Living on one income doesn't mean living on one paycheck : Bad Credit Advisor

Living on one income doesn't mean living on one paycheck

Yes, it doesn't have to. Get a second job and another paycheck. To me living on one income means husband works while wife stays home to take care of it, him and kids. Of course today, you find wives working and husbands being homemakers, but the essence is the same. What you have is a spouse generating income from two or even three sources. Period, end of story. With times being rather harsh and very likely to get harsher, there will be more and more one income families. No blood necessary, believe me, just a little sweat.

Almost everyone thinks that one income means living from paycheck to paycheck, constant financial struggle and very frugal life. Hell, I know few couples who spend hours each week on searching and clipping coupons, driving to the libraries to save few bucks on DVD rental while wasting more on gas. Instead, get a DVD for $1 from RedBox at your local supermarket, while doing groceries.

Others make their own ketchup, do their own dry cleaning with vinegar and baking soda, cold water only laundry (I guess it cuts electricity usage, better yet wash clothes by hand), change their own oil instead of supporting local body shops, use old unsafe home appliances or all of the above. Don't get me wrong, when we came to the country with literally nothing, we did scavenge garbage for quite usable mattresses, chairs, tables, TV sets and so on, but we did have nothing and most importantly didn't have even that one income yet.

Again, while cooking up your own ketchup and using natural dry cleaning ingredients are healthy and Eco friendly, living on one income doesn't have to be too frugal. Just be reasonable. Getting another paycheck is what you need. It also can be fun. Pizza delivery job that I kept well into my engineering career, allowed me to have plenty of disposable cash as well as harmlessly flirt with few cute waitresses. See, that second job can be enjoyable and help you hone your social skills as well as English in my case. Later, when I switched to computer programming, I got a cool gig teaching others two evenings a week. That easy job paid $35 per hour on 1099 form. Not only was I getting a substantial second paycheck, but few tax advantages of being self-employed for the first time in my life as well.

We weren't frugal by any stretch. We went out often and now had plenty of debt. My wife had been going to postgraduate school and had student loans since her junior year in college, so I had to start taking care of those, while still paying at least some of her ongoing tuition. We went on few vacations and bought our first house together. So while living on one income was fine, living on one paycheck wasn't. I had to be in control of all the debt we had, to maintain our lifestyle, so after talking to my mortgage broker, I went to work for him.

That was a real eye opener, I mean to see how money was made in the mortgage business was worth six and a half years of two engineering schools I attended and then some. So while getting those very fat paychecks was very rewarding, the hands-on education and experience I acquired was priceless, and is and will be paying off for a lifetime.

As you can see, living on one income and living on one paycheck are two very different things. And don't let tough economic times serve as an excuse. I started my professional job search in 1992 which was the worst year for college grads in two decades, according to the university career center, all the way to year 2000 stock market crash where I lost my shirt but thankfully had few left hanging in my closet. By the way, my second paycheck still comes in, never mind my wife works quite successfully and we have two incomes now. Make it three then ...

Wed Oct 15, 2008 06:10AM by Tony | More in Personal Finance | Comments (0)

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