Our “Dual Income, No Kids” Story

Mr. D and I are getting ready to celebrate our third anniversary, and we feel fortunate and blessed in our current financial position. We started out knowing little about how to manage finances, but we appreciate the advice we had and thought we would share a little about what we did the last three years.

I always assumed I would be a stay-at-home mom after college, but when I was a single college student shadowing people for possible careers, one woman shared with me that with financial situations that option is not always possible. She also shared that some women like having the option to be in the workforce. She shared that she could be a full-time stay-at-home parent, but that she chose to work. She and her husband agreed to live on one salary so that she would not feel pressured to work when she became a mom. Her salary went toward retirement.

I remember liking what she said and asking Mr. D when we were engaged about how he would feel about living on his income and then saving mine for retirement. In practice, we have taken a mixed approach and generally “live” on one salary and “manage” the other to various goals.

We have both always been taught to save and to try to stay out of debt. Since we both attended BYU (which happens to be the complete steal-of-a-deal school), we were able to both graduate with minimum debt. Our first paychecks and sign-on bonuses went to paying off the balance of David’s student loans. Thankfully we also had enough in those first paychecks for the first two furnishings of our one-bedroom apartment together, which were a nice mattress to sleep on and a couch to snuggle on.

We were advised to know and track our spending habits. I remember a guest speaker saying that even in a double-income situation, you might be able to find a way to squander your income if you fail to track it. From the beginning, Mr. D and I have had a spreadsheet we used to track our spending on a monthly basis. We have a 1-year plan that looks remarkably similar to the accounting “Balance Sheet” and a month-to-month view of the balance in our checking account that looks similar to a “Statement of Cash Flows”. I update the spreadsheet every month and we make adjustments to it as needed.

We made sure to take advantage of incentives that exist to encourage saving. Oftentimes employers will match 401k contributions so we opened those at our companies and made sure to take advantage of the full match.

For the first six months of our jobs, I got to borrow my parent’s car since my brother no longer needed it since he had just left on a two-year service mission and my sister was not old enough to drive. My husband got to drive the Mitsubishi Galant that his parents had given him. We knew our good fortune was temporary though since my sister would soon be old enough to drive and need to car back, so we spent a few months looking for a newer, one-owner car. We eventually found and purchased an almost new (only one owner) car from Craigslist, a Hyundai Elantra and paid in cash.

About the time year number two started at our jobs, my mom (who happens to be a real estate agent) asked us if we wanted her help purchasing our first home together. Since we had been living somewhat frugally, we had the cash for a 10% down payment and we purchased a two-bedroom townhome. Over that next year we poured in another 10% into our townhome so that we could have 20% down. The main benefit we saw from this action was that we could remove the $85/month PMI expense.

When Mr. D got a new job, we learned that we could also take advantage of company stock options. We had heard that if you work for a public company, you can consider purchasing company stock, which is normally offered at a 10% discount. We have heard that we can pay tithing to our church with this stock, and are looking forward to figuring that out next year.

Now we are working towards having our emergency 4-month supply of cash on hand in a 1% APR savings bank account.

We both know that we still have more to learn about finances, but we feel we have done okay and are blessed in our current situation. We would love to hear your thoughts on saving and investing.

-Mr. D and Mrs. M