On one income~

It doesn't take two incomes to survive in today's society. I promise you it doesn't!!

Bread is still .49 a loaf at Aldi. Flour and sugar are still the best bargains in town because you can make all sorts of things with them. Homemade food is just as economical to whip up today as it was 50 years ago. The difference is that most families want much more than food on the table and a roof over their head. They want two cars, big houses, vacations, electronic toys, nice clothes, and food which tempts the pallet rather than merely fills the empty stomach.

Both my parents and my husband's parents lived in rented upstairs apartments after they got married. Every young couple did because it took time to save for a down-payment on a house. My in-laws had birthed 4 boys before they ever had enough money saved up for a minimal down-payment on their first "real home". After moving in, all they had to furnish their new abode was hand-me-downs from family and friends. My mother-in-law told me that they had been given a kitchen table but it didn't come with any chairs. So they used orange crates to sit on until hearing of someone who had kitchen chairs to give away.

Can you picture a young married couple doing that today? I sure can't!

My parents said that their favorite wedding gift was a used radio that a relative gave them (because the relative had purchased a new one for himself). Mom said they thought they were real "swanky" because they had their own personal radio in their apartment! :-) Their friends would come over, after supper, and everyone would gather around the radio in the bedroom (there was no living room in their little apartment) to listen to "The Shadow" and other programming that was broadcast each evening. After their favorite shows were over, everyone would go home and that was the entertainment for the day.

My father-in-law was a union electrician and many times he was out of work due to lack of business. He also hurt himself on the job one year and shattered his foot. He was off work for many months and that meant little income, except for the stipend they received from the union hall. My mother-in-law talked many times about how she would make potato soup "without the potatoes", as she put it, to feed 6 hungry mouths every night for supper.

They had one "account" (there weren't things such as charge cards then) at that time... an account at Sears... and when they couldn't make the payment on it, my father-in-law immediately went to the store and made arrangements with the people in charge, sharing with them his predicament (he went there on crutches, with a cast on his foot, when his doctor told him that he needed to stay OFF that foot completely!). The people at Sears were sympathetic to his plight and said that because his credit was so good, they would simply hold on to his account and he could start making payments on it again once he was well enough to get back to work. My father-in-law left the store very relieved because he was a stickler about debt and making payments on time. In a few weeks, a statement from Sears came in the mail stating that if my in-laws didn't make their "late payment" on their account within 10 days, the credit bureau was going to be notified. That made my father-in-law so *angry* that he went to the bank, withdrew money they were saving for food, and paid-off the account. From that point forward he never EVER had another installment loan again, other than his house payment! He never wanted to be in that predicament again, of being unable to make a payment on something.

My mother-in-law took in ironing to make extra money for the household but she never worked outside the home. She was needed at home to cook meals, wash clothes, clean house and provide general stability during the lean years. It wasn't even an option for her to work outside the home to provide income. That was my father-in-law's job and that was that. It was a recognized fact back then that women couldn't do it all... work outside the home all day and then do chores at home after that.

I wonder why that fact isn't recognized by anybody, it seems, today?

Two people working outside the home, in a family, means that much more expense is needed to accomplish that. It's like the hamster on the wheel. Two people are running on the wheel and getting absolutely nowhere. If couples today would only live within their means, on one income... no matter what that one income could afford... life and society would be so much better for it. No more kids at daycare. No more kids coming home to empty houses after school. No more fast food. No more need for two cars. No worrying about two adults in the family having to own decent work clothes for every day of the week. No huge mortgage payments (families wouldn't qualify for them). No ability to spoil anyone in the family with excess because there would not be the funds for that sort of thing.

Have you ever driven by some of these 3,000 square foot McHouses (cookie cutter designs) in the new subdivisions that always seem to be on the edge of town? We do and we always say the same thing... "How can people AFFORD those monstrosities?" If you look closer, you will always see the Little Tyke equipment in the yard which means that a young couple with children resides there. A young couple on the hamster wheel... a young mother who has no idea what it's like to read a book in the afternoon or sit down for coffee with a cherished neighbor each morning or have an empty laundry hamper. Stress leads to problems of all sorts: marriage difficulties, child abuse, health maladies.

In the 1950s, men used to relax in the evening after work and supper. They used to read the paper, watch t.v. or listen to the radio, or play baseball at the field on the corner. Women used to relax at various points in the day and in the evening. They would sit down mid-morning and have coffee with the woman next-door, relax with a good book in the afternoon after their chores were done, or gather with girlfriends one Thursday night each month for Card Club. Work was mixed with pleasure and there was balance in people's lives. There is no more balance today... and that's the whole problem!

It doesn't take two incomes to live, in today's world, any more than it did 50 years ago. The difference is that people aren't willing to do what it takes to make it on one income, as they did 50 years ago. Couples are not content until they have everything they want... the things that their parents had to work 15 years for, before they could afford. We live in a "I want it and I want it right now!!" generation and couples are willing to run endlessly on the wheel to get it. I find that so incredibly sad.

~RetroWife