For context, I’m 28, I own a business and make around $110K a year. I just got married a year ago. My wife doesn’t work, but wants to get a job and feels unhirable after taking an employment break. We make decent money and want to buy a house and have kids and save for retirement. But all 3 of those goals feel impossible. It feels like we can only do 1 of those 3. Our 3 main and simple goals in life feel totally barricaded by finances. How do people do this? Does anyone have any tips or life advice? I’m desperate at this point and we’re starting to feel like failures at life. My business and time feel maxed out, and my wife feels like she can’t get a job anywhere. Her low job confidence makes it self-fulfilling and makes it harder for her to get jobs despite having a masters degree. On top of this, I feel like I’m not succeeding in helping her. How do we crawl out of this? How do we get her a job or some other support for this? I’m sorry for venting on this subreddit. I’m just seriously desperate for some good life advice and seasoned life mentorship.
TLDR, buying a house, having kids, and saving for retirement feels financially impossible.
How do you buy a house, have a kid, and save for retirement?
byu/PoemLife47 inpersonalfinance
Posted by PoemLife47
40 Comments
Buy a house or condo for around 330k (3x salary) or less and save 15% gross for retirement. After that don’t go into debt.
If that’s not feasible tell us why.
What part of the country do you live in?
Buying a house is very much unattainable in a good portion of the metros. You sacrifice living in a house till it’s more feasible.
She needs to find a job in her field. Simple as that. Either that or move somewhere with a lower cost of living where 110k will get all of those things
Be in the top 5% of incomes, inherit the home, get help or don’t.
Sounds like you have a lot of wants before you’re even stable. Get the job first. Dont even think about house and kids. Having a kid with no money will just make the whole family miserable. I would axe that first. You don’t need a house with these interest rates lol. A lot of times renting and putting your money in the SP500 is just as good in this market (coming from someone that owns). Saving for retirement seems to be the most sensible
It takes time. You save for retirement just bit by bit over time. It would be hard to save for a house and have kids at the same time. You do it slowly. Maybe you have those things in ten years
The simple answer is that your wife needs to find a career that pays well or you need to start living well below your means if you want to achieve all of those goals. Can you share more about her education and employment background? Why she took a break from working and for how long? With those details, some of us might be able to provide some ideas or guidance.
Saving and investing money in your 20s can make a massive impact on your financial success later on. Employment breaks should be avoided at your age unless absolutely necessary for physical or mental health.
One thing you may want to consider is that if she’s having trouble finding work anyway, being a SAHM could save you big $$ on childcare for the first few years.
Otherwise it’s a matter of setting specific goals, budgeting and setting your contributions accordingly. Account for every dollar. But all this stuff is expensive, no doubt.
Wife works. Simple as that. I make $130k. Wife makes $95k. So even though daycare costs $40k, we’re coming out way ahead vs her (either of us) staying at home.
I’ve got bad news, which is that (depending on where you live) $110k is not a lot of money for two people in 2025 regardless of your goals. The first obvious thing is your wife really needs to get a job.
It’s a daunting task, especially with 1 salary. But it’s doable. At 110k, you probably bring home around 70k?
Put 10k into retirement savings and another 10k for shorter term savings. 50k
50/12=4167 to live on every month. It’s tough, but manageable.
You are well above the median income. Three words: budget, budget, budget.
Cut your life style.
If you are going to be si5gle.income then you living expenses have to be 40% of you income 20 to retirement %30 to down payment 10 to fund.
All of these questions can be answered by writing out a detailed and *realistic* budget. Start there. See where your money goes. Then calculate how much house you want and write a hypothetical budget for that. Then see how much money can be used for children.
Take the time and write out multiple budgets for different hypothetical scenarios. Then go after those goals. Adjust the budget as needed. But remember to always keep it realistic.
Because you both work until the kids come at a minimum. $110 HHI isn’t great if you want to build that life.
What does “took an employment break” even mean?
Don’t be greedy. Pick two and be happy.
Move somewhere with a lower cost of living yet decent wages. It’s all about finding the optimal point
Do you want a bunch of people telling you that your wife needs to use her masters degree and get a job? Cause that’s the most obvious answer. You can always try to double your business or get a second job.
$110k is enough for to fund parts of all of your wishlist now.
> How do people do this?
By having a working spouse. Why did an ostensibly able bodied adult take an employment break in their 20s?
/r/CareerGuidance for her
While I can’t necessarily give advice, I will say that you should under NO circumstance consider yourselves failures. You’re a successful business owner and the reality is things have just gotten way more expensive. Not sure where you’re from but in the US, the share of people who were homeowners and married under 30 has dropped drastically. This is just the new reality that we’re in. You’re both doing well for yourselves, idk what sector your wife is in so I can’t give much advice on that front.. but I’d say networking/reaching out to old connections (colleagues from her masters or undergrad etc.) will definitely help her get the ball rolling. Best of luck
You’ll need to provide more context. Let’s start with where do you live?
Your family needs more than 1 income.
“Realistic” answer, decide which are most important to you and go for it. In our case, we wanted the kids, and we had (at the time six years ago) a similar combined salary to yours alone, so we got a small nonfancy house (zoned to good schools), saved modestly for retirement when we needed to save for a house/pay for daycare instead, and don’t have as much nonretirement savings as we’d like now that we’re saving harder for retirement again. Also your wife should get counseling to deal with her self-esteem issues.
Why do you want to buy a house? You need shelter, buying now is more of a luxury than a right.
A person use to be able to buy a house and start a family with that income easy. What happened ?Crazy money printing and Wall Street firms were allowed to buy up single family homes . I feel sorry for your generation, you guys really are getting the shaft.
@ 28, I still had yet to secure my first real job . So I was planning, where in the United States I wanted to live, and then seeking jobs that paid above median income for the county. I had a long term plan for my spouse to stay at home, so the salary requirement was greater. Once I realized that there are certain jobs that don’t support a life in certain locations, it wasn’t hard, i found a job/career and we settled where I am now.
It’s impossible until it isn’t. Can’t explain why.
Just try not to give a crap about what other people have or do. Live in your beloved cottage with your beloved people and enjoy it.
You have to spend the time to save yourself a safety net or just jump in head first and have confidence you’ll figure it out.
Kids don’t need a ton of space for like 5 years. If you want a family and your wife doesn’t work then she should be available and save yourself a thousands a month on child care.
Not everyone has the perfect plan or hits all their milestones at the right time.
Consistency and discipline will catch up with you if you stay the course.
So your take home is probably around 5k a month after taxes? Save more than you can spend is the starting path here, even if it’s 500-750 a month and live as frugal as possible. And yes you need to dump all streaming subscriptions. Could your wife possibly get a job cleaning houses or working at Walmart, Starbucks or Target for $15 an hour? That’s better than nothing. The first thing you need to do is have at least 6 months of cash sitting in a HYSA emergency fund before looking to buy any home down the road. Life happens and this is crucial to have or build up.
Honestly, its hard as hell right now if you didn’t get into the housing market before covid. My wife and I lucked out buying our modest home in 2018 and refinancing in 2020.
We are dual income, both make over $100k, but she saves 40% of her take home and most of the bills come out of my pay check. We max out 401k to employer match, max out annual Roth IRAs, contribute to a 529 for our son, and put the rest in boring ETFs.
I don’t think we could save for retirement if we had to live off just my income and do all of the above. If you’re serious, i think it would be really beneficial for your wife to find some work, even part time, that would cover daycare costs and then give you additional income for saving.
So my husband and i bought a $165k house in a university town about 3yrs before we had a baby/got married. Only 5k down bc we were broke. We had a kid and got married the same year… BUT we do both work, each of us make about 85k and work for the local universities. I’d suggest, if you can… jobs with benefits is a HUGE help for both health and daycare costs. We get about 5k back each year for childcare assistance. We also own our car outright, so no car expense. The employer also helps us save for retirement. Even part time work might eventually lead to full time for your wife at a stable employer?
You cant afford a house in today’s world on a single income unless you’re living in a very remote area or bought a very seldom home. That or you make a ton of money. She needs to find a job simple as that. Wait till you find out that you pay 15k for child care per year for one kid.
Slipped the first two, working out great so far
There are so many factors in your story we would need to know. I (32) made $116k last year. After taxes/insurance my take home per month was $6770 in a LCOL area.
Mortgage Payment – $2475
Expenses/Bills/ – ~ +/-$1200
401K – $600
Roth IRA – $583
Savings – $0 (Emergency fund fully funded for 6 months)
Leftover= ~$1900
The rest pretty much goes into wants/taxable brokerage (want to retire early). I have no car debt or credit card debt. I drive a 2009 Rav 4 to work. My wife stays with my son so we have no childcare expenses. Just a one income home. It’s possible but you gotta be lucky and really good at discipline.
Having two incomes helps a LOT. Imagine how much more feasible it would be to save with a second comparable income.
First, you are not failures. You are experiencing the toughest part of life which is having a young family and a little amount of money. That’s honestly what builds the right habits to set you up for future success.
Now let’s talk about getting your wife a job. She is not in a unique situation by any means. Many women leave the workforce briefly and find a way back in. That’s not to say it’s easy, but it is definitely possible – especially with a (hopefully valuable) Master’s degree. Unless she has solid work experience, help her find an entry level role where she even be a little overqualified for. Quality/Quantity here. Also look up resume writing tips. So many resumes are written in the wrong language so they are never seen.
Lastly, goals of a house, having kids, and retirement. Right now it would seem you are in a pick 2 out of 3 situation with one already chosen. So it’s house vs retirement and retirement wins that battle every single day of the week and twice on Sunday. Thankfully your family is young so a house is a “want” more than a “need” right now. Get your wife a job. Expand your income and build a retirement nest egg. Then buy a house in a few years when it is the right time and you have enough money to afford one.
It’s difficult, but no one said it would be easy. Good luck!
We personally sacrificed and accepted we won’t have all 3 according to our desired timeline. When my husband and I first got married we had full time jobs and got to really focus on investing/retirement and saving for a house. It was the best! But then we had a baby and will have another any day, so I quit my job to be a mom, and now we make very little money. We are no longer able to save extra money for a house nor can we afford the monthly mortgage anyway with today’s rates on one salary. We’ve accepted that we will need to keep renting for now and focus on increasing his salary over the next little while so we can resume the other goals. Good luck!
Half your household isnt working when they could be. That’s your problem.
You can easily have those things on two incomes. It doesn’t sound like your wife is disabled, so appears she’s the problem here.
An “employment break”? You’re in your twenties. She needs a job.