I guess it depends upon your definition of choice. I suppose they could not work so much, but then again, the impending homelessness, starvation, and financial ruin doesn't feel like much of choice now does it? You don't see some level of coercion in that at all?
I don't know any couples my age that are financially successful on one salary alone other than where one spouse is a doctor.
Because your generation has no work ethic. You don't even know what it takes to be successful.
Your statement you don't know anyone that is your age that can make it on one salary. I was a high school dropout, my wife is an ivy league grad. She hasn't worked outside of the home in 20 years and I was certainly your age when I started. Here's how it goes:
1.) I had a day job. I'd intentionally work longer hours without pay than anyone else in the department. I got selected for promotions and I landed 150%-200% bonuses.
2.) Nights and weekends, I'd pick up a few grand teaching grad students at a local university. Clearly, I had some marketable skills I had acquired that were in demand enough to be part of graduate level curriculum.
3.) I'd always have 5 side hustles. Once I bought an ammunition company out of receivership and liquidated the assets, filling my garage to the brim for six months and parking outside.
4.) I'd always be restoring something. My wife didn't understand my odd fetish of restoring things until we needed a $12,000 HVAC replacement and I traded a suit of Gothic Plate Armor for it because the HVAC company liked it more than the cash.
5.) My wife would buy all her clothes used on real real and poshmark. She'd sell all her clothes at the same places. She'd sell all the kid's outgrown clothes in the same venues, but would only buy them at big retail sales so it almost washed even in the end.
6.) We'd grow some of our own vegetables, another side hustle. I had a few bee hives that were completely organic, my spouse would sell the prestige honey in prestige packaging to make a few extra bucks.
7.) These survey companies are always looking for industry insiders. The surveys pay $50-$100, the one our consultations pay $250-$1000 depending on the skills offered. I'd pick up a bunch of those.
8.) We'd stop at every garage sale. We decorated our homes with bargains found at garage sales. If we didn't like the item but it was valuable, it got flipped on eBay.
9.) We'd sign up for every legitimate class action lawsuit, bringing in another $1000 a year by registering as part of the class whenever appropriate.
10.) We'd save enough of our cash to have a catastrophe fund. We'd then save 50% on all our insurance coverages by having extremely high deductibles.
These are just ten examples of hundreds. That's what it takes, choices. We made choices to live a lifestyle beneath your generation's examples of what you think is earned/deserved to get ahead. We keep making those choices today. We don't eat out much. We never go to starbucks. We rarely go to fast food. We put ourselves on ghetto phone plans. Just this morning I made $250 selling an obsolete Macbook on FB marketplace because we save the boxes for our technology.
This is how you make it in life as a single income family. This is how you live well when your salary scales from $110k to $500k. We own 20 year old cars. We change our own oil. We live frugally, but donate generously.
And honestly, this is my biggest concern with your interactions on this forum because you have
seriously myopic perceptions based on your belief in what the capabilities are of society. I think you believe those with greater success got lucky, rather than that they were gritty.
