My lifestyle is about to change and I'm not sure I'm ready for it
 

No, I'm not going to play for the other team. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

My wife may have to quit her job which means we'll become a single income household. She is going to quit voluntarily because we are about to lose our third nanny in 12 months and we just don't have the energy to train another one. Plus, it's really very hard to find someone whom we can trust.

Our current nanny is wonderful, hardworking, conscientious and my kid loves her. Unfortunately with those qualities, she has bigger fish to fry. She's almost done with grad school and is at the point where her studies require her to travel for week long residencies. Plus she has to begin interning very soon. We need someone to work for us full time or my wife will have to quit work. Looks like it'll be the latter.

Are there any single income households here? Anyone in CA besides Vash? Did you go from dual to single income? How have you coped with it?

Went from dual to zip, just stopped spending so much. My wife finally got a job, traveled all over, but she quit, gave notice and has one more week. May be back to zip.

We did it it ca.

To me it seems odd to even have to ask that in the USA.

Single income households had always been the norm until wages failed to keep up with the increase in productivity.

Unfortunately "household income" now refers to 2 full time workers.
Over the last 30 years middle class wage earners have actually lost buying power.

We did have dual income until she was laid off. A few years later she popped out our first, then second kid a couple of years later. Now I think she's retired. I would like her to go back to work when my kids enter Middle school ( that's 7 years from now). What I would like more then anything is for to get her real estate lic and start selling and buying on her own time. We were OK when she quit her job. Now that the kids are a little bigger, I see big bills coming. tighten the belt a bit. You should be fine. Our cars are all paid for, mortgage is somewhat low. We don't really spend crazy money but vacation a couple of times a year. Dinners are our other expensive hobby. Bought a new road bike for myself. Quit driving the 930. All I ever do is work.

Jeff

its hard in the big cities here in CA. Most can't afford a home even with dual income. I am talking about those who have good jobs. I will even throw in formal education. Dual income of a little more then 100k will buy you a small house somewhere far from the city or in a not so nice neighborhood within the city.

My wife left her job as an attorney when our daughter was born 7.5 years ago, and we had to cut back to be sure. All our cars are old (9, 18, and 29 years) and paid for before the kid was born. We used to go out to a nice restaurant every week. Now it is a half dozen times a year. We used to buy semi-expensive wine ($30-40 often, and up to $75 occasionally), but now it is all $10 or less stuff. Vacations are less often, and lower cost too.

I'm a computer programmer, and I make decent, but definitely middle class money. It helps that we bought our house in the 90's when real estate was cheap so our house payment on a nice house in a good area is less than a one bedroom apartment. So it can be done.

I know a great nanny that might be looking for a job if you are in LA

Steve

I'm in the SF Bay Area, cdnone1. Thanks though.

Yep. Same here. I have not touched my 911 for around a year now. First time touching it was tonight, some brake works.

I used to make ok, and spent all my money when I was single. My wife use to make and spent money more than average in the past too. We had a small business before we have kids. Then we became single income family for more than 5 years now. And our family members have increased recently.
How do we cope with it? We just have to be careful on what we want to spend. Cut down on what we want but we must not have.
Your wife has the education here, and will graduate soon (what? Med doctor?). You didn't mention your own income range, so I guess at least it's ok for the basic monthly stuff, or even more? I know many single income families around here too, and they are doing fine. You should do fine, but depend on what is your living style.
Good luck.

I have a single income and I support by mom and my girlfriend. I've been doing it so long I don't think of it as "coping." It's just life. Mom seems to spend her time thinking of ways to spend while GF is always looking for ways to save expenses.

Man, this is me almost exactly. My wife quit her job as an engineer about 7.5 years ago when our daughter was born. Our son was born about two years ago and she plans on staying home until he goes to school. Our newest car was 10 years old until we recently bought a new car (well, it's a 2007... :)). We saved a lot of money and paid a lot of stuff off before she quit to ensure we would be OK on my salary alone.

We eat out at "family friendly" spots a couple times a week, but basically live pretty frugally. I used to do about 5 track events a year and now average less than 1 per year. We live in TN, so the overall cost of living is pretty low but we really have to watch how we spend our money.

We knew we'd have kids and that the wife would stay home the first 5-7 years so knowing it would go away we just banked her salary as if it did not exist.

When it went away we never felt it.

We've been fortunate to stay a two-income family throughout the years. It was a tremendous help to us having my wife's parents living close by when our kid was young. Good luck/best wishes with the change, cantdrv55.

That is only part of it. My mom never had a paying job. My dad was a pilot in the Air Force. Hardly bringing in big bucks. Dad did NOT have a cell phone bill, internet bill or cable TV. We had inexpensive cars, no Porsches or Mercedes it was Chevy & Plymouth. No one had a SUV that cost what a small house sells for. We had just one TV in the living room and one telephone in the hall attached to the wall with a cord. We never owned a house since we moved every few years. We went out to eat only a few time a year. Heck our electric bill was low because we did not have airconditioning until I was in high school. I can tell you San Marcos TX in the summer is HOT.

I am not going to say it was the good ol days, but we had a library card and a bicycle if we need to look up something for homework. We did not have a $2,000 laptop and high speed WI-Fi and a $1,000 game system, we had a baseball & glove and other kids to play with.

It took only one income because we did not have as much to buy.

Have you even made a cost analysis of your wife working.....nanny, car, clothes, not to mention your kids are being raised by a someone else. Money is not everything.
Most middle class people have two incomes to buy more things......which really is not a problem if structured right, but ones stress levels would surely decrease if they were not carrying a 250000 dollar plus mortgages and driving high end cars. The need for many two income families is self imposed choices, not real economic need.

We're in the midst of adjusting to a 1.5 income household. Our first daughter was born 5 years ago, and my wife, who is an elementary school teacher, took a year maternity leave - no working, half pay, which is the norm around here. After that, she had the choice to go back full time or part time, with the option to return to full time protected for 5 years - she chose the latter. So she's been on 50% income for 5 years now, but either has to go back full time in September, or lose the protection of the other 50% of her hours. She's opted to go back full time, while I scale back to 1-2 hours a day (self-employed, home office). I'll be on kid duty (5 and 2.5) full time as of September. My income will be about 1/3 of what it used to be, though hers is significant. (Teachers are well paid here - they top out at almost 100k + benefits, with the appropriate educational "upgrades", etc)

The hardest thing for me was closing the door to the potential for making really big money like we did pre-kids and pre-recession. My goal was to build the business back up to 200k+ salary, but I've decided against that, in favour of more time with our kids, and not having them raised by someone else. From the outset, we agreed that we would raise our kids, not anyone else, and we only started daycare 2 days a week so that they would get some play time with other kids. As soon as the oldest started school, that was it for daycare, and we'll do the same with the youngest.

We're using the summer to get used to new arrangements - me working/making much less, but my wife still around because she's on vacation. So far, it's looking like the best decision we've ever made. We're finding there's enough money for pretty much everything we need - I was at the track yesterday evening, and we're planning a trip to disney in January. But the new interior for the 911 may have to wait a bit longer.

But if there's one thing I've always used money for, it's to buy time, and that's exactly what this is all about.

We went from a 2 income to 1 income family.
At first it was so my wife could be a "stay at home Mom" but later she got ill to the point where she couldn't work anymore, so now we're a 1 income family; not by choice.
It's hard. No more fancy vacations and we really have to monitor our spending.
The economy is NOT helping and now with our son in college its even harder. So it can be done but you need to adjust.

Single incomes were the norm until my generation decided that we didn't want to wait to get everything that my parents took 20 years to accumulate. My parent's generation started out with hand-me-down furniture living in a small apartment or with their parents until they could save up the down payment for a starter home.
Luxury cars, big screen TV, eating out all the time. big homes with brand new furniture and appliances... are NOT necessities. You don't need the 399 channel cable package with all the extra add-ons.
My generation decided that massive debt is OK if they can get the stuff right away. My parents lived on a budget (considered a curse word to most people).
In 1985 my family went from 2 incomes down to one when our first child was born. We lived within our means. We bought a starter home (what most of you would consider low income). We didn't buy new cars. We didn't eat out. We took very low budget vacations. No cell phones, cable TV etc. End result: we are debt free. We have nice stuff, good credit, own a home (the third since that first starter home) free and clear. Pick your pain. You suffer with less for a little while and enjoy life later or, you live it up for a few years and then pay for it for the rest of your life.

I personally believe that the movement from a more complex lifestyle with many bills and commitments, etc. - to a simpler lifestyle with less bills and more time together is an upgrade. Get off the treadmill. Life is short. You may find that you have MORE options and MORE happiness.