So, random question, when did you get financially 'all right'. I feel like I'm struggling with the whole single income, but I really don't want to get in a relationship/roommates/married if I don't have to. I know it'll be slow going, but I don't really know if I ever want to buy a house/a rental/whatever. I'd rather throw that money into the market or IRAs and ignore it.
Did my lack of response answer your question? LOL
In 2015, me and my wife, both engineers at the time, had a combined income of $90k. Then in May 2015, I swapped companies for the same pay. In Oct 2015, my wife swapped companies and was making $14/hr, as an engineer. Our combined income at that point was $74k. The $16k was a big hit. We had student loans, two car payments, and 4-5 credit cards, and just drained our savings to purchase a house (bought in Oct 2015).
Side note: I take care of all the finances.
It was around Nov-Dec 2015 that I became so fed up with our debt, I decided to get rid of it. So over the next year we took every last bit of money we had to pay off debt. We started off snowballing the credit cards since those had the highest interest and monthly payments. Then the cars, then the student loans. We didn't go out to eat, our weekly grocery budget became $100, and we didn't do any extra actives (vacations, movies, etc.).
So about the end of 2016 everything was paid off, except the house, and we started saving again. Early 2017 she got a raise to $18.65/hr and I started at the utility company making $65/yr. So we jumped from $74k to $103k, but now without any debt. I maintained the lifestyle of $74k, but since there was no debt we could actually do some fun activities. The now remaining money from our new total salary went into building savings up, 401k contributions, and donations.
We both graduated with our degrees in Aug 2014 and got married Oct 2014. Immediately after graduation is when we were making a combined $90k. We had a lot of things pop up in 2014-2015 that we weren't financially prepared for, and that caused us to put a lot on credit cards. We also paid for our own wedding.
The point at which all our debt was paid off was when I felt "all right."
Fast-forward to now: Wife is a full-time stay-at-home mom, I make $83k/yr (no bonus), we have a daughter, 1 on the way, 3 dogs, two nice cars (both 2015), and a 250k house (which is nice for the area). We contribute about $1k to a generic savings (for emergencies, spur of the moment purchases, etc.) and I forget how much I put in my 401k. I also have an IRA I contribute towards. After all that, we
still have extra money to do fun stuff like go out to eat, buy stuff we want, etc.
During that little "rough" patch of 2015, I really became aware of where every dollar went. I've been able to maintain the same mentality I had when we had no excess money, and that really helps give us excess money now. Heck, our weekly grocery budget is only $125 for 2 adults, 1 baby, and 3 dogs. That also includes things like paper towels, toilet paper, beauty supplies, etc.
If you're interested in more I can PM you my monthly expenses and more information. When I was trying to get my money under control, I found it really hard to find good examples of what to do. Most of the time I only came across stuff like "couple pays off $1M in debt in only 1 year!" Well, that's great if you're both software engineers for google and living out of a van with no kids, but what about the normal person?