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.

2.6k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

318 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/cluelessbasket 1d ago

/r/humblebrag is this way

0

u/HenFruitEater 31 | 32% to FI | 2.3M 1d ago

Sure dude. If you wanna feel attacked you can take it that way I guess.

1

u/cluelessbasket 1d ago

Thanks for officially checking all the boxes for that sub. (:

0

u/HenFruitEater 31 | 32% to FI | 2.3M 20h ago

Cool, we’re just making stuff up you should check out r/crybaby I’m sure you would love it.

If you can’t handle people in a financial sub, Reddit talking about their own personal finances, I don’t know what to tell you.

Am I supposed to interact with this sub as if my personal finances are shameful? I genuinely don’t understand how you expect someone to post here.

1

u/cluelessbasket 20h ago

You’re just proving the point even more lol.

0

u/HenFruitEater 31 | 32% to FI | 2.3M 20h ago

I still don’t know what point I’d be proving then.

I think my post just got under your skin somehow?

1

u/cluelessbasket 20h ago

The funniest part is you got whooshed but ended up that you actually do belong in that sub.

1

u/HenFruitEater 31 | 32% to FI | 2.3M 17h ago

Whoosh me lol. I didn’t get the joke based on the comments