Is it reasonable to expect an increase in living standards over the years?
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Anonymous
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I know this correlates to increase in salary but how much control does one have over their earning potential? Can I be reasonably upset that my husband is not working to increase his earning potential and by association improve our living conditions?
Is it unreasonable for me to want more space and better living accommodations? |
Anonymous
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Why aren't YOU getting a better job and increasing your income to better your life. Why are you pathetically relying on him?
You sound like a demanding psycho. |
Anonymous
You sound poor. The only people who get upset at posts like this are people haven't figured out how to make any money. |
Anonymous
+1 Are you a child? Do you need DH-daddy to buy you a nicer car? Seriously though, no, you cannot b**ch about someone else not providing you a nice enough lifestyle. Make your own money, contribute to your own lifestyle. |
Anonymous
DP - more likely that pp makes enough money to support themselves, unlike op... |
Anonymous
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This is tricky. I do not think it is unreasonable in general -- especially in the context of a marriage where you are joining forces in a way that usually improves financial stability and makes things like home ownership easier and more efficient, I don't think it's weird to think that you'll be living a bit better in your 40s/50s than in your 20s/30s. You should be making more money, have more equity by then.
The trick is that if you have kids, that can eat up some of the increases in income in a way that can actually make you feel less well off. This happened to my DH and I. For the first 5-6 years of being parents, we felt poorer than we ever felt before becoming parents, even back in our 20s when we were objectively kind of broke with very low incomes and living in group houses and such. Because we had more disposable income. When a huge portion of your income is going to childcare, college savings, housing big enough for a growing family, it's easy to feel like there's nothing left over. Add in the fact that with kids, stuff you used to do without thinking too hard (going out to eat, traveling) is suddenly more expensive because you need more of everything, and it can feel like you are moving backwards. Now add in inflation and the huge increases in COL in this area, plus skyrocketing college costs that are scary to any parent. The good news is that if you can work your way through those early years of parenthood and make smart choices (sacrificing to buy a home, which is the best way to build equity and start building wealth, saving religiously, continuing to put money into your retirement savings, etc.), you will hit a point where things start to feel easier. But it takes time, unless you're making huge leaps in income, which most people are not. Some are, but most are not. So you need to factor all this in. If you are upset because you want to upgrade to a house that you presently can't afford, and blaming that on your spouse's lack of ambition, you need to step back and ask if (1) you will get there, just not as fast as you currently want, and (2) whether it's really fair to blame it on him. Maybe it is fair, I don't know! But you need to put this in context. Life is long and good financial planning takes effort and, importantly, patience. |
Anonymous
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It's reasonable to WANT that, and work towards this yourself. If you do, then it's also reasonable to want a spouse who is pulling their weight, either by lightening your own load and taking on more child and house care, or trying to increase earnings too.
See how that works? What are YOU doing, OP? |
Anonymous
Omg make your own money loser. It's called being independent!!!! Why rely on a man? |
Anonymous
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The op thinks her vag is made of pure gold 🥇 lol.
Clearly you're not with it to him! |
Anonymous
| This has to be a troll no one is this stupid that they can't figure out how to work and make their money and move up in the world. |
Anonymous
Be mad at yourself. |
Anonymous
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What's wrong with your living conditions? You can improve them without making more money or rather having to work more.
Having to work more is the opposite of increase in living standards. I went for freedom from work and no house or luxury car beats it. |
Anonymous
What are you contributing? |
Anonymous
| This is so field dependent. For my DH, 99% of people on his career path will have a couple standard bumps up but then plateau unless they switch to a different sector. In my field, most of the people I work with have plateaued by 40 or 45 and will mostly just see COL increases from here until retirement. I took a leadership role at 45 and got the big pay bump to go with it, and see opportunities for small continued raises from here, but most of my coworkers either won’t have that opportunity or won’t want it (and the stress that comes with it). |
Anonymous
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Yes.
Inflation is outpacing incomes nationally and has been for a long time. I’m a SAHM as well. If you want to spend more money, why don’t you get a job? I’m strongly considering doing this in the next year because I want to save my own retirement funds again and increase our spending a little, too. I know DH is doing the best he can. |