Whats a good salary to you?

Depends on your cost of living, which depends greatly on your tax rate. What I do pays twice to thrice what I currently make in other locales. My quality of life is better than in those higher paying places.
 
In the situation I’m describing, yes, they are paying to daycare.

But that brings up another point. I work with a guy who has 2 kids, the wife refuses to work because she insists that the kids be homeschooled. Not that particular guy is on the lower end of the salary spectrum, probably making ~ 60k, no advanced degrees or anything. They are also broke and never have money, they are always getting g handouts from churches and other people like it’s seemingly normal.

I could never live that way.
He is setting his kids up for failure.
 
He is setting his kids up for failure.
Yup, he’s normalizing taking handouts to feed and cloth his kids while his wife stays home and dosent have an income.

The only way it could get worse would be if those kids were from another man. That’s another can of worms all together. Shacking up with a low income woman whose dragging around kids from another marriage…..
 
Between my wife and I we make over $200k. I’d like to get to the point where she can scale back to 2 or 3 days per week of work. We certainly aren’t living large, but invest a lot, and I am on track to retire from my job at 50 and go back to working more in the guiding/packing mules as my only income. I certainly have friends living a higher lifestyle on less income, I can only imagine they are living on debt, or with no long term savings plans.
My wife only works 3 days a week but she’s in the medical field.
 
Yup, he’s normalizing taking handouts to feed and cloth his kids while his wife stays home and dosent have an income.

The only way it could get worse would be if those kids were from another man. That’s another can of worms all together. Shacking up with a low income woman whose dragging around kids from another marriage…..
Lots of ways to live a happy and healthy life and when your turn is over, consider it a success. What might not work for you might be fulfilling for someone else. I don’t think judging someone because they live different is appropriate here.
 
He is setting his kids up for failure.

Yup, he’s normalizing taking handouts to feed and cloth his kids while his wife stays home and dosent have an income.

The only way it could get worse would be if those kids were from another man. That’s another can of worms all together. Shacking up with a low income woman whose dragging around kids from another marriage…..


Do either of you know definitely why she doesn't work?
 
Lots of ways to live a happy and healthy life and when your turn is over, consider it a success. What might not work for you might be fulfilling for someone else. I don’t think judging someone because they live different is appropriate here.
Judging people is normal. In this case though. The dude is unhappy with his financial situation because of his wife’s insistence on homeschooling their kids.

When people from your church are worried about your kids to the point they are donating clothes, food and money to you….you need to change your life.
 
Also, can you put a dollar figure on having your wife raise your kids instead of a daycare and the government?
My wife used to own a daycare. When the folks dropped the youngsters off in the morning, everyone was completely frazzled. Parents running behind, cranky kids that didn’t want to be awake. When the youngsters got picked up in the evening, the parents were exhausted and cranky. Rinse and repeat 5 times a week.
 
It’s amazing how comfortable some people are with debt. We pay our credit cards off every month and the only debt we carry is on the house which has only a few years left of our 15 year mortgage. Boats, cars, snowmobiles, educations etc are all paid off and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I watched a guy buy a Yamaha boat motor the other day and he had to split it all on like 4 different credit cards while making sure to pay 225.00 in cash that he had on hand. I felt sad for the guy but at least he will have a new Yamaha motor.
That right there is scary to me.

My son (stepson,23 now), who raised him since he was 8, purchased a dirt bikea a couple of years ago. Financed the entire thing. His biodad encouraged him to just get a loan, even though my wife and I raised him different. He has a 5 or 6 year loan at 9+%.

It's not the end of the world of you get a car loan. I totally understand how someone in their early 20s would borrow money. Even then, we encourage them to buy a newer used car.


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That right there is scary to me.

My son (stepson,23 now), who raised him since he was 8, purchased a dirt bikea a couple of years ago. Financed the entire thing. His biodad encouraged him to just get a loan, even though my wife and I raised him different. He has a 5 or 6 year loan at 9+%.

It's not the end of the world of you get a car loan. I totally understand how someone in their early 20s would borrow money. Even then, we encourage them to buy a newer used car.


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It can absolutely be a trap. I have a friend who just a few years ago (he’s 45 now) got settled and out of debt/bad credit for cars he’d bought a decade or more ago. I can remember it clearly, I was driving a clapped out Toyota single cab and he wanted some sports car with a turbo so he took a loan, a few months later traded up for something and got a bigger loan, then decided he couldn’t afford them and did the title 9 or whatever it’s called thinking it would just cancel his debt. That whole time, he made fun of my old truck.
 
My wife used to own a daycare. When the folks dropped the youngsters off in the morning, everyone was completely frazzled. Parents running behind, cranky kids that didn’t want to be awake. When the youngsters got picked up in the evening, the parents were exhausted and cranky. Rinse and repeat 5 times a week.
Yeah 100%. We decided not to have kids and it’s been great. We make good money, have things paid off, I can hunt and fish whenever I want without sweating the financial aspect of it, vacations each year….of course I will die alone in an assisted care facility but whatever.
 
Also, can you put a dollar figure on having your wife raise your kids instead of a daycare and the government?
Yes. Yes I could absolutely put a dollar figure on that. Of course it would depend on the single income salary. If you’re a doctor making 350k/year, sure stay at home and raise kids. If you make 50k/year, you might want to think about letting the government do your parenting for you.
 
Everyone operates with a different set of 0's in their budgets. What works for one, another would feel rich, or broke.
What a person (or couple) makes is not near as important as how they spend it. But that is their business isn't it?
 
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