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Old 07-09-2014, 10:46 AM
 
7,214 posts, read 9,366,720 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ncole1 View Post
No need for day care if there is only one earner and the other parent can stay at home. If two earners, they aren't limited to just the 30k/year you mention, so day care is less of an issue.
That's true, plus sometimes people have the grandparents or other friends/relatives who can help out at least a day or two a week with free childcare.

re: Mortgages, a 30 year mortgage payment can be pretty affordable on even a mediocre income, as long as you don't overbuy or you aren't in an extremely high COL area.
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Old 07-09-2014, 11:18 AM
 
291 posts, read 391,023 times
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I never wanted kids and then the biological clock hit me hard. I still can't believe I fell for it. But hey, they're sweet.

As for us, we have two math/science related degrees between us and we work good jobs and we hustle.

We are lucky to live in an area with well-paying jobs for highly trained individuals, but if we weren't we'd probably move here.
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Old 07-09-2014, 11:46 AM
 
723 posts, read 2,189,438 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 4DM1N View Post
I've wondered the same thing about how people can afford the homes in my local market. Then it clicked. They're getting married and using two incomes to pay the mortgage. It's probably also the reason why homes seem out of the price range of single people like me. The scales are tilted towards couples.
Bonus; if two incomes are required to pay for the necessities, what happens when one person is laid off: Foreclosures, repossessions, etc.

Elizabeth Warren explains it well in The Two Income Trap
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:04 PM
 
1,960 posts, read 4,649,283 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by emerald_octane View Post
Bonus; if two incomes are required to pay for the necessities, what happens when one person is laid off: Foreclosures, repossessions, etc.

Elizabeth Warren explains it well in The Two Income Trap
Bingo, you beat me to it. In aviation the best analogy for this dilema is what we call the false economy of the piston twin engine aircraft. Basically the piston twin requires 80% of the total power output to meet basic emergency level flight performance, the other 20% is what makes it more capable than a comparable single engine aircraft. Since both engines are identical, they both have the same likelihood of failing ergo you're now twice as likely to lose an engine in a twin versus a single engine airplane (minus the infinitesimally small amount of probability assigned to the event where both engines die at the same time). The problem for the piston twin is that once one engine dies, the second engine doesn't meet the entire 80% of dual engine power required to stay afloat, so the second engine merely glides you to the scene of the crash.

In household economics, having a dual income household for the purposes of meeting black is an incredibly foolish proposition. The only wisdom in dual incomes is to hold 100% of the second income as play money. I.e. you can make black on ONE income. This is NOT however, why the majority of americans pursue dual incomes. They pursue it because they can't afford their lives on their own labor's worth. That's bad, real bad.

For those who can in fact sock away r spend away the second income as entirely discretionary, life is good. This is the model my household lives by (currently single income, working towards wife's career to become second income).
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:24 PM
 
20,615 posts, read 19,261,971 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hindsight2020 View Post
Bingo, you beat me to it. In aviation the best analogy for this dilema is what we call the false economy of the piston twin engine aircraft. Basically the piston twin requires 80% of the total power output to meet basic emergency level flight performance, the other 20% is what makes it more capable than a comparable single engine aircraft. Since both engines are identical, they both have the same likelihood of failing ergo you're now twice as likely to lose an engine in a twin versus a single engine airplane (minus the infinitesimally small amount of probability assigned to the event where both engines die at the same time). The problem for the piston twin is that once one engine dies, the second engine doesn't meet the entire 80% of dual engine power required to stay afloat, so the second engine merely glides you to the scene of the crash.

In household economics, having a dual income household for the purposes of meeting black is an incredibly foolish proposition. The only wisdom in dual incomes is to hold 100% of the second income as play money. I.e. you can make black on ONE income. This is NOT however, why the majority of americans pursue dual incomes. They pursue it because they can't afford their lives on their own labor's worth. That's bad, real bad.

For those who can in fact sock away r spend away the second income as entirely discretionary, life is good. This is the model my household lives by (currently single income, working towards wife's career to become second income).

This same trap is also prevent in computer science. A single point of failure can be a stability problem. So often a redundant cluster is implemented. If the 2 node cluster is handling under 50% of traffic then it redundancy as designed. However if it goes above 50% its worse than when you started with two single points of failure.

Now 2 income families that depend on both income have two chances to get fired.

But again the great flaw that most people have is their static approach to these sorts of dynamic problems.

Amazing isn't that one can silently go from redundancy than to more risk than ever before....
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:32 PM
 
30,873 posts, read 36,815,390 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano View Post
Having kids is not something people do for fun.
Just me, but if it's not fun, I'm not interested. Unfortunately, it seems a lot of people have kids and then resent them because they can't do that and live their previous lifestyles. It's not fair to the kids.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano View Post
They do it because they want to - they think having children is important. I suspect that at an anthropology level it is at least somewhat programmed into our DNA.
Yes, I suspect you're right. It's interesting though that the people least able to afford them seem to go ahead and have them anyway and the people who can more easily afford them say they can't afford to have them.

Quote:
Originally Posted by hoffdano View Post
Having kids and struggling is not so smart though. It is not only hard work, it creates a challenging environment for children.
I agree 100%.

As for having 2 parents working full time raising kids...I personally think that arrangement sucks. I don't get the point of having kids if even one parent isn't able to raise them. Sounds like a miserable rat race to me for all parties involved.
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:36 PM
 
Location: Moscow
2,220 posts, read 3,860,153 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by John13 View Post
Bolded: I don't agree. I'm pretty sure at least some do.

I do not think anyone should have children unless one or both parents is bringing home at least 100K salary in a steady job, health insurance, and at least 50K in the bank.

Personally, I do not think having children is worth it but I have a very pessimistic outlook on the future. I'm glad I decided not to have them.

Glad I don't have to live in your world. Median household US income is about $55k. Thats a lot of capable people not having kids. Including my family, which does just fine on under $100k.
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:38 PM
 
30,873 posts, read 36,815,390 times
Reputation: 34457
Quote:
Originally Posted by emerald_octane View Post
Bonus; if two incomes are required to pay for the necessities, what happens when one person is laid off: Foreclosures, repossessions, etc.

Elizabeth Warren explains it well in The Two Income Trap
Exactly. I always say Elizabeth Warren was spot on with that book. I figured most of that out almost 15 years before the book was written when I was in my early 20s...seemed like common sense, especially the part about 2 income couples bidding up the price of housing. I wish I'd written a book about it and made some $$$.
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:42 PM
 
26,176 posts, read 21,441,832 times
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I think society would be much better off if people waited until their 30s to have kids and or get married. I do think we'd be better off if most pregnancies were planned as well. Far too any people are just irresponsible and get prego.

How are people making it? Usually by not being financially sound preparing for the future. Sacrifice today spending 99-110% of what you make while neglecting your personal financial situation. Under funding your retirement to pay for some of Little Johnny's college "experience" or their 12 extracurricular activities etc.
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Old 07-09-2014, 12:44 PM
 
30,873 posts, read 36,815,390 times
Reputation: 34457
Quote:
Originally Posted by hindsight2020 View Post
Bingo, you beat me to it. In aviation the best analogy for this dilema is what we call the false economy of the piston twin engine aircraft. Basically the piston twin requires 80% of the total power output to meet basic emergency level flight performance, the other 20% is what makes it more capable than a comparable single engine aircraft. Since both engines are identical, they both have the same likelihood of failing ergo you're now twice as likely to lose an engine in a twin versus a single engine airplane (minus the infinitesimally small amount of probability assigned to the event where both engines die at the same time). The problem for the piston twin is that once one engine dies, the second engine doesn't meet the entire 80% of dual engine power required to stay afloat, so the second engine merely glides you to the scene of the crash.

In household economics, having a dual income household for the purposes of meeting black is an incredibly foolish proposition. The only wisdom in dual incomes is to hold 100% of the second income as play money. I.e. you can make black on ONE income. This is NOT however, why the majority of americans pursue dual incomes. They pursue it because they can't afford their lives on their own labor's worth. That's bad, real bad.

For those who can in fact sock away r spend away the second income as entirely discretionary, life is good. This is the model my household lives by (currently single income, working towards wife's career to become second income).
Interesting aviation analogy. And by extension, this also explains why volunteering to be a single parent is such a horrible idea.
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