This side of Twitter often glorifies men who are sole breadwinners and women who are stay at home moms (SAHMs) because these roles naturally define polarity in a couple, and if you read “The Art of Building Highly Addictive Relationships” you know that clearly defined sexual polarity is the key to happy long-term relationships.
That being said, the requisite to making your girl a SAHM is that *you* as a man make enough money to cover for all the household expenses. If you need her to cover half of the cost, then by definition she can’t be a SAHM.
So how much money are we talking about?
How Much It Costs To Financially Support A Family
Guys who prepare for this (which are the minority, the sad reality is that most just wing it and eventually find out), often think that the cost will be 2X whatever they are spending as single men (spoiler: it’s actually 3X)
Their logic usually goes like this: if I bring my girl to live with me some expenses are gonna double, for example groceries, but some will remain flat, for example the rent, I don’t need to pay 2X rent because we’re living in the same unit. That gives me a reasonable estimate of 1.5X my current cost of living. Then when we have kids, they’ll have their own costs but since they’re babies they’re not gonna cost as much as adults, so lets add another .5X to the cost of living. Ta da! 2X increase to my current cost of living.
This is wrong.
Now, I’m not married and I don’t have kids yet. So why am I saying it’s actually a 3X increase in cost of living?
Here’s my story: during the past 3 years I’ve helped my father with most of the household expenses due to extraordinary circumstances. This means groceries, bills, insurance and any unexpected expense (“a friend invited me to her graduation party, can I have some $ to buy a dress?”, “my tire got flat, can I have some $ to repair it?”).
I don’t resent this, what kind of son (specially an eldest brother) wouldn’t help his family in times of need? back to the point: This allowed me to see how expenses grow when taking financial responsibility for other people (specially women), taking into account the role of randomness and “that’s just life” over a long enough period of time.
This gave me a glance of what’s in store if I want to become the sole breadwinner of my household in the future with my future wife. I figured that even if the excessive spending I’ve incurred during the last few years suddenly stopped, they’ll come back at me again in the form of costs of my future SAHM wife and children, so the only real solution is making more money. A lot more.
The tl;dr is that you’ll spend 3X what you’re spending as a single man.
For the detailed answer, let’s put numbers into this:
I live in Mexico, and as you can see here (https://nomadlist.com/mexico) the median cost of living for a single man in the upper middle class (choose “Expat cost”) is about $1,000 USD in most cities.
The data presented here is pretty accurate, I’ve lived in several of the cities shown and it gives you a pretty good estimate of how much you’ll spend according to your lifestyle.
Now, if instead of choosing “Expat cost” you change it to “Family cost”… woah! you get a 3X increase! that can’t be right, can it? Well yes, that’s how much I’ve spent during the past few years taking responsibility for most of the household expenses.
A lot of the times I think I’ve had a good month where less money was spent and them bam! expenditure racks up during the last Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the month.
Why does this matter?
It matters because the transition from being financially responsible for yourself to being financially responsible for others is quite heavy on most men, and many don’t take it very well.
I had the opportunity to experience it and come to terms with it in my late 20s, but most men find out about this once they’re well into their 30s or 40s, when they have a wife and kids and can’t for the life of them see an end to the bills that are coming every month.
I’m here to tell you that they indeed are finite, my friend. It’s just that you haven’t sat down to keep track of them on a *yearly basis* and accept the cold, hard fact that your cost of living is now 3X higher than it was just a few moments earlier.
I believe this “surprise” is a big reason why people complain about marriage and start considering cheating. It’s a way of craving “the simpler times”, but of course it only means being stuck in the past.
What to do?
Make more money.
Sure, you can always divorce and go back to spending like a bachelor, but if you want a family where you’re the sole breadwinner, there’s no way around it. Reducing costs will only take you so far (at the expense of your family’s quality of life btw), making more money is the only viable solution long-term.
How much more? well that depends on where you live.
If you live in Mexico, as you saw before, you’ll have to spend $3k a month vs the $1k you were spending as a bachelor. If you live in NYC where it’s not uncommon to spend $5k as a bachelor, prepare to spend around $15k per month when you have a family.
Alternatively, you can always opt for a DINK (Dual Income, No Kids) relationship with your local blue-haired feminist and claim you’re a “power couple”.
New readers:
In my twitter account and on my blog I tell you what to do. In my books, I tell you how to do it:
My first book, “The Game of Casual Dating” is a guide that will teach you how to go from getting 0 girls to meeting, dating and sleeping with girls you find attractive by building a solid foundation of social skills. No rehearsed lines, no deceiving, no sketchy tricks. Just pure skill and female psychology knowledge. You can buy it Here.
My second book, “The Art of Building Highly Addictive Relationships” is a guide that will teach you which girls are worth keeping around and how to build relationships with them in which they can’t get enough of you. You can buy it Here.
My third book, “Guide to Date Latinas” will teach you how to meet, date and sleep with latinas, their psychology and specific quirks. It has all the insights you need to find latinas in your country, safely visit Latin America and relocating for the long-term if you choose to do so. You can get it Here.
“Introvert Game” is a guide that will help you attain a deeper understanding of your personality as an introvert and figuring out how to seduce women by playing to your strengths rather than trying to swim upstream using guides designed for extroverts. You can buy it Here.
If you’re ready to make a real change in your dating life, book a one-hour call with me Here