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by commandlinefan
2891 days ago
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I think about this a lot. I've always been a bit concerned with pricing myself out of the market. I've never really fought particularly hard for pay raises, but I have kept up my education and experience and my pay has risen pretty consistently, putting me in a very comfortable salary range. But I still consider the possibility that the bottom could drop out completely and every employer in the US could collectively decide that programmers aren't worth what they're paying us and find myself settling for a lot less than I've been used to. Before I got married and had kids, I organized my life around that possibility - I never put myself into a position where I _needed_ the paycheck I was getting. Since getting married and having two kids, though? My wife and I both make high salaries and we're still barely breaking even every month. It's all disposable stuff - lots of vacations, eating out several times a week, a handful of extracurricular activities for the kids; all stuff we could cut out in a heartbeat... _if_ she was willing to. Honestly, I'm not as worried about potentially losing earning potential as I am about convincing my wife that we have to make some cuts if we ever find ourselves in that position. |
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After seven years, we had never really had two incomes, only one.
So when we had a kid, all of our expectations were built on one income. We maintained those - my wife has been a SAHM now for almost three years. She's going to go back when he starts pre-school one or two days a week, but she'll be choosing satisfaction over money, and only to keep skills relevant (she still gets job offers). If I ever lose my job, she can make a call, get a job (she's privileged in her field), and pick up 80% of my slack. We did this so that we never have to be too worried about my team scaling down.
It helps me sleep at night.