Can I Really Make It as a Single Parent on One Income?

You've been carrying the house, you've been paying the bills, you've been making the car payments, you've been paying for the insurance. You've been handling the kids schedules. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, you started carrying him too.And it wasn't because you chose to, because somebody had to. Now he earns $4,000 a month and he contributes almost none of it. He's got $60,000 of debt sitting in a marriage like a bomb you didn't plant.And you're asking whether to leave, but you already know the answer. You're asking something even harder. What you're actually asking is can I actually do this alone? What happens to my kids?What if I have to pay him child support and what if he gets half my pension? Those are real questions and they deserve real answers, not platitudes, not you'll be fine.Single parenting on one income is brutal and I'm not pretending it isn't. But you've already been doing this alone. You just haven't had the math to prove it.So today we're going to look at what single income survival actually looks like. We're going to talk about the legal pieces, the budget pieces and the part that nobody talks about because guess what?You're already doing the hard part. Let's build the plan around it. Hello and welcome to Financially Confident Christian. As you can tell, we have got a great listener question today.We got a listener that's leaving an abusive marriage and they're terrified about surviving on one income, possibly owing child support and yes, losing half their pension. What she's feeling isn't weakness. It's a rational response to a genuinely hard situation.Single parenting on one income in this economy isn't easy and the fear is legitimate. So today I want to talk about single income budgeting. I want to talk about legal protections. I'm not an attorney.I'm going to give you some basic ideas and I'm going to tell you how to stop drowning in worst case scenarios long enough to take the next step. But let's get right to today's listener question. Hi Ralph, I'm in the process of leaving an emotionally abusive marriage.My husband has accumulated $60,000 in debt. He has no savings, no pension and carries multiple credit card balances. On top of that, Ralphie spends like he's entitled to a luxury lifestyle.I've been paying all the house expenses, I've been paying the bills, I've been making the car payments and I'm handling the insurance now he did contribute some to food and gas and some of the kids sports expenses, even though he earns $4,000 a month. But Ralph, I'm worried about surviving on one salary, especially since I earn more than him, which means I might even owe him child support.And I could lose half my pension and half the house in the settlement. But I can't stay. I'm at the edge of emotional and physical collapse. Ralph, how do single parents survive on one income today?Is there anything you'd advise? Already working with a lawyer, by the way. Good. It's good you're working with a lawyer.But I'm also worried about whether he can even take care of our kids when they're with them. Thank you so much for listening to my question. This is one of those questions that has a lot of weight, doesn't it?But I want to start off with something. Guess what? You've been in a single income household the whole time. The difference is now you're actually going to get some ability to control it.So let's get into the nitty gritty today. The first thing when I work with anybody in this circumstance is know what you're actually working with. That's where we got to start.So my first encouragement to you is very granular. I want you to pull your actual take home pay and I want you to list every expense that you're currently covering.Because right now you're living in generalities and I want you to go look at the actual facts on the ground. Now the next thing you do, once you do that, then subtract what he generally contributed and be honest about it. Not generous.Because what I hear you saying is this bum doesn't do much. What's left is really where you're starting your budget. And I got a feeling you're going to find it's closer to manageable than that fear suggests.Now one of the things you can do practically, you mention you're working with an attorney. Ask an attorney about temporary support orders. The court often issue these during proceedings if you need it.But don't assume you're going to owe child support. The formula depends on custody splits incomes and who covers expenses. Again, I'm not an attorney. I'm not giving you legal advice.But don't just assume that, well, I'm going to have to pay. Get actual numbers from a family law attorney in your state before you catastrophize everything. It's easy to catastrophize anything. I get it.But budget, you can't plan what this is going to look like until you know the real numbers. So start there, go get the real numbers, black and white on paper. And then understand what the law actually says about your pension and the debt.I'm going to give you some basic ideas here of what I was able to find out. Pension divisions you send. Your husband has no pension. You do it depends on what the state law says. It's not necessary. Well, I earn more.Many states divide only the portion earned during the marriage, not the entire retirement. Again, I don't know your circumstances. There's a thing called a quadro. That's a qualified domestic relations order.I work with these with clients all the time. It's how the court does divides retirement accounts. But understand that. Go talk to your attorney before assuming you're going to lose half of it.Operate from a place of information and knowledge. But don't forget this. Also, you mentioned there's $60,000 in debt plus credit card debt.That's not going to magically disappear when you get divorced. What I have found is courts usually assign marital debt to the spouse who incurred it. But here's the thing about that.You got to have that documentation because your husband might, and I'm not picking on your husband. I don't know the man. But your husband might say, well, this was all marital debt. This was for this, this and this. So gather the information.Get together your account statements, your credit card bills, those loan records, and yes, even your spending history. The legal outcome isn't set yet. Information is going to be how you protect yourself right now. But now let's get super practical.So you've done the hard things. You made the list of expenses, you've talked to your attorney. You understand what that's going to look like.But now you've got to build what I'm going to call a single lien income budget. But then you can also get ahead of custody. I want you to start your budget with the non negotiables. This is going to be like a triage type situation.Housing, utilities, groceries, transportation. And those kids. You might have to cut some other things out right now. That doesn't mean you're failing. It means you're resetting.You're living in the reality of where you are today. You may have some childcare costs. Talk to your accountant. Maybe you apply for the dependent care tax credit.If things are real tight, there's snap, there's chip, there's local housing assistance. Those things exist for this transaction. For this particular transition you're in. There's no Shame in using them. That's why they're there.I get sad sometimes when I hear about single parents who don't go and, and use the system. Because if you're like, well, Ralph, I don't want to use the system. The system is designed to be a bridge to help you get where you need to be.But let's talk about child support. Child support formulas are math. So many people going through divorce get hung up on this. They say, well, you know, this is some kind of judgment.It's not punishment, it's a math equation. We talked about custody. I'm not even going to talk about custody today because I have no idea how that's going to work out for you.But document those concerns. Make sure you mention those to your attorney. I'm going to make an assumption that your attorney been through this before.Child welfare is serious, so make sure you're documenting those things. But overall, get that lean budget on one income because that's something you can control. The other things might be a little bit out of control.But here's the thing we mentioned that we're catastrophize. You got to give yourself permission to think past the worst case. Right now you're living in this worst case scenario.But friend, listen, you've been living out the worst case. You said it yourself. I've been covering everything, Ralph. I've been doing the bills, I've been taking care of the kids.Focus on what you can control, plan for those things. Other single parents are doing this too. I'm going to tell you example, my mom did this when my mom and dad split up.Like I mentioned the other day on the show, my mom kept her own checkbook. She figured out how to do that. You're going to do the same thing. You're going to make this work.But go enlist the help of people like me or an attorney or some kind of financial planner. I'm not going to tell you that this isn't going to be hard. This may be the hardest thing that you will ever do.But remember this, hard and impossible are not the same thing. The question isn't whether you can survive on one income. It's whether you're going to give yourself the chance to find out.And you owe it to yourself to do that. And the reason it is because you said something in your question. You said you're on the edge of emotional and physical collapse.And I just want to park there for a second because we can run past that and I can't fix it with some magical Bible verse. Because I know something about what it took that courage to write that. It took so much courage to put that on paper.And I'm going to tell you something right now. Faith doesn't promise a clean divorce settlement. It doesn't guarantee that your husband's going to all of a sudden become responsible.It doesn't mean the kids and you aren't going to have hard days. But here's what scripture does say. It says very clearly that God sees the oppressed.God doesn't look away from injustice inside a marriage any more than outside of one. And if you're at the point where you need to leave an abusive situation, that's not a failure of faith.So don't let anybody tell you that staying in one is not a virtue. If you are being abused.If you're listening to this right now and you're being abused, both mentally, physically or any of those things, don't let any faith person tell you need to stick in there, because you don't. You asked how single parents survive and I've given you real practical answers. Budgets, lawyers, tax credits.But the deeper answer is a question of faith. They survive because they stop waiting for someone else to save them. That's not a lack of faith. That's faith in action.Listen, you've been holding this family together. You've been putting in your pension, you've been building plans and you've been making the payments. God didn't give you that capacity by accident.The courage that you took to send this question, that's the same courage that's going to get you through the next year. And I am confident of this. You will get through next year.It might not be without tears, it might not be without hard months, but you are going to get through it. And that's what I want you to hold on to today.It's not about certainly I can't tell you here's what's going to happen and here's what is going to play out. But I know this. You will get through because you're not doing it alone.Because I can see it, you've already been the financial backbone of this family, but now you get to keep what you build. So getting real practical, your wins for today and they might not feel like wins, I get it, this is a tough situation.But I want you to go back and write down your pay and your expenses you're doing. Don't budget it yet, just plan it. Build. That list just needs to be one simple page. Your mortgage, your rent, your utilities, the car Payment.You get the idea that one list is going to show you what you're actually working with. And I would be willing to bet something it's going to be less terrifying than the fear that's going on in your head.But I want to encourage you with a little Bible verse. This one's from the book of Psalms, chapter 34:18. It says the Lord is close to the brokenhearted. He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.And I'm feeling right now your spirit's crushed. And like I said at the beginning, you're not asking a financial question. You're really asking me if you're going to be okay.And that verse doesn't dodge that part. But here's the other side of this. God isn't standing in a distance just watching. What does it say? He's close to the broken heart.He's close to you right now. He's right there with you in the fear. He's right there with you in the exhaustion. And it's right there with that collapse that you're describing.Just remember that's the foundation that this plan gets built on. He's right there with you. How about we pray together? Heavenly Father, this listener today is caring more than most people will ever know.She's kept a household running, Lord. She's raised those kids and she's held herself together while the person who was supposed to be her partner made it harder every single day.So right now, Lord, I ask you to give her clarity in the number she needs to see. Help her to find that good attorney who gives her honest answers and give her courage to take the next step, even if it's just one phone call.I ask for your protection for her kids during this season. It's going to be a tough situation, Lord. And protect her from that spiral of that worst case thinking that makes hard feel impossible.But in all things, Lord, remind her of what she's already built. And you've built it with her because she's built more than she knows and she's stronger than she knows, Lord. And we ask this in Jesus name.Amen, friend. I want to speak to you directly because maybe you're going through this as well. You didn't get to where you are by being weak.You got here by finally choosing yourself. And you're going to be running on a one income household. Maybe. But you can make this work. So don't assume the legal outcomes meet with that attorney.Look at the products, look at the services that are available to build that lean post divorce budget document. Everything but know you can do this. I'm confident you can do this. And if you're going through something, it doesn't have to be divorce.It could be something different than that. I want to encourage you to leave me a voicemail. I really want to hear your voice.As you can tell on this show, it's all about answering those questions of people who are going through real stuff. Go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail we'll put a link to that in the show notes. It's super simple.You click on the link and record your voice. That's at financiallyconfidentchristian.com/Voicemail thank you so much for joining me today. I want to thank you again for sending in that question.The courage that it took to send that to somebody you don't know is amazing. And I'm praying for you today. So stay financially savvy. May God bless you and you have a great day. We rise it.