Dual 400k incomes vs single 400k income

[Anonymous]

How much better is life? Most guys I know who make 300-500k are married to SAHM’s or their wife makes 100k or less. Seeing all these high earning dual income couples on here I wonder, is your lifestyle that much better?

[Anonymous]

Not at all. At that dual income level you have to worry about searching for things to spend (waste) money on.

But the dual income gives you some household staff to spend time with instead of the wife, which is sometimes preferable

[Anonymous]

Is it better to have a HHI of $400k but full control of your spouse, or $800k but have to pretend to be a partner?

[Anonymous]

In my double earners life we just send five children to GDS and own three boats so we’re hopelessly financially codependent on each other

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the premise of the question.

Is it worth having two spouses working so there is more money? Like everything, it depends.

In my house we both like working so we both do. The extra money goes towards making work optional one day for either one or both of us. We have a lot of financial security in our house, which we’ve made the judgement is more important to us than avoiding stress of what to do when the kids are home sick (or whatever inconvenience comes with not having a SAHP).

It was hard for a while and now the youngest is seven and it’s super easy to support two careers and we have so much financial freedom.

[Anonymous]

My spouse earns $500K and I $250K or so. We both are in tech, My DH lost his job 2-3 years ago, and he could take time to find a new job in 4-5 months. Now I am out of job, but there is very little pressure to find a new one quickly. I work to accelerate our earnings and fast track our retirement. Plus jobs in tech are not stable, so I force both of us retiring together in early to mid 50's once kids are in college and college is paid for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My spouse earns $500K and I $250K or so. We both are in tech, My DH lost his job 2-3 years ago, and he could take time to find a new job in 4-5 months. Now I am out of job, but there is very little pressure to find a new one quickly. I work to accelerate our earnings and fast track our retirement. Plus jobs in tech are not stable, so I force both of us retiring together in early to mid 50's once kids are in college and college is paid for.

And yes, I feel our lifestyle is better. We can comfortably save for retirement, take vacations, outsource some of the household stuff. Had nannies when my kids were little who helped with household chores. I would be stressed if only one of us has a job in our prime earning years. Although I can see a rationale for one of us switching to a government job that is stable. Ageism is real in tech, so might as well work and save while you can.

[Anonymous]

For us, it is the only way we can stay in a VHCOL area close to our families and top job opportunities in our fields -- one 400K income would not be enough. Luckily we both mostly enjoy what we do and feel like equal partners in every sense. We've also been able to reach half our FIRE number ($5M liquid excluding home equity) by mid-30s, which now gives us more options for the next phase of our life.

For example, DH is starting a new company with less stable W-2 income without us feeling any financial pressure. Both of us also feel like we could downshift our careers at any point if we felt like taking some complete time off, which helps us avoid psychological burn out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much better is life? Most guys I know who make 300-500k are married to SAHM’s or their wife makes 100k or less. Seeing all these high earning dual income couples on here I wonder, is your lifestyle that much better?

A SAHM and a wife who makes 100K is not the same. The 100K wife probably has a full time job that she probably enjoys and has less time to take care of the household. The lifestyle of 2 working persons with a big income gap is probably much closer to the lifestyle of dual high income couples.

[Anonymous]

Last time I checked, more money is better. Was that your question?

[Anonymous]

One curved argue that two 200 K incomes has some advantages over a single $400k.

There is implicit stability and having two earners, so that if one gets laid off, sick or disabled there’s still some money coming in.

It can also breed a more equitable relationship, but it’s not a requirement many breadwinner families are equitable

But in general most$400k Jobs are very demanding with long hours of stress and travel versus you could have two almost lifestyle jobs if they are split, like two Fed workers. I don’t really buy the claim that some people work 80 hours, but it is possible that the aggregate labor of our worked and both cases is very similar.

In general though, I feel feel like a single breadwinner is the better arrangement. But we are dual income, so maybe it’s just grass greener.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand the premise of the question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I don’t understand the premise of the question.

Same HHI. two earners or one. Poorly worded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I don’t understand the premise of the question.

I’m asking because there are trade offs to having both spouses occupied working and needing to outsource more vs the more traditional relationship where the wife is the home maker.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I don’t understand the premise of the question.

Same HHI. two earners or one. Poorly worded.

If that was intended to be the question, it was so poorly worded that it actually posed a completely different question.