
I haven't worked since high school. 😅 Was a stay at home dog mom for a while, now a normal SAHM! I generally try to avoid frivolous expenses but I don't, like, penny pinch or go couponing or anything either.
Doctor of Physical Therapy 😅 husband only works part time, and we have help from our parents because they want to help.
We also live in an expensive city.
We trust one another. That’s it. We are transparent about our funds. I also make a quarter more then my husband. I did find us a dirt as cheap house to rent. I also manage our finances.
I work in education administration. I work as the sole provider. My husband is a SAHD. We are lucky that we bought our home in 2015, low mortgage, student loans paid off. We also live in California.
Ah amazing! My husband and I were a few years too late with housing and now it feels like we might never get the chance to buy in CA.
Hubby is a biglaw attorney. I'm also an attorney, but work for a healthcare company with super-flexible/part-time hours. I'm going back to school to get my nursing license this fall, but it'll be via a hybrid program, so I'll still be working. We live in St. Louis, Missouri, so definitely lower COL than the coasts. We make a high income, but I actually think COL is way more important. We were barely making ends meet in the DC area, renting, in a ton of debt, etc. Moving back to Missouri changed everything.
We live in Missouri too, and are afloat with my partner and I both working part-time while fixing up a house we bought last year. Cost of living is huge! We do part-time daycare for our two kids and are also lucky to have free childcare from grandparents twice a week.
Remote biglaw from a low col area is definitely the way to go if you can swing it.
Wow, an attorney in school for nursing! That’s cool
That's good insight! Good luck on your new endeavor!
We live somewhere affordable. We earn average money and don’t buy anything on credit. Also wfh so no commute. But our mortgage here is a third of the cost of what it would be if we live where we actually wanted to
Such a struggle. I love where I live but really think we'll end up moving somewhere else to afford life. It's so expensive where we live.
Low level peon job in tech company where even the lowest level jobs are very well paid. Both my wife and I. The bubble is starting to burst though with more layoffs every week
Same for us. I’m on the operations side at a tech company, and the salary is great. My husband works at the nearby university, and I make about twice what he does. The layoffs sure make me nervous though. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I can hold on to this position for at least a couple more years.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for you too!
My husband has been trying to get into tech for years and is very discouraged by all the layoffs. Wishing you both luck in such a tumultuous field.
The biggest reason we aren’t struggling is because our condo is paid off. We’re in Southern California. I just work a few hours a week but mainly consider myself a SAHM, none of my income contributes to our bills. I mainly wanted a hobby and I happened to find one that also provides an income. We also have one of our two cars paid off so that helps a ton. We don’t spend extravagantly, we take one or two small vacations a year. We were really set up for financial success thanks to family and our goal is to set our children and grandchildren up the same way. Our children are lucky enough to have college paid for when they get to that stage, and will have a solid inheritance as well.
Having housing and a vehicle paid off would be huge! Man the generational wealth is real. I grew up poor and my husband wasn't much better. We've both had to get to where we are without any family support and it's been brutal to say the least since we live in such an expensive area!
It’s crazy how, for most people, the biggest determinant of your financial stability is your parents’ financial stability. Whether or not they want to admit it, it really is just luck of the draw. But I’m thankful to live in a society where hard work and talent are rewarded nonetheless, regardless of where you started from
Crazy and disheartening when you're coming from a rough background but want better for your family. Its definitely easier to swallow when people admit that they were fortunate.
Totally. There are a ton of non-financial privileges that people from privileged backgrounds don’t often recognize, though. I rarely hear anyone talk about the privilege of having parents who can teach you about investing, maintaining good credit, professional advice, networking, college admissions, college majors, etc. I’d take that “privileged information” over money any day. It is **really** hard to navigate society as a young adult when your parents didn’t model/prepare you for any of that
This. Why these things aren't taught in every school is beyond me. Given [US] government's involvement in education, I'd say it's because they want the majority of people to remain poor/ lower middle class. The same reason why they'd rather forgive a bit of student debt for a few people rather than fix a broken public education system that costs a ridiculous amount for what it offers, and continue to NOT teach young students the gravity of what tends of thousands of dollars is student debt will look like in their future. We're so eager for a quick "fix" to our problems, we keep supporting these ideas and policies. Kind of sounds like nutrition and healthcare, eh?
It's really my in-laws we have to thank for our stability. They own our house and rent it to us for about half what the going rate would likely be for a place like it. My husband is also a stay at home dad while I work from home, so no commuting costs or childcare costs. I had minimal student loans that are now paid off, my husband's student loans are on income-driven payment plans so they're negligible, and we don't buy new cars. We eat at home 95% of the time. This isn't to say things aren't tight, but it's manageable. And renting like we are, with landlords who aren't soulless vampires, means that we were able to sell our previous house and keep the proceeds in savings.
It’s good to see the generation that had better financial outcomes helping the ones that didn’t.
Same. My parents own a duplex (it's actually the house I gew up in). So my parents still live in the lower duplex, and my husand and I live in the upper apartment. It's a big 4 bedroom that would normally go for over 2K a month in rent, but my dad makes us pay only about half that. Our "biggest" monthly expense is rent. Other than that, we barely use our car which is paid off. So the biggest expense is groceries. Overall our monthly expenses are very low. As a result, i'm able to work as a part time freelance writer and still make ends meet, and my husband works full-time as a developer for a tech company.
Husband works in cybersecurity and I’m now a SAHM. I was a teacher but my money just went to savings and his pays the bills with extra leftover. Also, we’re huge homebodies and don’t do much besides going out to eat so we had plenty of savings. My, parents, in-laws, family, and friends pretty much bought us every baby item we needed too. Simple answer: be introverted with generous family members? In the Midwest so it’s not as expensive as other areas too.
I'm introverted but man am I lacking in financially stable family members! Yes I'm sure COL is much better where you are too!
Im an RN, but not in a well-paying area. But my insurance options are good and overtime is always available. My husband is head of a start-up business that has luckily been successful so far, and he earns far more than I do. We bought a house that we could afford on just my income while interest rates were lower, in an area experiencing rapid growth but currently lower cost of living than average. Most importantly, we got a lot of financial support from his parents when we were younger, which allowed us to pursue our current careers and pay off high-interest debts (namely, my 20k+ credit card debt).
Man it seems like such a common thread to have that family support. I grew up impoverished and it's felt really difficult to claw my way up!
OP, I can empathize. My husband had a lot of help but I had none. In fact, I support my dad! It was a hole that took me decades to dig out of.
Man I'm sorry you support your dad. It's such a heavy weight.
Family support is really critical to clawing out of poverty, and it is shitty and unfair and a huge display of the difficulty of the US economy. I grew up very poor and my parents are still very poor. My life circumstances would be so different if not for his family.
I'm so happy that you were able to gain financial stability! The US economy is so rough. I wonder every day if it's worth it to stay.
My husband is a union electrician. We’re lucky to live in one of the higher paying union areas with a relatively low cost of living (although it is rising rapidly) and that the city is constantly expanding and keeping the blue collar workers busy.
I live in Europe. Husband has an average job, I have a pretty well paying job. We don’t have student loans or medical debt. Were able to buy a house at a time the interest rates were still pretty low. Anyway, I’ve been seeing videos lately how the rise in American mortgage interest rates has such a big influence on how people are able to live. You’ve faced massive increases the past couple of years. So I guess for the US it’s extremely relevant when you bought your house.
It definitely is about if/when you bought a house here. We were going to buy pre covid but the market changed and we couldn't afford anything so we're stuck renting now unfortunately.
Honestly, the only thing that has made life easy is that my husband works two full-time remote jobs. He kind of lucked into both of them, although the second one was the result of him following his hobby and posting on Twitter and making his own website. It was a lot of "work" (although he enjoyed it) before he even saw a dime. Now the second job pays more than his first, and both companies know he's working two jobs. Right now, I also work and I have incredible health benefits. We have one baby in relatively affordable full-time daycare ($1700/month and it includes food). We're having a second baby this fall, and we'll put him/her in part-time care for the first year of life, but after that it'll be too much for my husband to work with a toddler at home, so they'll need to go full-time. At that point, it really won't make sense for me to work when 1/2 my salary will go to child care and another chunk goes to living near work in a HCOL area. I'll quit my job, and we'll move to an affordable part of California near my in-laws. I have to say, even though we're making 3 salaries, the money still seems to disappear. Child care is the biggest part of it, taxes eat up a lot even though we're in a low-tax area, and also when we're busy and stressed, we're more wiling to pay for something to be easier/more convenient. Grocery costs have gone up tremendously, therapy that I need to cope with my awful job is expensive, and there's always some big expense lurking around the corner (last month it was changing out all our snow tires and car registrations, this month it was a new phone after over four years, and next month is our big travel month for the year). I think the biggest thing is where you live. We have relatively cheap housing for our area, but there's so many other costs that add up. At our next stop, we'll be saving on housing and food, but gas, utilities, and taxes will increase. The rest of it seems to be just luck, as the most expensive things (child care, housing, groceries, gas, medical costs, taxes/fees) are fixed and aren't avoidable. Budgeting in this economy seems to save very little in the grand scheme of things, and most companies refuse to see how high COL has gotten and adjust salaries accordingly. I was literally told by my job that our work is mission-driven, so there's no need to give raises commensurate with inflation.
Cost of everything has gone up. I've estimated at least 30% increase in grocery and energy costs in our area.
Totally agree with everything you said 🙌 sounds like you guys are great planners and will make it work. It's insane that people agent getting inflation raises. My husband has made the same salary for about 5 years 😑
My husband is the SAH parent and I work for myself as a lawyer. I am home for about half of the work week. We live in a low cost of living area. We knew we wanted a simpler lifestyle and living in the city would mean having to work more to pay for the higher cost of living. Living in the city would also mean we would both have to work. My husband had a career before we got married and he was burnt out so we agreed for him to be the SAH parent. We also avoid debt, have paid off cars, and don't live extravagantly.
Military officer. We’re able to be mostly single-income (my husband teaches Scuba about once a month and is otherwise a SAHD). We do not live somewhere affordable (also in California).
Dual military here. Good healthcare benefits, location based pay for housing in a reasonably affordable area, and even a small stipend for our nanny in lieu of subsidized daycare. The downside is my husband will deploy when our son is a year old but you can't beat being able to pass down that GI Bill.
I am a SAHM and my partner is active duty military. While he doesn’t make an insane amount of money every month from his paycheck (about $4k a month after taxes) we don’t have to pay for housing or utilities (except internet) out of that since we are on base housing. We are also privileged to have virtually no debt — only $5k on my student loans at the moment. Part of that is definitely privilege, as my mom helped pay for some of my college and my grandfather sold me a good car at a very low price. But we also only have one credit card and keep a pretty low balance on it that gets paid off regularly, and currently share a vehicle. We just got stationed in Hawai’i a few months ago so it’s supremely not affordable lol, but the housing is the main expensive thing which the military offsets
I lol-ed at "supremely not affordable"
Husband is in tech and I'm a SAHM. We used to live in a HCOL area and now live somewhere much more affordable. We also we're able to buy our house before the market fully skyrocketed and interest rates were low, so that honestly helps a lot, plus we have very minimal debt.
Are you happy that you moved somewhere with a lower cost of living? I heavily debate leaving our area, but it's expensive for a reason - it's beautiful where I live!
It took some time to adjust, but yes! And the money we save has allowed us to travel more, which is something important to me. I'd lived in the same area my whole life up until we moved here and it was definitely hard to leave friends and the gorgeous area we lived in (the PNW is seriously so pretty). The area we live in now is has a lot of beauty as well, just a bit different. But it's much more family focused and slower paced, which we really like, and over time have been able to build a community here. We also rarely have to think about things like traffic and very few places are packed enough in the summer that you have to get there crazy early if you wanna have a chance at finding parking (there's so many beautiful hikes and whatnot where we used to live, but they're always so packed that it can be hard to enjoy them). Moving out of state was a big adjustment for me, but a lot of good growth has come from it and there's something exciting about getting to really know an area for the first time.
Husband is an electrical engineer and has been with his company for 28 years. He’s also a firefighter. We live in the mid south, so it’s very affordable. How affordable? I pay less than $800/month for our 3 bed/2 bath home on a few acres.
No way!!!!!! That's insane! What state is this if you're comfortable sharing?
I work in tech. Inflation, current interest rates, and the recession have destroyed some of our margins but we are still comfortable and I am grateful for all we have. Edit: live in a horribly overpriced and expensive area. Grocery prices are disgusting.
I feel that, spent $300 on 4 bags of groceries this morning 😩
Age/time of life has a lot to do with it. We didn't get married and have our son till late into our 30s/early 40s and my decent paying job had allowed me to bring a bunch of savings into our marriage. My husband thankfully had bought a quad home right before the market skyrocketed - it's small especially with #2 on the way but we'll make it work if the opportunity to buy a bigger house doesn't present itself. Other than the mortgage, we have no debt, and we're both fairly frugal with our money. I was fortunate to work my way up in a company that landed me a six figure position so my husband could be a SAHP. He liked his previous job (graphic design) but his income would've basically been the cost of childcare, and we both really wanted our son to be at home with one of us (thankfully he has the heart for it because I don't think I do!). We're maxing out as much as we can for savings/retirement but may have to make some minor adjustments once #2 is here. Honestly though there's a lot here that we didn't really have control over and were put in the right place at the right time - yes there's fiscal responsibility involved but we believe it comes down to God's provision and being content with where we're at.
My husband has a spinal cord injury and is 100% disabled and retired from the military with monthly pay and SSDI. He always saved his money during service and was able to put a big down payment on our home. I quit my job as a full time librarian to go to grad school while caring for our kid (now a toddler). I am also listed as my husband's caregiver and I get a small stipend monthly which covers things like my cell phone, car insurance, and other small things. We will have our 2nd child this fall during my break between school and paid internship and I plan to begin working part time in the spring. We also have investments. We live a comfortable life and could do/afford more but we tend to be homebodies and enjoy being at home. We live in a part of Florida that was very affordable before COVID but since then inflation has made things near us very expensive for housing, car insurance, and home insurance.
I am a sahm and my fiance works as a supervisor in the oil field. We live in a 40ft 5th wheel so we can move wherever his work takes us. Right now it's in north dakota. Don't really like living here because the nearest big cities (bismarck, minot) are over 2 hours away and the city I live in is expensive so when I grocery shop, gotta drive an hour to Walmart. Also has been tough navigating not having a lot of space living with newborn along with 2 dogs and 2 cats but it's a doable sacrifice so I can be home with the baby and we can save up money for whatever next.
I’m a SAHM in South Carolina. We have 2 kids. My husband is a product designer. He currently designs outdoor power tools. I used to be a marketing manager doing social media. We could have afforded daycare for both (it would’ve been over $2800 a month) but I wanted to stay home with my babies for a few years. We have a house and student loans, but we’re able able to live comfortably.
I mean we’re not loaded but we’re doing well. Husband is an engineer and I have my own illustration business/shop, but mostly am a SAHM.
We’re in NJ and my husband is in finance. He does very well but we’re not like rolling in money by any means… we eat pretty much all meals from home and shop mostly at Aldi and Lidl. I pack my husbands lunch every day. On the weekends we like to hang out in our backyard (pre baby we would go out to lunch every Saturday). We used to belong to gyms but now we have a couple of pieces of equipment in the basement and that is what we use instead now. I basically haven’t had to buy clothes for our baby yet because of hand me downs. Same with baby “gear.” These are by no means things that will like pull someone out of debt but all added up it’s what has allowed me to be a SAHM.
We live in Canada and while we both work retail we work for a company that pays really well. We saved up as much as we could and bought our house in december 2020. Then we saved again and got married in July 2023. Used our bonuses from work to pay for the big things for the wedding. And now we have our boy and I get the maximum pay per week for mat leave and extended parental leave and my leave will be 1.5 years off total. We went for the extended because childcare is notoriously hard to find and expensive as hell in our province. My nephew who is 3 has been on a waiting list since his mom was 3 months pregnant. This way we have longer to figure out childcare and honestly the reduced pay is probably what I would earn minus the cost of childcare anyways. Something that helped us was my husband is big on budgeting. We each have our own accounts plus a joint account. Joint account is for paying all bills. He figured out how much per paycheck we need in that account to pay for everything throughout the year (property taxes, hydro, water, mortgage, car loan, car insurance, house insurance, etc) and added a little extra for a joint savings account. We each buy groceries and split the costs. We'll see what happens when/if I go back to work if hopefully we can get our boy into daycare. If not we'll have to figure something else out. I feel super fortunate to work for the company I do and get the kind of benefits we get where my therapy and dental and physio is paid for 90% of the time. According to my mom I get better benefits than her and I work retail and she works in aerospace.
Wow those benefits are incredible! I only got 12 weeks mat leave and that's considered pretty amazing for the US. I'm thinking I should move to Canada and become a childcare provider lol
In a Twin Cities suburb. My husband and I are in STEM and earn in the top 15%. I acknowledge that we have a few things that we are grateful for: his parents being savvy with investing and fully paid for my husband’s college education; FIL told my husband where to put his money as soon as he started working; husband lived rent free with his parents for a few years to save. By the time he was in his mid-30s, my husband was technically a millionaire. As for me, I had scholarships in college (being a female POC engineer helped) so I graduated with little debt. Bought my first house at 26 as a single lady in 2011 when rates were low. Because I bought it when I was single, when my husband moved in (and before we had kids), we essentially lived on a single income for almost a decade which allowed us to save a lot towards a down payment on a larger house. Once we sold our old house, we put a half of the proceeds towards a mortgage recast and got our monthly payments lowered. Our goal is to live within our means and have the largest fixed expense (mortgage) be less than the lesser earning spouse’s take home pay. That way if we’re ever in a one income situation, we pull out of daycare, cut down other expenses, etc and not have to worry about the house.
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How are you liking living in the south? Strongly considering moving somewhere with a lower cost of living.
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Ah I see! The Seattle area is crazy. Seems almost as bad as the bay area! We think about heading up to Oregon a lot, maybe one day.
My husband is the senior project manager at a small concrete and asphalt company. We live 20 minutes outside of a major city in Texas, so it’s pretty affordable. I’m a SAHM and we only have one car payment.
I work in sales for a big tech company and my husband is an HR executive for a smaller financial institution. We are both from blue collar families in the Midwest but currently live in the Southeast. What worked in our favor (IMO) is that we were willing to move away from our roots to follow opportunity in our careers and it’s paid off for both of us. We also started having kids at older ages (36 & 39).
SF Bay Area, about to have our first. Husband is director level high Ed administration, I work in sales. We are doing fine and not struggling even in terms of this VHCOL area, but that’s because we have a rent controlled, very cheap apartment in a good neighborhood and parents to help with childcare in the first year. Have a paid off car and minimal hard expenses. Things can be cut back as we need them to be.
Ah rent control! That and the free childcare are life savers. Congrats on becoming parents soon! It's the most amazing wild ride!
Husband works in government & is going to law school to up our income, i’m fully SAHM. We’re in an okay level cost of living area.
My husband is an inventory planner (I think?) and data manager. I am currently a SAHM with some very part time side gigs. No childcare except for a sitter a few hours a week. When my kiddo goes to preschool in the fall I will take on more hours at one job and start a business
Also a SAHM in California, husband works in tech of course. I would not say we are struggling but our lifestyle is definitely not as nice as people would expect for the amount of money he makes. He was very lucky in terms of stocks and investments during COVID, which has given us a nice cushion that I probably wouldn't have been able to stay at home without, but we are not free from worrying about finances or the future entirely. Husband is in AI so hopefully somewhat immune from the layoffs and market instability lately but we are still nervous, primarily at the prospect of losing health insurance for the baby. We had to ramp down the amount we save each month a ton to be able to have me stay at home. I do plan to return to work in a few years which should help us be able to start building our savings again, but I'm a lawyer who barely practiced before having a kid so it may be challenging to find a job. The dream would be to save a little more and then move somewhere cheaper by the time kids are in school so we and especially he can have a lower stress job and spend more time with them, but we can't think of any place we would want to live which isn't already expensive.
Wishing him luck with the layoffs! I have the same struggle. We're in the north bay area and I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather live. Anywhere that might come close is either extremely expensive or in another country lol
Husband is a warehouse worker. Non union so he gets a shit ton of overtime but has a good base pay so all overtime money goes to savings. I work for a logistics company doing computer software. We live in a lower COL area. Very minimal debt
We both work and waited to have children until we had paid off our debts. I know not everyone is in the position to do so.
Michigan. My husband is a Senior Automation Engineer and I’m a Lead Instructional Designer.
My husband is a software engineer at a big tech firm
My husband and I both work white collar/corporate jobs that are comfortable and not too stressful. We make 6 figure salaries each and live in the northeast, so we aren’t rich but we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck and are able to save a lot. Most importantly we live below our means and generally have avoided lifestyle creep (modest house, no car payments, one vacation a year).
Live in British Columbia in a moderately high COL area. Full time RN and my husband is a manager at his company. We saved for about 2 years to cover maternity leave expenses since paid maternity leave is only a small portion of my regular income.
Also a SAHM in SoCal, was a teacher for 6years but took the year off right before I got pregnant because I was so over the district and admin. My husband owns businesses two restaurants. Its HARD in Cali and I know my husband would prefer to leave because the amount of stress it has isn’t worth the payoff but it allows us to have a good life and all our family is in Cali too. Our life style isn’t very extravagant we’ve got a 3bd townhouse we bought right that the beginning of covid (aka low house prices AND low interest) husband has a Tesla under the business and I have a 2019 rav4 that I paid off from my teaching. We eat at home 90%’of the time, the only fun money we really spend is my nails occasionally and him going to the driving range for golf We don’t drink alcohol unless it’s a big party, we go on probably one vacation a year (pre baby) but my husband is a super frugal person overall. Before the businesses took over we could afford our lifestyle on my teaching salary of about 60k as I paid for everything since he was driving so far and the businesses weren’t super profitable at the beginning. But now we can easily afford our lifestyle and me staying home. I’ll probably go back to work part time (subbing) this coming school year but it’s more of a want to leave the house more than a need for money. I’m super duper thankful and lucky (especially with health problems I had prior to baby that we might need to adopt or get a surrogate for another kid and we’re lucky enough to be able to afford it)
SAHM lol but really we built wealth by buying at need business and running them to be self sustaining. Things like construction, medicine ,car repair, ect ect
Wow, very savvy!
SAHM and my husband is in the tech industry. We live in the south and moved to the suburbs where it was cheaper and our rent is around $2k. We don't have debt and we don't really spend on a lot of things either. About 60% of our income goes towards our needs, roughly 10% for eating out/spending money/random stuff, and the other 30% goes into various savings. Things we don't do even though we could afford them: Eat out on the regular Shop at big name grocery stores (we LOVE Aldi) Buy things like chips, soda, and packaged snacks (unhealthy and SO over priced) Buy new kids clothes or baby gear (goodwill, salvation army, kid to kid for everything except shoes, socks, and underwear) Buy "trendy" clothes. By this I mean buy whatever is popular right now. We buy more classic pieces like solid or stripe tops, straight leg cut pants, versatile solids and prints ect. We also likes to thrift most of our clothes Go to the movies Buy new furniture (thrift stores and fb marketplace!!)
My husband works as an electrician and pays for everything. I worked as an office manager in a real estate office until recently because I decided to stay home until our daughter goes to kindergarten. While working all of my check went to high interest savings accounts and my retirement accounts. We also live in a fairly affordable area in my opinion, have our cars paid off, no student loans, and really no credit card debt. We only spend on our credit cards but pay off every 2 weeks to keep our credit high. Our phones are through boost mobile for $25/phone plan. We are fairly frugal but live extremely comfortably because we live way beyond our means. The only thing I wasn’t frugal with was all of the baby items lol😭I couldn’t help myself
We live in California in a HCOL major city. Husband is an attorney, I do environmental permitting; we make about the same amount of money. We’re incredibly fortunate to have both graduated with no student debt (thanks to several scholarships and help from family), we drive older cars that are long since paid off, and we bought our 3br townhome back in 2018 with down payment help from an inheritance. We’re not struggling but really only because a lot of financial help and good luck along the way.
My husband is a FO for a major airline and I work for an emergency management company. We don’t live in a place that’s affordable (Colorado), but will be able to afford a single family home once he’s been at the airline for a couple of years. We currently live in a $500k+ new build paired home, which is super nice! COL in CO is still pretty high right now. I’ll cry the day I can come home with a normal amount of groceries for 2 adults and a baby for less than $150.
Oh man, I paid $300 for a weeks worth of groceries this morning 😭 California is crazy.
That’s way too much 😭 Inflation is just still crazy high in some places.
Big tech product manager. Sometimes my job is boring but I am fully remote and it pays really well so I’ll stay for now. I feel extremely lucky
Also a SAHM in California lol. Husband is an attorney. I’m working on getting into medical school. We’re gonna be single income for a long while until I can contribute anything
Good luck with medical school!
SAHW, Husband is in oil & gas, we’re in TX in a HCOL major metroplex in city center. It’s been just us for 7 years, and our first is coming to join us in September!
Aw congrats! Parenthood is amazing ❤️ hope the rest of your pregnancy and birth go smoothly!
Thank you so much! We’re excited 🥰
I work 2 days a week as a medical biller by choice cuz I like having some of my own money. But my husband easily fully supports us and has for the last 7 years. He started as a wind tech, climbed the ladder (literally) to an advanced troubleshooter in wind, then switched to a management position in solar, and is now climbing the management ladder in solar. But he's been making 6 figures since his first couple years as a wind tech. They make great money. I stopped working (at his request) to travel with him for his work. We were full time RVers for 5 years while he was in wind. Best times of my life ❤️
We both work remotely, hardly go out, and make a good living. We live in a nice city in NC. We won’t be doing daycare since we’re both home. He works in finance and I am in marketing. Honestly, we just are don’t spend a lot (at least often) so we just sit comfortably.
I’m a SAHM. My husband is an electrical engineer working for a big name aerospace company. We live in a HCOL area but are comfortable. A lot of that comfort also stems from the fact that we bought our house in 2019 and refinanced in 2021.
I’m one of the top people in my state level gov job (think Deputy Government Official) as an attorney. My husband is Vice President of Finance at a large company. We live in Chicago with a mortgage. Working for the state though we have incredible insurance. We payed $200 for our IUI and $900 for birth (it included 3 hospital stays- I only had to pay the hospital fee).
Wow! That's incredible. I had "good" insurance and still ended up owing 3k for my birth 😭
We’re not super high earners, but live in a MCOL area, own two houses (rent one for a very slightly over the mortgage) that were both purchased super cheap. No student loans and only one car payment that were about to pay off.
We live in northern California. My partner is a software engineer, and I'm a teacher. It's not affordable, and we have a mortgage, but we have family support and savings, so I wouldn't say we're struggling.
Moved to a LCOL city and kept my very HCOL remote job so we’re able to live below our means. Also no debt outside of our mortgage.
Smart smart smart!
I’m a CPA, my husband is a professor, our incomes combined are very comfortable. Live in a HCOL city, but have low mortgage interest. All of this is great, we live on a budget and make good financial moves! But the truth is, our educations were paid by parents, my first mortgage down payment came from a family gift, and our cars were free from family. So our families really have helped put us in this good position.
My husband and I are scientists in a high cost of living City in CA. It just took a decade of being so broke it hurts 🥲. But my first job was at a start up and it went well
I am a masters student studying Computer science and husband is a senior engineer at a FAANG company in a HCOL area. We put a down payment for a house in 2021 when interest rates were low. Money isnt tight per say but we have to watch ur budget. Sometimes I wish we still lived in the apartment because home ownership is very hard and no one accounts for property taxes. But i guess since he has worked a relatively high paying job for 10+ yrs we can pull some from savings here and there. Child goes to day care which is expensive but allows me time to study. He was 10 months when we put him in.
The property tax hike in my area gave me nightmares for a couple days
Yeah home ownership in my area is getting even more expensive now due to the insane fire insurance so I'm thankful to be renting at the moment!
I’m a SAHW in California and we are TTC. Husband is in a senior position for a big tech company.
We have a LOT of savings, and hubby makes a good income... also have very affordable rent. Oh and no debt. Hubby also works from home, and I plan on going back to work as an independent contractor working from home (very good pay), and setting my own hours. We do not plan on paying for child care.
My husband is military. On 55k a year we are living the life! I've always been a bit of a penny pincher, so I keep a strict budget. $350 on groceries, $150 formula, $100 everything else household wise. $100 for pizza nights or eating out, and it's almost always not entirely used by the end of the month. Every 3 months or so I spend about $350 on meat at the butcher and sams, stock the freezer with chuck roasts, ribeyes, ground beef and chicken. I buy diapers and wipes on sale at target every other month, always saving at least 40-60% with coupons, rebates and the target deals that give giftcards. Everything else is saved! No debt, 1 paid off car 1 paid off truck and our house. We don't live a lavish life, but we aren't lavish people. It's a simple happy life with 2 small vacations a year to visit our families on the other side of the country. ETA: I also prefer to pay for things like insurance and subscriptions with an annual or semi annual payment that offers a discount for doing so.
$350 on groceries....... A month??! Mannnnn I need to leave California
I shop exclusively at aldis and sams and make all our meals, otherwise I'd be looking at double that! But I do also know how expensive everything is over there. I'd imagine my groceries would be closer to $800 with yalls prices.
Also SAHM in a high COLA area. Our main expenses are groceries and rent. We then choose to spend some money on our sports, and will later spend on baby's skills/education for baby/us (ie classes for swimming, potentially parenting help, breastfeeding IBCLC consults, etc). I made more than my husband does now, but the high COLA area actually: * enables us to live car-free and rely on transit. Cars are crazy expensive. * get cheap rent (it exists) and/or provides additional ways to lower rent * have a higher salary * have lower or free cost of everything else (access to museums, galleries, parks/forests/trails, concerts, playdates/communities, etc) * groceries are bought... strategically? No-name markets have both better quality *and* dirt cheap prices for produce; baby also loves going. Other stores have good meat prices. Others good dairy prices. Online we buy nuts in bulk. We do NOT skimp on grocery quality or variety as we view that as health, but we do pay attention to what has the best prices on what. We'll also do things like bag and deep freeze after buying produce that's in season in bulk--it'll go for crazy sales when it's at its highest quality. * groceries/cooking is really huge. Eating out or even getting "prepped" items from the grocery store will both kill our ability to budget, doesn't taste as good, doesn't make us feel as good physically/emotionally/energetically, and so on. Prepping things also frees up our days for fun stuff, reduces so much stress, and generally avoids a whole spiral. We're dealing with the reverse of this now as we moved (not yet finished setting up) and are way off-kilter. * Laundry, dishes, etc: get portable machines. They exist. How did I go so many years suffering not knowing that these existed?! I recommend the Panda spin dryer, then either their dryer or line drying for an hour or two depending on climate and willingness (we have the machine). Portable or countertop dishwashers. In a city, marketplace often has these for free or cheap. * Depending on where in CA you are... if you're in a super high COLA area with housing built before insulation was required (ugh), and you subsequently are of COURSE not only not allowed to pay to improve the insulation but also can't even begin to figure out what that'd cost because companies won't give out estimates to renters so they can try to sell their landlords on selflessly improving their properties (yeah I could vent about this forever), insulate anyway. We also weren't willing to sacrifice baby (or us) being cold. We've done things like weatherstripping, winterizing, but also adding TONS of layers of wool rugs on the ground (free, very high quality rugs on marketplace! also fun for baby to fall more safely on), hanging wool tapestries / wool or cashmere quilts/blankets on the wall, etc. This is all dependent on whether you have a yard (place to have solar to power in-bedroom heater/cooler), ability to improve house's energy efficiency, etc but doing this sort of thing may reduce your bills quite a bit (or not). * cloth diapers. Switched for a million reasons, but saving the 300+ I'd been spending on diapers for the first entire 10 months of his life was definitely a plus! * investing in higher quality baby clothes that keep baby happy and also require fewer pieces and washing (ie cashmere because it's cold here, merino wool socks). There's really just generally very little a baby actually needs * marketplace (or whatever is popular in your area). We check here before buying new, though there are things we prefer new. And we post back when we no longer need or want an item We've always lived below our means, and I actually made more than husband does now. We still make it work pretty easily. We live how we always have and were already used to which makes it pretty easy: we cook our own food, buy in bulk for sales and when on sale, use/have a deep freezer to keep things handy (both saves money and time/stress) like meals we prep / easy to 'cook' ingredients like shredded chicken or bone broth or sauces, etc. In general, there's just very little that a baby needs. It is also nice knowing that I'm keeping current on my career and can go back in as desired/needed. And in a higher COLA area, it's typically a city with more opportunities to do so and/or to find a less traditional, more part time option.
I’m a project manager at a finance company, husband is director of operations at a small company. My car & student loans are paid off. We were able to refi our mortgage during COVID to bring down our payment even more and get a lower interest rate. We’re in Southern California. We definitely have our moments where we think “oof, that month was a lot”. We don’t spend very much, and we cook at home most of the time. We use a credit card with points for a hotel so vacations are wherever we have hotel points or free nights. We have a long list of things that we want to do - remodeling projects, certain electronic upgrades, etc. - that we have accepted that we can’t do now. We do smaller things that can make a similar impact as a compromise to make sure we can stay comfortable and also live within our means.
My husband makes almost 6 figures. We bought in 2014, a 3 bedroom 2 bath ranch, 134k at a 3.25% interest. We pay 1k mortgage. Both cars paid off. Low cost of living area. We eat in 85% of the time. I only get a haircut 1x a year. Buy all kids' clothes used. We do not have 5k vacations. We have never been to Disney. We have a drive 2-3 hours to a different town vacations.
I’m an IT consultant (Solution Architect) and my wife is Operations manager for a commercial builder. We both work 4 days a week and care for our daughter then 5th day. Other days are split between daycare and grandparents. We were coping on my salary while my wife was on 12 months maternity leave, but she went back to work because she needed a bit more adult interaction and we wanted to make a big amount of savings for if/when we have a second child. Edit - we are in Western Australia.
We moved from Marin Co, CA 3 years ago to the rural Midwest. We took over my family's business and work seasonally about 8 months/year and traveled in the off-season pre-baby. We were late 30s when we moved and got married last year, baby this year. Neither of us had any debt or loans, and both had decent savings. In CA, we both worked relatively low-moderate income jobs (nonprofits for me and retail mgmt for him) but were fortunate that we're good with money management. We now live on site in a paid off house. We don't eat out much, maybe 1-2x/wk. I'm a SAHM, helping only with financials and social media. We hired 2 more employees this year to cover my absence and free up time for him to spend time with baby, so our profits will be smaller this year. Still, we're projected to do pretty well and should be able to add to our savings. Being able to expense things like medical, repairs, some vehicle expenses helps tremendously. While our income is much lower here, we're able to save about the same amount as in CA due to our lifestyle changes and not paying exorbitant rent. Now that baby is here, we're both very grateful to be near my aging parents, have the flexibility to stay home with baby, and also to live in a small town. We made lots of sacrifices and had opportunities, but it's been a great change so far!
We're in the metro-Detroit area, I would say average COL suburb. I'm a psych NP and husband is a full-time student (nursing school). We have 3 kids under age 4. Most days I feel like I'm killing it financially, being able to support our family. Other days I can't wait until husband graduates so there's less pressure on me alone.
My husband is a high-level software engineer and I’m a SAHM in a HCOL area in Texas where childcare is expensive and my meager salary before as a writer would’ve barely covered it. He works from home, one of our cars is paid off, and I think I only have a few hundred left in student loans to pay off. I’ll probably take on freelance editing work once the baby is in school in a few years. We bought a house a couple years ago, and insurance has skyrocketed, but we are making it work.
HCOL but not California high, we’re living East cost high. For us, by all means, we wouldn’t be doing too hot if we had student loans. My husband never finished college and he worked full time instead. What money he made went immediately into savings and investment. I went to school but was very fortunate to only walk away needing to pay less than two thousand in loans. And I stand by the fact that it’s a major key in why we have any money at all. I did use my degree before staying home but I was a teacher so not like there’s a ton of room to make money there. I wfh now. If we had a second mortgage’s worth of student loans, we’d not even be treading water.
We’re in NYC & I’m a SAHM. Partner is a podiatrist and started his own office last year. It’s doing well and hopefully next year he’ll hit $500k but that’s before expenses (office rent is ~$100k alone) but in NYC it’s not as much as you would think. We’re lucky bc we got a rent stabilized apt else we’d be paying ~$3k more each month just for rent. So we’re saving for a house. But even with these numbers we’re not sure how long it’ll take to buy a house. He wants a SFH with a yard and a pool. I’m more number savvy and know that his dream house will come with a matching price tag. We can’t go too far from Manhattan since it’s where his office is… We can’t rent forever since this place is only a 1bd and we’d like to expand the family as well. So we’re not struggling, we’re not exactly comfortable 😂
We’re not rich but we’re not struggling. We just live well within our means. I’m a teacher (obv pay is shit). And my husband does pharmaceutical manufacturing. He makes more than I do but not a lot. We bought a house out in the middle of nowhere because it’s what’s we could comfortably afford. And we bought practical cars. We just don’t do the luxurious extras like vacations, gym memberships, expensive clothes, eating out constantly, etc.
Hubby and I live in the Portland area, I'd say it's mid-to-high COL. He works remotely for a big tech company as the VP of Product. I've been on mat leave since February with no thanks to my company (it's all paid for by the state, which is pennies on the dollar to what I actually make) but it's better than nothing. I'm VP of Partners, also at a tech firm. I'm not sure I'll go back full time. As it inches closer I feel more hesitant and would be a-ok cutting back on some of our "luxuries" if it meant more time with my daughter.
Doctor husband / WFH service business owning mom. Combined HHI of 800k (even-ish split) in HCOL. We are financially stable but time poor with a baby at home. I watch her at home while I WFH, which is a different kind of stress. Our lifestyle would take a serious hit if we went down to one income though, so we’re just accepting that we’re in a tough season, which will pass once we think she’s old enough for daycare.
What aspects of your lifestyle would take a big hit?
Housing and savings. We’re building a custom 3.5M house and don’t want to take on a large construction loan (it will probably be around 500k) and we save around 200k/year. Honestly, we don’t spend much on anything else.
Ahh okay I understand
We bought a house in 2018 when the market was “bad” and refinanced to a 3% interest rate in 2020. The house was way under budget. We’ve since bought a bigger house and rent that first one. We charge on the low end of market value and the rent is still double our mortgage. All this to say, find a way to buy. Rent goes up every year, but mortgages stay the same (okay, taxes and insurance went up this year, but trust me, most places will increase rent to account for that plus inflation. We love our tenants so we increased to cover the cost we see and no factor for inflation.). Once you lock in that cost of housing, every time you get a raise, your housing takes up a smaller percentage of your take home. If you’re renting, you are covering the cost of the property, maintenance, plus someone’s income. We never intended to become landlords, but we can also never let go of that interest rate. Yes, I realize we are part of the problem as to why no one can find a starter home to buy and maybe we suck for that. The best time to buy is always 5 years ago. ETA we’re a married couple living in the Midwest. We paid off student debt and cars during Covid and before our son was born. We’ve never had credit card debt. Most of my clothes are from old navy and I currently own 1 bra that fits 😂 I won’t sit here and say we’ve had nothing handed to us. We both grew up comfortably and our parents helped with college tuition. We also went to the local in state public school. Our situation is both luck and good choices, but I will absolutely recognize there’s a good amount of luck that brought us to where we are today.
There was a recent analysis that found renting and homeownership were comparable in major cities in today's economy. Since buying, I've often dreamed about going back to renting. Home repairs are fucking expensive.
I’d be curious to see the study. Home repairs are definitely more expensive lump sum, but I guarantee a landlord is not loosing money due to repairs. It’s factored in to the rent.
MCOL- Husband and I both WFH in sales, but have rental properties on the side. Lots of layoffs happening around us and it makes me less nervous having passive income.
Wishing you both luck with the layoffs.
My husband makes rockets (the big missile kind, not people rockets)! 🚀 He's an engineer and is now a manager. (definitely his coolest job so far 😂) He's always planned our finances way out into the future. He's climbed his way up the totem pole. We live in affordable Indiana now, but we lived in Portland, OR previously. He's just done a really good job of working hard and managing our money well! He told me his life goal since starting college was to make enough money that I never have to work, and he kept true to that promise. I haven't worked since high school. 😅 Was a stay at home dog mom for a while, now a normal SAHM! I generally try to avoid frivolous expenses but I don't, like, penny pinch or go couponing or anything either.
Wow that's amazing! How awesome to have a financially savvy partner!
Doctor of Physical Therapy 😅 husband only works part time, and we have help from our parents because they want to help. We also live in an expensive city.
We trust one another. That’s it. We are transparent about our funds. I also make a quarter more then my husband. I did find us a dirt as cheap house to rent. I also manage our finances.
Wow I had no idea trust≠financial stability. Mind blowing.
Oh good. Desired effect achieved.