It was always difficult. Bernadette Soubirous's father was a miller, her mother had 9 children but 5 of them died aged, 10, 6, 3, 1 and zero. A combination of economic bad times, running his business badly and being illiterate put the family into dire poverty.
http://www.lumenverum.org/apologetics/SeatattheSupper/page26.htmlSt. Bernadette collected firewood and sold it to buy bread. Any idea how much firewood one needed to collect back then to buy a loaf of bread? It was a lot. More than a cubic yard.
Nowadays, at least we have eBay and well off people all around us throwing perfectly good second hand things away. And that much firewood is worth about 10 loaves of bread because human labour is relatively expensive compared to food.
I would bet if you bought St. Bernadette's siblings back from the dead and showed them how difficult life was in a modern first world country, they would not have a great deal of sympathy.
Sure it is not easy for our generation, brought up in wealthy countries on the back of cheap oil and massive government borrowing. But my method has always been to look at what the rich and successful are doing and copy them as much as possible. Have a plan A, and Plan B and don't assume that your business selling religious art will do well just because it would suit your lifestyle if it did.
I knew a woman who decided to go into the business of selling religious books, right around the time that Amazon was starting up, along with a dozen or so competitors. I warned her she was being stupid and explained in clear economic terms why she could not afford to hold a large stock of books or undercut on-line book sellers.
But she was convinced I was wrong and that her business would succeed despite all of that.
As for the wife working? It depends on circuмstances. Generally speaking it is a bad idea as child care, taxes etc leave you only marginally better off. A better idea is for the husband to work harder than he would/could if he did not have a full time stay at home wife/mother.
A smart Traditional Catholic teenager is already thinking, researching and planning what to do and making these decisions. A smart 20 year old is knuckling down and saving a small fund to start him off on married life. A smart couple are planning a cut price wedding, which is still fun and memorable. One of my friends got married in St. James Church in London recently and then afterwards, at my suggestion, since they are not well off, ordered 600 dollars of nice food from a top quality supermarket and had a wedding Picnic in Hyde Park, Central London. It was a glorious summer's day. Everyone brought a picnic blanket, a dozen fold up chairs for the bride and groom and the old people who could not sit on the floor and lots of beer and wine. Cost around $15 per head and the food was delicious. Smoked Salmon pâté, crusty pork pies, salads, gourmet sandwiches, grapes, cherries.
Technically it is against the local ordinances to have a wedding reception in the park since you should have permission, but in reality who is going to do anything about it, if you keep it subtle and keep the music down. It just looks like a large picnic and that is allowed.
Nothing spent on a limo, couple just go a London Cab. Nothing spent on flowers, Hyde Park is full of them. Beautiful backdrops for wedding photographs and it was easy to keep the children entertained and out of the adult's hair by bringing a frisbee, a soccer ball and a few other toys. I was the children's entertainer as I hate adult small talk.
Trad's have to get smart and work out how to manipulate and exploit the broken system to their advantage. If you cannot win over a drug addled, depressed, addicted, Xbox playing generation of worldly w4nkers, then one would have to question whether the faith has given you the clear thinking mind and love of sacrifice that people claim it offers.
My advice, start young. As you pass your mid 20s and have little of nothing to show other than a useless qualification and a deep knowledge of medieval agrarian history and little practical experience, an increasing number of job opportunities are going to be given to younger people.
Also consider things like commute times and costs and the positives and negatives of commuting to an office. For the first 10 years it probably makes sense to commute because you are building up your network and learning about the politics of the office. Once you're 30-35 though in many careers you will have the option to work from home. That is a cost saving, a time saving and it means you are on hand to help with homeschooling, supermarket shopping etc.
Again though it depends how social you are and whether other people around you motivate you to work or annoy you and distract you. For myself I like my own company and I am happy to sit alone in a garden office and Skype people when I need or want to speak to them. Some people need to dress up everyday and go to "work".