Adding more uncertainty........
Biggerwife is officially burned out at her job. Actually, her profession. I've seen this coming for a while but she finally hit the wall.
It's a tough job. She loves caring for people but the negatives have finally caught up with her. Hostile patients, uncaring and inept coworkers, bean counters that only care about the bottom line. So many things. Like a lot of jobs, you can deal with the negatives for a long time, but the cumulative effect eventually leads to burnout.
She has earnestly begun looking but it will be tough. I think she would like a lot of things, but on paper she just isn't qualified. That's too bad because she would be an absolutely stellar employee, and good at anything she put her mind to. And, she would put her mind to it.
I think that, unless she gets a good job through networking or some personal recommendation, she will have to take a pretty drastic cut in pay. That will be tough if I, too, take a huge cut in pay.
Right now, our finances aren't really very co-mingled. We contribute evenly to a joint account for most expenses. I take care of the condo payments and we share the boat payment. We each take care of our cars separately, although she just paid hers off. But, if one of us took a hit financially, we would deal with it together. Having both of us removing what might amount to 70% of our joint income doesn't seem sustainable.
The elusive retirement may be becoming even more elusive