Oddbean new post about | logout
▲ ▼
NovaRoma | 5 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 It's not impossible, just difficult.  If you really want to do that you need a partner who will support the decision, and you need to be careful with money, but it is doable on an average income.
▲ ▼
roya ୨୧ | 5 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 i’m getting married, and i have a partner who wants me to stay home, im talking about average americans. its not doable, and if it is, its not comfortable by any means for anyone in the family.
▲ ▼
NovaRoma | 5 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 Congratulations on your engagement!  Median individual income is about 50k.  That corresponds to a monthly take home pay of about 3k/month.  If you are very careful, you should be able to live on that in most of the country.  I'm in Chicago, and it is doable here, but yes not comfortable.  I know someone who does it with slightly less.

To your point, it was much more comfortable to live on three median individual income 5 years ago, and probably even more so 10 years ago.  Fiat is terrible.
▲ ▼
roya ୨୧ | 5 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag +1 
 median is 50k, average is 37k
▲ ▼
NovaRoma | 5 months ago (raw) | root | parent | reply | flag 
 What do you mean average, if not median?  Mean?  If so, I'm very surprised that it is less than the median.

But yeah, if that is what you mean, I agree that you can't raise kids on 37k.