Marriage & Money: How Can We Afford to Live on Money Income?

One of the biggest game-changers with our finances was shifting things so we could live on one income. However, that’s not always an easy thing to do.

Today I’ll break down strategies and tactics that we and other couples have used to make it easier! 

Living on One Income

I’m serious; if we had to identify the one habit that changed the trajectory of our finances, it’s moving finances in such a way that we could live with just one income. 

Here’s the thing – when we started it was out of practicality. 

When we were first married, our income was much tighter. My husband had his first post-graduation and I was wrapping up my final year in college. I was attending full time and I had a paying part-time internship. 

Because of the nature of the internship, we didn’t know if it would be extended beyond the semester or not. We sat down and decided we needed to keep our essential expenses under his income. 

My income would be used for building our financial cushion, paying off the debts we had, and yes, some fun money. 

 

At that time it didn’t seem like a big deal, but that mindset and system was a tremendous help. We were able to goals like paying off debts. We were able to move to Raleigh when I got a job offer and having our expenses covered by it meant Rob could hunt for a job he was happy with. 

When I began working for myself we had less stress because I could reinvest what income I was making back into the business. We were able to build up our down payment faster. When we became parents I had some flexibility in adjusting my work and yes, I took time off too. 

We’re grateful for those opportunities and realize how fortunate we are to have made that decision early in marriage. 

But even in those circumstances, it wasn’t easy. There were limits we had to place on our finances in certain areas. 

Looking back though, we’re happy we did. 

You may be in a situation where making this transition would be a real benefit for you. 

Like us, it could be out of necessity or because of circumstances. 

 

You may have seen a reduction of income either because your hours have been cut or you’ve been laid off. 

It could also be a voluntary thing.  When I asked in our Thriving Facebook group the main motivation for moving to a single income. The biggest reason was more time with kids. 

I’ve seen families on the path to financial independence shift their finances so that they use one income to take care of the general living expenses and use the second to save and invest for goals. 

So many couples and families can benefit from this mindset. I’d like to offer some help with getting started. 

I can’t cover every single situation. For the purpose of this episode, I’m going to be focused on your single income stream being able your essentials, some savings, and enjoy a bit.  

In this episode, we’ll go over: 

• the process to scale back your expenses to fit under one income
• common challenges that can come up
• Benefits of living on one income

Ready? Let’s get started! 

 

Resources to Shift to Living on One Income

Here are some resources to make managing your money much easier!

• Best Budget and Money Apps: Personal Capital, Tiller, Mint
• Free 401(k) Analysis: blooom
• Open Up Your Brokerage Account: Vanguard, M1 Finance, Fidelity
• Grow Your Stash Faster: High Yield Savings with CiT Bank
• Jumpstart Your Marriage and Your Money
• Before You Drop The Mic On Work, Here’s How To Decide If You Can Afford Living On One Income
• Why We Started Living Off of One Income
• The Completely Achievable Path to Becoming a One-Income Family
• Live on One Income, Have Fun with the Second
• Living Wage Calculator
• How to Get Cheap Rent: The Minimum Viable Apartment
• Use These Strategies to Seriously Save Money on Your Rent

Thank You to Our Sponsor Coastal!

Support for this podcast comes from Coastal Credit Union. If you’re living in the Raleigh Durham area and looking to bank better, come check out Coastal today!

Key Takeaways

Before we wrap up, I want to focus on a few key takeaways I got from preparing this episode.

• Be clear on your motivation and goal. The better you define these, the easier it is to make the transition. You’ll be in a better position to know which expenses to cut back first. Or even eliminate. And you can find ways to shore up your savings before you make this leap.
• Take it bit by bit. I know that they’re going to be circumstances with some families where you have to make the transition as soon as possible because there is a ready reduction in income. But if you’re doing this voluntarily, You don’t have to rush this. Approaching it bit by bit allows your family to adjust. To the new finances. And hopefully, it makes it easier to stick with a plan.
• Have a plan for that second income. Even if you don’t need it to survive. You do want to use that money wisely? For example, you can pay down your debts. Build up some savings for a specific goal, or if you want to save and invest it. For long-term goals, then you know, that money is right there for you.

This is definitely a topic that we can go more into. And if you’re thinking about making the transition, come chat with me.

You can join us in the thriving Facebook community. We’re a fun and supportive group.

We swap ideas, questions, stories, advice. When we try to help one another out with our family and financial goals.

You can just head over to couple money.com/f B. We’d love to see you there.

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Music Credit

Like the music in this episode? Our theme song is by Gentle Regime. Additional Music from Artists at Audiio.