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Part I: Finding Your Way Home Financiallyby Len & Deborah Ehrfurth “We have to have two incomes to make it!” For the last twenty years at least, this has been the cry of families all over America. Both husband and wife feel they must work to pay the bills. Child care is the number one issue for many couples; what to do with the kids while Mom is on the job. Quality of life has plummeted as most of the available energy is directed at making money. How did we get to this point? Is the cost of living through inflation so much higher than in our grandparents’ day? What’s different about our generation? Let’s trace back through time and see what’s changed.
The women’s liberation movement influenced our mother’s generation into believing that the high calling of marriage and motherhood were not enough. Women needed to have a career so they would never be forced to be dependent on a man for support. Coincidentally, the divorce rate began to skyrocket at this point, and more women found it was indeed necessary to have job skills so they could support themselves and their children. More women attended college. When they married, they may have been pursuing a career and the couple’s lifestyle was dependent on two incomes from the start. Add a child and the financial situation becomes precarious. Unable to quit work to care for her baby, the mother spends hundreds of dollars a month in day care so she can continue to work. Now they are worse off because of the day care expense. It’s a catch-22 – she can’t stay home because they need her paycheck, yet the cost of her working is putting a big dent in their finances. Is there a way out of this predicament? Fifty years ago most husbands were the sole breadwinners in their families. The wife managed the household and nurtured the children, and life was much simpler. They were able to do this because they followed one infallible financial rule: They lived within their means. They didn’t have credit cards. They may have only had one car. Their only debt was usually their mortgage, which accounted for about 25% of their gross salary. If they didn’t have the cash, they would save until they did before they made a purchase. Contrast that with today. Mortgages can account for 40% of gross income: two car payments; and an average of $8,000 on credit cards – debt is our problem. Debt is bondage. Debt keeps us shackled to that second income. Until we learn to live without it or to minimize it, we will remain stuck. In Part 2 we’ll look at ways to free ourselves. ----------------------------------------
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Many of our mothers worked, although she may have only been part-time and she worked around the kids’ schedules. We don’t know of anyone our age that was put in day care growing up. Day care centers are a fairly recent phenomenon. “Baby-sitters” or Grandma watched the kids when necessary. Many mothers’ incomes didn’t contribute to the family budget either; her earnings were her own “pin money” to do with what she chose. Whether or not she worked didn’t really matter, but society at this point was telling her she couldn’t possibly be “fulfilled” staying home all day.