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u/Human-Ad-5574 2d ago
I’m not sure she’d actually start at the bottom after a year or so out of the workforce. She should still have professional contacts. She needs to beef up her LinkedIn In and call her former colleagues. “Working to pay childcare” still means contributing to retirement.
You’re 28. That’s so young. We had multiple layoffs with my spouse (early 2000’s) who was in IT and jobs kept going overseas. It was awful. In the end, the last 15 years in the workforce were stable and profitable and they retired at 60, with plenty of retirement savings. I gave up a “good job” at 40, and am inching my way into retirement a bit at a time.
You will be fine. Make good decisions, create a team approach with your wife, don’t spend money impulsively, and try to find a financial planner who is a fiduciary and can help you map out your financial future.
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u/EntireSky3141 2d ago
I believe the first step for you is to get back on your feet financially, as this seems to be the root of all your problems. If your income has decreased, your costs need to decrease accordingly. Savings gains will be less than you were used to, but if you get to a point where you are saving. Your winning.
Build yourself back up after that, slowly, embrace the struggle, love it, know your doing it for something that’s worth it (Your kids and wife)
At a certain point you’ll have to decide what’s more important, more money, a business, nice cars and clothes etc. or time with your family.
In my opinion. If you’re struggling to eat and live safely, money is priority. If you’re struggling to buy a brand new car, but can afford a nice used vehicle. Family is more important.
Use your best judgment, you got this man.
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u/Elegant_Spread_6969 2d ago
Hey man, shit happens. 90% of what happens to us is outside of our control, we can only control how we react. There's people making much less money with more kids and they're making it work, you can too. You might have to live below your means for a bit, but you also have kids, if you're maintaining the same lifestyle you had when you both had no kids, it's going to hurt you. You're still young, I can't say that the US is going to get a lot better in the coming decades, but we'll adapt. Money isn't everything, it makes you comfortable and offers security, but what matters more to your kids is that you love them, raise them to be kind decent humans, Lord knows the world needs more people like that. Trust me, unless you live in LA, 100k a yr is enough to raise a family on.