Can we survive on one wage?
This is the question that we have been playing around with over the past couple of weeks. There was a time not so long ago where one wage was enough to run a full household. Those days are long gone unfortunately.
Now most people will work until they are 70 and hope for a few good years at the end before they die. That is the sad reality of modern life. I've never been ok with that and had always planned on getting free from the working system as soon as possible but now that we have our first child in school with the second going next year and we have started to realize how hard and stressful it is to balance two busy jobs with raising a family and giving them a good life.
It's a hard balance to strike, especially if we want a life for ourselves as well. I was hoping to be further along the retirement path by now but crypto has not been playing ball this year and just keeps dropping lower and lower. The goal was always to get to 200K in stables and then interest payments would be enough to live off.
I'm not a million miles away from that but only if we get a good bull market and can 5x some of my tokens. At current prices that's a long, long way away.
So can we manage with just one wage?
It's a numbers game. My wife is an accountant so if one of us has to stay at home it makes far more sense that i do it since her wage is twice mine and we really couldn't survive off my wage alone. Plus she built a good career and doesn't want to waste all those years of hard work.
I can get a job at any stage and have no ties to my current job either, other than being friends with the owner of the company and he would hate to see me leave. Construction is easy and you will always find ways to earn and can do a day here and there.
Time for some prep.
We've have a crazy busy year with our wedding, two kids to look after, a fireplace to be replaced, solar panels on the way so our accounts are very choppy at the moment and we will have to let them settle to run the numbers and see if it can work.
The best thing that I can do for now is prep.
At the moment our mortgage is running about €1100 and we put another €3000 monthly into our joint account which lets us both live comfortably and have a little bit spare form our wages for personal use.
So if we can get reduce these outcomes and find a way to earn money from other sources to subsidize my wage disappearing. I think that's it's doable but it will take discipline and a change in some of our habits to make it work but it would lead to a much higher quality of life for the whole family and take a way a lot of the stress from my wife so that she can do her job a lot easier.
We've already started by booking in the solar panels which should reduce our energy bills by about €150 a month.
I swapped broadband yesterday which saves €20 a month.
Shopping and additional expenses will need to be reduced but that can be done by shopping smart and cutting out the waste that we have in our house and there is silly waste.
If I am at home then we can also reduce daycare and afterschool costs by about €150 a month plus all of the extra camps that we use for holidays which are quite expensive.
Then we also have the tax credit system that would transfer my credits to my wife and increase her take home pay from my not using them.
When you add it all up it becomes quite substantial and catching up to my take home pay as it is.
If I can find a few ways to earn in my spare time then it would be almost even to where we are now but with an extra 40 hours a week to play with.
Something to think about at least.
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