Two Important Strategies for Successfully Earning (and Living) on Just One Income

The following post is by MPFJ staff writer, Melissa Batai.  Melissa is a freelance writer who covers topics ranging from personal finance to business to organics to food.  She blogs at Mom’s Plans where she shares her family’s journey to healthier living and paying down debt.

From the time I was little, I knew I wanted to stay home and raise my kids when I eventually had them. But life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan.

Instead, when our first child was born, I was working full-time while my husband worked part-time and attended graduate school full-time. It would take another long six years and two more children before I was able to realize my dream of being a stay-at-home mom.

But, like so many people who drastically cut their salaries when one parent decides to become a stay-at-home parent, my husband and I didn’t change our lifestyle. We still lived as if we had my good full-time salary and his part-time salary. We had lost at least 50% of our old income, but we spent like we hadn’t lost any income.

We continued to pay for our oldest child’s last year of private school, we went out to eat, we had cable, I bought adorable outfits for the babies (on sale and with a coupon, but still, we didn’t have the money for them).

In the first 18 months after I quit my job, we racked up so much debt, we’re still paying it down. (Though to be fair, that amount does include my husband’s student loans during that time.)

Here’s the simple truth—if you want to have one person become the stay-at-home parent, you have to learn to live on one income. The sooner you do this (even while both partners are still employed) the better.)

I don’t have a time machine to go back and change those early years of living on one income (though I wish I did!). However, we’ve now been primarily a one-income family for five years, and we’ve learned to live within our means. Better late than never.

If you’re new to learning to live on one income, successfully doing so depends on two factors.

Finding Contentment

Like I did for so many years, you may dream of being a stay-at-home parent. Then, once it happens, you might find yourself fighting discontentment.

At first, I found myself a bit bored staying home all day. I tempered that boredom by spending. No, I didn’t go out on a clothing spree or anything like that, but I went to the grocery store too often so I’d have something to do.

I also found myself a bit disgruntled at our lower income. I’ll be honest here—I was spoiled. I wanted the privilege of staying home with my kids without the sacrifice of losing my income. I wanted to stay home, but I didn’t want to change my lifestyle.

What I should have done then, and what I try to do now, is find contentment in my situation. Many, many parents want to stay home with their children but don’t have the opportunity to do so. I am lucky.

Over the years, as I’ve practiced contentment, I’ve learned to appreciate things that would have bothered me when I worked and we had a higher income. For instance, our minivan is 11 years old, has 160,000+ miles on it, and has a broken back door handle on one side and a broken coil on the other back sliding door. I can’t get the kids in the car unless I open up the driver’s side door and reach behind and open the back door from the inside.

Is this embarrassing? Yes. And a few years ago, I would have just focused on how old and decrepit the car is. Now, I’m grateful that the car is paid for and that it still runs and gets us around town.

Gratitude can make all of the difference in how you feel about staying home and living on a limited budget.

Be Frugal and Know that You Can Always Cut More

While we weren’t frugal the first 18 months after I quit my job, we had to rein in our spending when the debt started accruing.

We now do many frugal activities that we should have started five years ago:

• We air dry clothes instead of drying them in the dryer,
• We go out to eat for birthdays only,
• We cook at home,
• We don’t buy convenience foods,
• We buy secondhand clothes and homeschool materials,
• We drive an 11 year old paid for vehicle with 160,000 miles on it,
• We only have one car,
• We buy groceries that are on sale and plan meals around those items (rather than buying what we think sounds good for the week)
• We have flip phones instead of smart phones which we use only in emergencies.

Living this way has allowed us to avoid accruing any new debt and to make headway paying off debt we have.

Yet, we don’t have a lot of wiggle room in our budget, and we want to buy a new-to-us car without taking out a loan. I started searching for ways to cut our lifestyle even further, when it occurred to me. We should live like we’re in the 1950s.

The 1950s—Living on One Income, without Debt

Why the 1950s? That is probably the last era when one-income households were common. Families then had relatively little debt outside of their mortgages. Credit cards weren’t frequently used.

While we may romanticize that time in history, the lifestyle back then was much different than we are accustomed to now. Consider what life was like for a family of four or five in the 1950s:

• They lived in a house that was likely less than 1,000 square feet. They all usually shared one bathroom, and if there were three children in the family, at least two of them shared a room through their entire childhood.
• There were no cell phones.
• There was no Internet or cable television (or even televisions period for much of the 1950s).
• Vacations, if taken, were usually within the family’s home state or within the United States. Elaborate trips to Disney or Europe or any other expensive destination was rare.
• Two-car families were unusual.
• Long commutes were unlikely. Many families lived close to where the family breadwinner worked.
• Families rarely ate at restaurants.
• Parents cooked at home with natural ingredients and did not have convenience foods to rely on.

Wow. Looking at this list, life in the 1950s doesn’t seem so romantic. Can you imagine life without your cell phone or the Internet?

Probably not.

Some things we have now like the Internet are necessary to function in modern life. Still, most of us could look at this list and find ways to scale back.

When I really researched how people used to live even just sixty to seventy years ago, I once again realized how truly blessed we are.

Rather than feeling sorry for myself because we bought a house that need cosmetic fixes that we haven’t been able to afford to make yet, I find myself grateful that we not only have a house but one that is 1.5x bigger than the houses most families had in the 1950s.

Many houses back then didn’t have central air. How lucky we are to have that.

There are many conveniences and luxuries that we have today that people even just a decade or two ago didn’t have. We all need to take the time to realize how much we do have, even when it feels like we don’t have enough.

If you want to stay home and successfully live on one income, take the time to realize how truly lucky you are and understand that your lifestyle will likely not match the neighbors’ who have both spouses working full-time. That’s okay. You just made a different choice.

How about you all? Do you or your partner stay home with the kids? If so, how did you adjust to the difference in income and lifestyle compared to what you were used to or wanted?

Share your experiences by commenting below!

***Photo courtesy https://pixabay.com/en/happiness-kids-mom-sye-987394/