choices

How to Live on ONE Salary in Today’s World, Day One

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

I am going to write for several days about a question that I often encounter from many people who tell me, time and again, that they think it is impossible for their families to live on one salary. To me, after so many years of hearing this, I find it almost offensive when I hear people say that. If it is possible for us, why can’t it be possible for other people? We are certainly not wealthy by any means. I make $50,000, but when we started doing this, my salary was just $37,800.

So many people are losing their jobs now that this might be something they not only have to consider, but have to live with. So these few blog posts will be about how we do it.

In 2005 I was happily staying home with my two young children and taking care of another little girl for $550 a month while my husband worked full time earning about $40,000 per year. We had a comfortable life, filled with vacations, and were able to save a little money every month. Then he received the news that his job would be coming to an end within six months, and I knew what I was going to have to do: go back to work. As much as I hated the idea of working and leaving my then-two-and-a-half-year-old and nine-month-old at home without me, I didn’t want to lose everything we had. Part of that everything, as a personal and VERY important choice for us, was keeping our kids out of daycare. Bruce never went to daycare growing up and had a very close relationship with his mother. I, on the other hand, spent my childhood with various babysitters, and have too many negative experiences to count (nothing horrific—just neglectful). So that was one of the many priorities we had in mind when we were faced with this challenge.

We made a plan. The first part, as difficult as this was to accept at the time, was to eliminate all debts other than our mortgage. Unfortunately, the only way for us to do this was to completely drain our $12,000 in savings. We paid off the rest of my small student loans, our credit card debt, and a loan we had taken to put siding on our house. This brought our bills down by $230 a month, which may not sound like a lot, but it can make a huge difference.

One thing that we did not have, which most people do, was a car payment. Both of us had cars and both were long paid off. I think this is the single most important factor determining a family’s ability to live on one salary. In my opinion, there is almost NO reason to ever have a car payment. What is the purpose of a car? It is to get you where you need to go. There is no reason that I can imagine why anyone should ever buy a new car. And if you need to upgrade to a larger car, as we found out later that same year, expecting baby number three, that we would need to do, find a way to make it work! We used our tax refund ($4000) and sold our old Explorer ($3000) and bought a minivan with cash.

So, to return to my story, the only debt we had, and more or less still have, is our mortgage, which in my mind hardly counts as debt. Another thing to consider is where you live. We certainly don’t live in a fancy house in the most beautiful neighborhood around. We live in, gasp, Aurora!! Ghetto central, right? Come on, your home is what you make it. We have never experienced any crime that I know of. We don’t lock our doors—car or house. We live in a quiet cul-de-sac that our kids play out in with the neighbors’ kids just about every day of the year—similar to any other cul-de-sac in any other suburb, but without the fancy HOA or whatever it is that makes people feel so special about where they live. That being said, our house payment is around $1400 a month.

When I first started working, I was bringing home $2600. Ouch. Do the math. That left us just $1200 for all the rest of our bills. Much higher than the 51% or less of the take-home income that you would get approved for if you were applying for a mortgage… But we did it… and if you read tomorrow’s blog post, I will tell you how.

Friend Divorce

/ lovizmytrio / Leave a comment

We are adults now, though you always said we wouldn’t be. It’s not like I don’t think of you now—you know I always will. But it isn’t the same as before. It is not a longing that haunts me, a need for you, unfulfilled, that I had for so many years. It is a vacuous space in the crevices of my brain, at the back of my day, behind picking Isabella up from school, behind folding the laundry, grading papers, hearing the latest gossip at school, trying to have a conversation with Bruce… you are still there, on the edge of my thoughts.

You creep in a bit more when I am having a problem. I think about the long pages of words we have exchanged over the years, and sometimes I can still bring tears to the edges of my lids when I think, Oh, I cannot write this email… and when I try to replace you in my mind with another person to consult, I will admit that I still have trouble. But in a way, even this wordy absence is a blessing, though you probably wouldn’t see it that way. It forces me to reach out, to reach beyond my usual circle, and seek the advice of others, open my heart, my soul, to other friends, and realize that it is possible to move on.

Sometimes I think about all the coping books and media out there, the large section of self-help books, conferences, television specials, the availability of couples therapy, everything geared toward self-improvement or marital bliss. And I wonder, where did we go wrong? Not you and I, in particular, but our society. We are so centered on our families that we forget the importance of friendships. And what is out there to help people cope with the loss of a friend? What self-help book discusses friend divorce, or even attempts to explain it? Just as marriages fail at a fifty percent rate, I think friendships slip away, sometimes quietly with the passing of time, years, marriages, children, sometimes abruptly with an incalculable explosion of anger, at a much higher rate.

I know I am not the only one who has lost a friend—in fact, just the opposite. It seems that the more people I speak to of you (I am allowed to do that now, you know), the more I realize that we are all going through the same thing. And I stand by my original ground, the ground I defend so adamantly with my stubborn ass, that I think this is all plain ridiculous, and there is no goddamn reason in the world why people just “grow apart.” Everything is a choice in life, and you did not choose me.

We were at the zoo today and ran into an old friend of Bruce’s… his friend divorce. Not exactly the same situation as you and I, but right beside it. It’s like seeing an ex. There he was, wife and kids, there with another couple and their little boy, smiling and cracking jokes just like always… But it’ll never be just like always, because he chose them over him, over us, over all those times we went snowshoeing or hiking or hung out in bars on Friday nights… and no matter how many times we try to explain to ourselves that it’s not our fault, we’re always going to think it’s our fault.

I’m telling you, someone ought to write a book about it. Friend Divorce: How to Cope, How to Move On, How to Make New Friends. Because we aren’t on the playground anymore. We don’t have the social appetite of teenagers wanting to escape their parents. We have jobs and children and bills and aging parents and the general heaviness of adulthood weighing us down, keeping us back from the risks we were willing to take as young children or adolescents. We need skills, new methods of meeting people, of opening up ourselves in a way that will lead to the strong friendships we were once so fearless to develop.

It’s funny how I write to you, to you of all people, the one person in my life (my former life) who will never read this. Our friend divorce has been final for six months now, I think. And I am still working on moving on.