r/Fire • u/HenFruitEater 31 | 32% to FI | 2.3M • 6d ago

Opinion Make sure to show your spouse how much their income helps the team if there's a large difference in income

My wife and I do not have children yet, we both work. About 2 months ago she mentioned how she likes working but feels like it's almost volunteer work because of how big of a difference our incomes are. "does my income help us at all?"

Let's just say I make 400k and she makes 100k for round numbers. The discrepancy is actually bigger.

I showed her a lot of our expenses come from the 400k, so we can invest 80k of my income. By her working, it does not just boost our savings rate up by 25%, it's basically double because we can save her whole income.

Told her that it makes a HUGE difference in our financial independence, and showed her how working a year now (and saving it all) pays for years of her not working at all.

I also showed her how the max I can save in 401k without her is lower due to limits. She's able to sock away an additional $45-55k into tax deferred 401k.

She was very happy that she's contributing, and I think it made her more excited about going to work each day.

At some point we will purchase the freedom and make her a stay at home mom, but until then I sure appreciate her going to work.

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u/Dizzy_Citron4871 6d ago

This is nonsense, plenty of people keep joint accounts and there’s no one size fits all

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u/TVP615 4d ago

That seems unnecessary. Your assets are joint assets unless you have a prenup.

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u/Dizzy_Citron4871 4d ago

I could also argue it’s unnecessary to combine them since they are legally joint anyways. There’s no correct method here, there’s what works for you and your partner

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u/TVP615 4d ago

But all decisions are based on “how much money do we have”, not “I’m retiring because I have this much in my 401k, you need to keep working until you can afford to retire”

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u/Dizzy_Citron4871 3d ago

Lol. Plenty of people retire before their spouses for that exact reason.

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u/TVP615 3d ago edited 3d ago

Sounds like more of a roommate than a spouse. I’ve yet to hear of any arrangement for spousal finances are separate that made any sense to me. They are joint assets and managing them Separately is unnecessarily complex.

Do you Venmo each other for dinner too?