[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by GGG

If you look at household labour for a week I’d say there is a good 20 hrs a week of labour required in cooking, cleaning, home maintenance, dealing with schools, driving kids to activities.

So if you can afford it why would you add another 40 hours to total household labour.

If you look a a working parent they may farm out cooking, cleaning, childcare, home maintenance and other tasks to third parties in order to allow them to work in a job that requires 40hrs of labour. So when Sliver says there are two income households that do 40-55hrs a week of work plus manage a household I think you need to take a close look at the number of hours you outsource. I would bet Sliver is hiring a cleaner.

I think a better question is why does anyone work outside the home? You give up 1/2 of your waking hours, incur stress, and get some satisfaction from accomplishments. So asking oneself if there was no financial incentive to work what would you do with your time. If the answer isn’t work your current job then the concept of “homemaker” as a profession shouldn’t be confusing.

A homemaker is essentially a person who has reduced their labour requirement to survive and can spend time on the things they want. Volunteering, small personal projects, crazy ideas etc.

As a goal reducing the required labour to sustain a household is essentially the entire concept of retirement. Some people have achieved 50% of it first.

On the financial side I’m always surprised when married couples have separate enough accounts that gift giving is actually a gift. Whether dual or single income you have a total household income from which you agree to spend. If one spouse has dramatically more spending power due to disproportionate incomes and it’s viewed as individual money that seems to be a point of potential conflict regardless of if you have a two income or one income family. Obviously each couple has there own system that works for them. We just run joint spending for household and each get an allowance for personal spending.

The only advice my dad ever said to me was: if you wan separate accounts, sleep in separate beds.