Couples, do you live off both incomes? Trying to convince my spouse to invest one of our incomes and live on only one salary. Am I unreasonable?

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Or you could both invest and live off of rest of each. Money is fungible

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This is exactly what I came here to say, it’s fungible. If it helps you to “put your money in jars” like people used to do then go ahead, but ultimately it comes down to invest Vs spend, doesn’t matters where it comes from

I second EY’s approach. My husband resisted the “life off one income” idea until I suggested we invest half of each and live off the rest. It worked out the same but felt better to him. Whatever, it works!

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We’re off of one income most years. Certainly the essentials - house/regular bills/food. We may dip into the other by a few thousand in a year for a big trip or a big house remodel, but that’s unusual. On average, we’re saving/investing more than half our combined take home.

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Not unreasonable at all…gotta avoid the two income trap!

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The general idea (for this context) is that if a double income household bases their finances off of both incomes, then it takes a lost job or a medical emergency for either person for things to go sideways.

Versus if one person’s income is saved and not used for expenses, then if one person loses their job, expenses will still be covered by the other person working.

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The more you invest now, the sooner you can spend every day on a beach sipping drinks with umbrellas in them 🍹

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Yes. My spouse thinks we should live on mine and they should spend theirs on things they like. I'm told it works great.

upliftingfunny

No, it's a good idea (speaking from a SINK couple).

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Takes care of everything - house, yard, dogs, all cooking/cleaning/laundry/shopping. I don't do any chores, and it means we both have a lot more time for each other.

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Our regular expenses add up to equal our lower income, so in essence we do live on one income. The other income is saved and used for luxuries

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My husband makes very little money and is in massive student loan debt so we already live off on salary.

Its entirely doable (even in a high cost of living city) but you will feel huge financial pressure and a burden on yourself, so just be careful for your financial health and your mental health.

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We live off mine and invest my husband’s. Splitting bills and transferring money around seemed silly.

We currently live off my wife's and I save all of mine for (hopefully) future law school/MBA tuition and for her Masters in IS tuition. If I get a full ride, then we'll just have $200k saved up for something else.

Only mine SO doesn’t work anymore

Definitely smart

Depends on salary and lifestyle. If you both make 4M a year, it’s most likely easily doable. If you both make 40k a year, probably not.

I think, even if it takes a year or two to rearrange your lifestyle, you should definitely make it a goal. Myself I found this impossible with children in daycare but now that they are school age we made some sacrifices to be able to live off one/ invest the other. Like other posters said, if one of you has a job change but the other doesn't, it won't be a tragedy. Keep in mind if you ever do find yourself living off one income your one income should be taxed less than if you were both working. 80k with a spouse plus two kids results in the same net pay as 110k as single and zero. (an oversimplification, but you get the idea)

I know most people just think of it as “our money” but I’d never feel comfortable with that. I save half my money and he saves enough in our joint brokerage so I feel comfortable. I’d never want to completely blend finances tho so even if we did save half our total income, saying save one of our incomes would feel unfair and uncomfortable. Maybe it’s because we were both so old and set in our ways when we married.

Well good to know! I assumed our age factored into our preferences. But I guess it turns out I’m just stubborn and don’t like paperwork! ;)

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Just curious if any of you all who are doing this have kids? They've been our biggest expense for a while - no way we could live off of just one income. If we didn't have them it would be totally doable.

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