Single income vs dual income for retirement

[lgslgs]

We retired early off of my income only. We've got no kids and we banked just over 50% of my income each year during the final few years before we retired in our mid 40's.

During that time my husband managed the land, repairs, and animal care on our 15 acres. He also grew most of our food and tended to all of the standard daily household work.


There's no way that he could have found a job locally that would have been worth more than the work he put into our home. Every day that I was at work, he was doing things on the homestead to turn it into exactly what we wanted for our retirement years. The value of his work fencing, putting in garden beds, doing repairs, building things and such all continues to pays off in our ability to lead a low cost lifestyle with the kind of home and garden luxuries we've always wanted. And it made my work life so much easier to have someone at home who took care of cleaning, laundry, running errands, and all kinds of time consuming necesary stuff.

A stay at home spouse can make a tremendous contribution to a family's financial bottom line if their goal is to do so.


Lynda

[tabbycat31]

Disclaimer...... I am not married and do not forsee being married in the near future. However if a potential husband had talked to me about staying at home while he worked, in the Donna Reed/June Cleaver fashion, I would view that as that he dosent know me well enough to seriously consider marrying me. Now if he wants to stay at home that's another story.

you also have to consider personality. I know I'd be miserable staying at home (I don't have that homemaker instinct AT ALL) and I would work solely for my sanity.

Not everyone is cut out to stay at home. I'm definitely not. There was brief periods of time where my mom did not work, and in terms of family life, it only brought us further apart than closer together. She also had no idea how to live off my dad's income alone, and spent a good amount of time shopping, etc. I don't really remember good homecooked meals in that time period, and 13 is a hard age to all of a sudden have a SAHM.

[moneybags]

Disclaimer...... I am not married and do not forsee being married in the near future. However if a potential husband had talked to me about staying at home while he worked, in the Donna Reed/June Cleaver fashion, I would view that as that he dosent know me well enough to seriously consider marrying me. Now if he wants to stay at home that's another story.

you also have to consider personality. I know I'd be miserable staying at home (I don't have that homemaker instinct AT ALL) and I would work solely for my sanity.

Not everyone is cut out to stay at home. I'm definitely not.

I could have written your exact post 15 years ago. Never say never. I never planned to be a SAHM, before or after I was married. We had kids and decided life would be better if one of us stayed home. I've been a SAHM for 10 years. I still don't have the homemaker instict, but this is what works for our family.