Question to those of you who are a dual-income households

[TBH]

Until this year, our incomes have been about 50/50 and we definitely relied on both. My income went up this year, and it's taking another jump when I start a new job next week. So suddenly my income will be more than our two incomes were combined in 2013 and every year before that. Yikes! So if DH's income disappeared right now, we would still have more than we are used to having.

Trying hard not to let our lifestyles change with the change in income. We are a bit behind on some of our savings goals so I am hoping to funnel the new income that way, although I'm also a bit freaked out about suddenly being in a higher tax bracket.

[MarkInCA]

It depends on what you mean by "making it."

We earn pretty close to the same amount, but even individually we make quite a bit of money, relatively speaking. If we went down to one income we could certainly keep the house, but we would have to cut out other things. We wouldn't save as much as we do now. We wouldn't go out to dinner as much. We would take cheaper vacations.

So we could live forever, but our lifestyle and our savings would be downsized.

Right, that's why I tried to clarify in my original post that 'making it' means living life as you normally do, with no major changes (so no major downsizing/big lifestyle changes). I think most people could probably survive on just the single outcome by cutting back on things, but I wonder how many could live exactly the same lifestyle as they currently do.

[BuckyBadger]

Right, that's why I tried to clarify in my original post that 'making it' means living life as you normally do, with no major changes (so no major downsizing/big lifestyle changes). I think most people could probably survive on just the single outcome by cutting back on things, but I wonder how many could live exactly the same lifestyle as they currently do.

But that presupposes that you cut down savings, no? Because - by definition - if you aren't saving it then you're spending it.

We could live the same lifestyle of we stopped all our savings, but of course we wouldn't do that. So it's kind of an impossible question.

[MarkInCA]

But that presupposes that you cut down savings, no? Because - by definition - if you aren't saving it then you're spending it.

We could live the same lifestyle of we stopped all our savings, but of course we wouldn't do that. So it's kind of an impossible question.

I understand what you're saying - the reason I was asking the question was to simply figure out how many households are able to pay all of their bills/expenses on the one income. I suppose I should have just asked that instead

[hamchan]

I voted "a month tops" because our medical bills are way too high to get by on one income. We just got another 4k in bills and we are still paying down last year's.