6 ms·

I was raised on a single income and so was the majority of my peers in urrr, the 80s! This baffles me the most.

• wjamesg 10y ago
  The exact
• pc86 10y ago
  I too was raised on a single income in the (late) 80's and 90's but I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.
  • the-dude 10y ago
    40 hour work weeks, for both parents, are discussed. I am just describing the world only 30 years ago. A double income is almost a requirement now.
    • brianwawok 10y ago
      On based on the "required" standing of living. 2 cars, $150 cable package, $200 cell phone package, 4000 square foot homes. Single income COULD work for the vast majority of Americans, but then they need to be happy with less stuff.
      • the-dude 10y ago
        We had a car and a small house, but my father returned from the office every day ... to have lunch with us! As far as I remember, all my class mates went home for lunch ( we actually had dinner ).
      • sheeshkebab 10y ago
        $2000/month for day care or camps or lessons or whatever... $2000/month for health insurance for family. $2000+/month in rent or mortgage $1000/month in groceries And we are up to $100,000 a year in just the bare one expenses to exist. Maybe add some retirement savings, a vacation for a week or two, maybe some college savings, and we are into $200,000+ territory.
        • brianwawok 10y ago
          In a single worker house, no daycare - so strike that. $2000 for health insurance in the US? Not from a professional job. Normal employee copays for a famils are in the $200-$400 per month range. $2000 rent? No way. Move. You can live for $1000 or less in many areas of the world with great jobs. $1000 groceries? No way, try more like $500. here is the spending report of a family of 3. It is about $25,000. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/16/exposed-the-mmm-familys-2014-spending/ http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/16/exposed-the-mmm-fa... That should be the baseline for where you think. Not some crazy fantasy land with a $2000 mortgage and $2000 daycare (despite 1 parent being stay at home)
          • Arizhel 10y ago
            >Normal employee copays for a famils are in the $200-$400 per month range. Completely wrong. Mine is about $850 for two people, no kids.
            • brianwawok 10y ago
              Total cost on the open market for that kind of plan is 1k - 1.2k, so your work basically has no health benefit? I have never had that experience...
              • eli_gottlieb 10y ago
                Yeah, my health insurance costs about $800/month before the employer portion, for two people, no preexisting conditions, no children.
              • st3v3r 10y ago
                The guy telling others how to live their life has no experience contrary to their own, and thus no empathy? Fancy that.
          • ashark 10y ago
            MMM's posts are all from the perspective of someone who: 1) has a paid off house, 2) has a lot of money in the bank, can get a job with benefits easily on short-ish notice and has no-one with chronic illnesses in his household (= incredibly low health insurance costs). He also gains all kinds of savings by not being dependent on a 9-5, like having enormous choice in housing location, lower transportation expenses, and so on. This is the end state of someone who's made it, and spending at that level's not realistic for a family that's still working, because their spending is necessarily much higher due to having fewer options to reduce costs. I like the general attitude of that blog, but after going on a reading binge of it a couple years ago I came away with the impression that it's subtly misleading and kinda scummy. Stuff like "how I thrive with no job (by already having a ton of money, and actually having 3 part-time jobs, one of which is getting you to click affiliate links on this very blog)", or "Why are you paying so much for health insurance, really guys, it's cheap (if you're in an exactly perfect life situation, what, are you not?)" Clickbaity humblebragging and condescending wankery mixed with good advice about frugality (some of which is actually useful to people who don't already have a ton of money in the bank), in service of making him money via one of his not-jobs. > Normal employee copays for a famils are in the $200-$400 per month range. No. Maybe for one person, not a family. Yes, there are companies that deliver great benefits on health care (I'm at one) but they're exceptional. $2000 seems high, but $200-400 is low by at least half.
      • ashark 10y ago
        There are no 50s-sized cheap houses within walking distance of employment centers in good school districts in my city. Out where the good schools are, they only build McMansions. This is the typical case for cities in the US. I live in a big-ass house in the 'burbs because a big-ass house in the 'burbs is cheaper than a smaller one still capable of (more or less) comfortably housing 2 adults + 3 kids in the city, plus private school for those three kids. It's not because I love McMansions and owning cars and being far from everything. As for entertainment spending (Netflix, cell phones, et c), it's nothing next to (especially) housing and (even cooked at home) food. Cutting all of that wouldn't get us down to a secure, responsible income level with only one parent working.
        • Arizhel 10y ago
          The other problem is utility bills. These anti-big-house people complain how people don't need giant houses, but they completely ignore how horribly inefficient older houses are. It probably costs a lot less to heat and cool your McMansion than it would a 50-year-old house that's half the size. I really wish it were easy to find nice, well-built, efficient, modestly sized houses in neighborhoods where you don't have ex-cons living next to you, vicious dogs running loose, etc. That just doesn't seem to be the case.
          • nommm-nommm 10y ago
            That seems suspect. How much does it cost to heat and cool a McMansion in dollars? I live in a 2000 square foot 75 year old house and my utilities are very reasonable.
            • hfsktr 10y ago
              When I lived at my grandmother's house (rented from her), the utility bill was almost as much as rent through the winter (I think the highest I saw was about $500 one month). The house is from like 1890 or whatever and they did add insulation and all but the heater was on a lot.
              • 10y ago
      • 1_2__3 10y ago
        Stop with the standard of living shaming. You're not convincing anyone and you're ignoring the fact that even if you adjust/account for that the issues being discussed here are the same. In other words you're just doing moral finger-wagging, not making a substantive argument.
        • pc86 10y ago
          The substantive argument is that people spend a lot of money on things they don't need, then complain that they don't have the money to cut their hours and earn less money (if that's even an option). You're the one not making any substantive arguments by just calling it "shaming"
          • RUG3Y 10y ago
            Some people do, and a lot of other people are genuinely having a rough go.
      • Arizhel 10y ago
        Absolutely wrong. No, you don't need $150 cable packages and $200 cellular packages. I don't have those myself. My cellphone bill with Ting is about $30/month for myself, and I got my 3-year-old phone on Ebay used. And no, you don't need a 4000sf home. But most people do want a decent home in a decent, low-crime neighborhood. The problem is that it's very hard to afford that on a single income, even after you cut out extravangances like $150 cable packages. The fundamental problem is that the rent is too damn high.
        • brianwawok 10y ago
          Where do you live? You should move.
      • thex10 10y ago
        Consider that the costs of those vehicles, communications devices, and shelter have increased much faster than wages have. But no, what you choose to take from that reality is "they need to be happy with less stuff"
        • brianwawok 10y ago
          Why do you even need a motorized wheelchair, if you have 2 working legs? It doesn't matter how much something costs if you don't buy it.
        • nommm-nommm 10y ago
          Well houses have been getting bigger at the same time families have been getting smaller. The living space per person has almost doubled since the 70s. https://www.aei.org/publication/todays-new-homes-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-the-living-space-per-person-has-doubled-over-last-40-years/ https://www.aei.org/publication/todays-new-homes-are-1000-sq...
      • watwut 10y ago
        Place with good school, college debt and healthcare are way more expensive. Cable and cellphone packages are pretty much irrelevant.
      • RUG3Y 10y ago
        I have: - 2 paid for cars, one has 200k miles on it and is sitting dead in the driveway. - a 1200 square foot house outside of town, not in a nice area. It's the cheapest house I could find and the only one I could afford. - Internet. - Cell phone. - No cable, no Netflix, very little dining out (always somewhere cheap) and no other debts other than mortgage. I have a decent income for the area I'm in, and still barely get by on a single income. I really don't understand how other people are making it. I'm either much worse off than I think or most people are just doing so much better.
      • laughfactory 10y ago
        Which, I'll point out, would be a vast improvement for our environmental impact...
    • hnal943 10y ago
      That's crazy. Almost every couple I know is single income, in order to better provide for the kids. It's not a requirement.
      • laughfactory 10y ago
        That's how we roll, too. I don't know how dual-earners do it. When the hell do you pick up the house, clean, pay bills, spend time with each other? Seems like it'd be an incredibly hectic way to live life.
• ashark 10y ago
  See the Two Income Trap (TL;DR: there is limited housing in good school districts and there are limited places at good universities, so when it became possible to compete for these with two incomes, it gradually became the case that you had to have two incomes to compete for them, as prices were driven up) and the recent post on here about the bizarre cost disease affecting the West, and especially the US, making basically everything but imported cheap plastic/electronic crap cost more in real terms than it did the year before, every year, for the last few decades, including construction, infrastructure, health, and schooling. There may also be something to do with globalization turning out to be not so much "rising tide lifts all boats" as "rising tide lifts the average elevation of all boats"; the latter is very different for someone working for a living in an already-affluent, globalizing state than the former.
  • mattmanser 10y ago
    I agree with the general gist of this, but I think you're down playing how much stuff people can buy now. Furthermore, if everyone's getting paid more, isn't it natural that person intensive activities like construction, infrastructure, health, and schooling will cost more? But stuff, stuff is ridiculously cheap at the moment. Perhaps you yanks didn't see it so much as you were already rich in the 80s/90s, but compared to my childhood in the UK, all the children I know get mountains of presents. Literally so many they get bored opening them. I can get cheap salad any time of year. Cheap fruit, milk, bread, etc. I can buy mounds of rice, pasta, etc. for literally pence. TVs in every room, not just one per household. People have espresso coffee makers in their kitchens! Everyone has at least one computer, if not one per child, and another in their pocket. Everyone's got at least one console or some such device. Everyone can afford Sky or Virgin or whatever cable channel.
    • Arizhel 10y ago
      You're massively overvaluing toys and other consumer goods, and you're massively undervaluing real estate. Having nice TVs doesn't make your quality of life that much better now than back in the 80s. Living in a terrible neighborhood with crime because you can't afford to live in a decent neighborhood on a single income makes your quality of life much worse than back in the 80s when a single income could afford a nice house.
• zeveb 10y ago
  Yup, I've had peers argue that their kid should be in school for more of the year because it's a nuisance and expensive to put him in activities during the summer months. Never mind if it even makes sense to have a kid in school more, or if it might be better for the kid to spend some time exploring the neighbourhood, spending time with his friends &c. I completely understand that not everyone has the ability to have one parent stay at home, but I think it should be the ideal.
  • vkou 10y ago
    Thanks to stranger danger, freerange kids aren't allowed to explore the neighborhood anymore. What was perfectly acceptable behaviour in the 80s is now considered parental negligence.
• giardini 10y ago
  That was true in the USA from the 1950s through the 1980s. Since then the middle-class has been more than decimated. Paul Krugman's book "Conscience of a Liberal" tells how/why this happened: https://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Liberal-Paul-Krugman/dp/0393333132 https://www.amazon.com/Conscience-Liberal-Paul-Krugman/dp/03... I'm conservative in general, but I agreed with Bernie Sanders on (at least) 3 issues and have a 4th bone to pick with USA politics: 1) Privacy is paramount; the government should stay out of our lives as much as possible. "Terrorism" is no excuse for a government to monitor its citizens. 2) Taxes must be severely increased on the wealthy. "Death taxes" must be restored and income taxes raised on the wealthy. To do otherwise creates a situation where wealth accumulates to individuals w/o bound. 3) corporations must not be allowed the rights of persons. Campaign finance reform must occur and the power of special interests must be cut. Until we restore heavy estate taxes ("death taxes"), income taxes, and reduce the political power of corporations as well, the USA will continue its long slide toward an economy like Mexico's, where there are only the poor and the rich, and no middle class. Finally (something Sanders would likely avoid): 4) as part of (3), non-profit corporations and all foundations, public or private, (churches, foundations, organizations, etc.) should be both taxed and audited. Today they're little more than an end-run around taxation. They are too powerful politically. They're controlled by their founders and their families. They are economically inefficient - releasing their resources (by breakup, taxation, etc.) would boost the economy greatly. During the Middle Ages the British and French took possession of the (then) Roman Catholic Church's lands, possessions and clergy. After all, the Church _was_ meddling in the political, and not the spiritual, realm. I think its time for the USA to do the same: "Dechristianization of France during the French Revolution": https://www.google.com/url?url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization_of_France_during_the_French_Revolution&rct=j&frm=1&q=&esrc=s&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwiQkIrEv7PSAhVcVWMKHXONBOwQFgggMAI&usg=AFQjCNGR6MmiTnvMkBgF7qLLc-LpthAZUQ https://www.google.com/url?url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki... "English Reformation - Wikipedia": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation#Actions_by_the_king_against_English_clergy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Reformation#Actions_by...
• laughfactory 10y ago
  My spouse and I specifically opted for the single-earner model and haven't regretted it. We had some tough years, but now our household income from my earnings is at the 83rd percentile nationwide. In our experience what studies have shown (there's more proportional wealth in single-earner households than dual-earner) has proven true. So if you want to maximize, choose one of you to work, and the other to do everything else.