Comments on: How to Live On One Income

By: tracy

tracy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:39:27 +0000

fter getting married and having 3 boys the guily was getting to me. My hubby and I both made over 65G a year. We planned it, paid off our cars and bills in a couple of months, and you know what we have found out after a year of being a stay at home mom? Nothing has changed, except we have less garbage (seriously) because we are not wasting our money on crap or laziness. It is far cheaper to plan meals and family outings than spendingt too much money on last minute food and fun. We even made it to Disney for 2 weeks this summer, that was our first vacation. It’s all in the planning….

By: Why An Ostrich Could Never Be Wealthy | Frugal Dad

Why An Ostrich Could Never Be Wealthy | Frugal Dad — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:01:29 +0000

[...] financial ostrich. When I began to worry about our financial future, such as how we were going to live on one income, or pay off my school debt, or pay for my kids’ college education, I simply buried my head in [...]

By: Being A Full-Time Parent Has More To Do With Sacrifice Than Luck | Frugal Dad

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 11:01:16 +0000

[...] on the same page when it came to determining the primary care provider–their mom. We knew living on one income would take some sacrifice, but it was one we were willing to make. Ten years later we continue to [...]

By: Link Love « Saving Money Ideas

Link Love « Saving Money Ideas — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 03:04:48 +0000

[...] How To Long on One Income at Frugal Dad [...]

By: Rob in Madrid

Rob in Madrid — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:52:03 +0000

very interesting discussion, I’ve been emailing my niece encouraging her to spend time on the various blogs. She’s really discouraged about debt and money. I told her blogs (like this) have been a life changing experience for me, not just for the ideas, but also to know your not alone. I sometimes shake my head at how we could have wasted so many years then I read blogs of people who’ve done the same and I don’t feel quite so alone.

@ Marci I assume that you have a paid for place. I do agree one can live very comfortably on much less money, particulaly when your not up to your ears in debt.

By: Marci

Marci — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 01:53:24 +0000

@Melanie – Thanks for saying what I couldn’t have said better about raising babies and about cloth diapers! Great story!

By: melanie

melanie — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:28:18 +0000

I don’t have time to read through all the comments so maybe this was already mention – but I think it is worth mentioning again. Shortly before I got pregnant (surprise!) my husband lost his grad student funding – which wasn’t much to begin with. Then a couple months later the company I worked for, as a contractor, went under and we were a NO income family. Both of us scrambled to find jobs but I could only get temporary work as most people were unwilling to hire a pregnant woman. We basically lived off of savings and Christmas money and, thankfully, had always lived very cheaply before. I think people kind of lose their minds with all the shopping that can be done when you have a baby. We didn’t spend one cent outfiting our home for our daughter – everything was either given or off of Freecycle. So many people buy new stuff that I figured we didn’t have to. And the other thing is that babies really only need a couple things: Mum’s boobs, or formula, diapers, some clothes, and lots of love. I’m nursing and we are using cloth diapers which has cut down our costs considerably. Thankfully my husband has JUST NOW found permanent work and we don’t feel so destitute but at least we know that we don’t need to spend lots of money to be happy and make our daughter happy.

By: marci

marci — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:02:28 +0000

@Rob – I think it all depends on where you live and how you live as to how much it takes to survive. I am a single person household, but I have my grandkids every weekend while their Mom works, and one evening after school while she goes to college – so just electric, water, food, some gas, and some entertainment costs, besides my own.

I EASILY get by on under $20,000 gross per year – that’s about $1000/month take home pay.
And I have both a car and a pickup truck.

The secret is tho, that I am debt free, altho I could swing a car payment or mortgage payment if need be out of what I take home. It can be done!

12 years ago I made a whooping $29,000/yr. (That’s the highest wage I ever made) (Too stressful – I quit!) Out of that I was paying a mortgage and a car payment – tough, but I did it. I didn’t feel deprived, but others might. I just felt I was doing what I needed to do to live off what I made and still save some for the future.

By: Rob in Madrid

Rob in Madrid — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:52:50 +0000

The other thing that is never brought up. The husbands earning power (and occasionaly the wife) Unless he’s got a good wage there is no way you can live on one wage. In southern Ontario you pretty much need 50-60 grand a year to survive unless you have very cheap rent or no debt. My brother in law earns abit over 50.000 needs to work partime evenings and the wife had to bring cash in for holidays.

Another thing that has changed since the 70s the single income single car family, seems that todays family can’t surive with only one car. How you can live on one income and have two cars is beyond me

By: commenter

commenter — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:01:03 +0000

mad sow’s argument that because his wife only made $2K a year, that she should quit spinning her wheels for nothing:

“When we looked hard at what she actually brought home, minus daycare costs, minus transportation costs, minus extra income taxes and mostly minus the 6000 a year we have to pay out of pocket on our health care since he gets sick every other day at daycare… ”

is the wrong. the combined income should be looked at, to see whether the combined total makes it worth her continuing to work. i see this argument again and again and it’s just the wrong way to look at things because she’s not working/earning money in a vacuum. you’re both bringing in money.