Working Wives & Retirement

Tomcat-Are You F-14 pilot?

If so, tell us about the rush.

Mikey
 
I guess you are ERd if you can make it on your own without your spouse. A working spouse may just give you more income or less expenses since you are sharing certain fixed costs, so working spouses serve as an increased comfort layer from a financial point of view.
Click to expand...

I considered myself ER'd when I was on my own with a plan to make it on my own assets. Now that I'm married and I've completely redone my asset allocations and financial planning to accommodate the fact that she's paying health care and most of the monthly bills, I consider myself a stay-at-home husband (and soon to be dad). Well, a stay-at-home husband with a dowry I guess ;)

Isnt it more about what you are than what you could be?
 
Hey Mikey,

Not an F-14 guy. Actually and Air Force acquisition officer. Did spend some time jumping out of planes with 75lbs of gear as a way to get to work when I was a ground pounder back in my youth.

Nords I hear what you are saying about those not looking for a job but ... comments. I may have those myself. You have probably seen in some of my previous posts talking about retirement guidelines to help take some of the emotions out of the transition. I need to refine this one a little.
Notice I said guidelines not rules ;) just in case I can't kick the habit cold turkey.
 
I agree with TH. If you and your spouse could live without any earned income you are Financially Independent. If you actually live without any earned income you are Retired. If you do some sort of work that you like that makes less money than you would make in your old occupation you are Semi-retired.
 
We're really splitting hairs though.

I did it for a while successfully...would I have made it all the way on my own? Maybe. Maybe not.

But I know what I am now, and I dont have any problems with it. I dont feel leechlike since we live debt free in a nice house with nice cars and I'm paying all the capital costs while she pays expenses. The financial arrangement also lets her sock the max amount into her 403b and set aside 4-500 a month for after tax investing, so we're assuring she's got a heck of a nest egg when she retires.

Although sometimes when I call myself a house-husband she just looks at me and says "on a lot of days you make more money than me without getting out of bed!"
 
Let me get in on this with a slightly different perspective. I recently took a forced early retirement do to physical problems. My wife had some resentment, such as why should I work and you sit home all day. I suggested that she quit her job and we could get rid of some bills, such as going with one car, no cell phones, get on a budget, ect. Then as time wore on she got used to a meal ready when she got home, the house cleaned, and in general more time to do stuff, because the sit at home guy got most of everything done while she was at work. Now I think everything will work out well but it took some adjustments, on both our parts. Shredder
 
Let me get in on this with a slightly different perspective. IThen as time wore on she got used to a meal ready when she got home, the house cleaned, and in general more time to do stuff, because the sit at home guy got most of everything done while she was at work. Now I think everything will work out well but it took some adjustments, on both our parts. Shredder
Click to expand...

It's great that you do the cooking and cleaning. I work and my spouse is retired. He has always cooked. When we got married I said it wasn't in my job description. He tries to clean, but his version of clean is not the same as mine. A lot of my women friends say their husbands really don't know how to clean.
::)
 
I am basically a house husband, and I know how to clean. Trust me! I'm about as fussy as they come.
However , I am also lazy. I don't expect my working spouse to handle it when I can just sit on my ass all
day if I so choose. As a result, things are never as clean as I would llike, but I am learning to live with it.

John Galt
 
I have an embarrassing story to tell about my cleaning skills. (And my tolerance for disorder) My wife moved out 5 years ago. Yesterday, for the first time, I decided it was time to clean the toilet. So I put the stuff in, swished it around, and nothing happened. It was still black. So I went back to the hardware store. The guy sold me some neoprene gauntlet gloves and a pumice stone. I completely used up the stone and had to go back to get another.

Finally the damn toilet is clean :)

Never again.

Mikey
 
Yes, Mikey that is an embarrassing story. Not sure we want to be privy to all of your secrets. Our heads can
only absorb so much information. Please consider
a movement back to the kind of crap we
usually discuss.

Thank you.

John Galt
 
ROFL.

I didnt clean my own house or cut my own lawn for ~10 years before I ER'd.

Sometimes I pine for the good ole days...

By the way Mike...Clorox makes these giant white "mints" you put in the toilet tank. They take about 3 months to wear out. Almost completely eliminates the need to scrub that bowl. Highly recommended.
 
I'm going to second the chlorox tablets in the tank, but I use the 1" chlorine tablets for spas, l left over from my last house with the pool. They work as well as the large ones, just have to add more frequently.
 
TH and KB- thanks for the tip. And John, I admit your comment was funny.

Mikey
 
I'm going to second the chlorox tablets in the tank, but I use the 1" chlorine tablets for spas, l left over from my last house with the pool. They work as well as the large ones, just have to add more frequently.
Click to expand...


GREAT idea...in fact I have a ton of those from the little blow up pool I have and they were going to take a hundred years to use them all up.

Those are probably cheaper too...they get $3-4 per 'mint' for the chlorox ones...and all the pool stuff is on clearance sale right now!
 
Much cheaper, that's why I switched. Only you do have to replace about once a week.
 
They do have 3" tablets for pools...I've seen the buckets over at sams club...50lb bucket for $71.

The usual tablets price ~ $1 per oz...these 3" tabs price out at 8c an ounce...gee...a little cheaper...

First I have to unload all these 1" tabs...
 
I haven't noticed a difference in the way they work, though I didn't try the 3" tabs in the toilet. I ran out as we were moving from the house with the pool.

Also, I was afraid it would eat the plastic parts.
 
Just swish it out once a day, and have no need to do anything else unless I want to feel extrahygienic.
 
Heh, heh, heh

Back to the crap - I've used the 3" swimming pool tablets for twenty years - goes into a small lagoon and patch of Cat-tails and cane - the best crop in my end of the swamp by far. The cholrine does require replacement of the toilet innards more often though.  
 
In 8 years I've had to replace a $3 flapper in each of 3 toilets.

Oddly, they LOOKED fine, but leaked a little. Must have been hardened or something.
 
There is an old story in my family that my dad replaced
a "$3 dollar flapper" back in the 30s.
I think that was before he met my mom :)

John Galt
 
Remove the dirt before it enters the house.

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned water conditioners yet.

The water supplied to our house isn't considered "hard" by any stretch of the imagination but our water conditioner saves a lot of cleaning labor. Its ion-exchange resin uses rock salt to exchange the water's calcium & magnesium ions with sodium. No more deposits on the toilet bowls, bathtubs, or shower doors. Less soap on/in everything. I swish a toilet brush once a week and don't use anything in the flush tank. Bathtubs & sinks are rinsed every use and only need cleaning once every few months.

Water conditioners used to be hard to find on the Internet and expensive to ship, but now even Home Depot carries a generic GE model. Our 2002 version cost $500 on sale at Sears and another $100 of copper pipe. Labor was free. And of course the payback in cleaning avoidance has been priceless...
 
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