S/O American Dream. Would $500-750k HHI be enough for this lifestyle?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Not with your other expenses. We have two kids and do, on average, a long ski weekend, a week or two weeks in Europe/similar, and two in Maine every year. Our europe trips, which are not budget but are not at all high-spend, are at least $17k each. Skiing is another several thousand, and Maine is also several thousand. Add in another kid and even more travel, I think this is at least $100k in travel alone.

I really question how people are finding an income of 750k tight. I posted earlier in the thread about how we are pretty sloppy spenders (we don’t budget, we don’t look at grocery prices, we eat lunch out frequently or get takeout for dinner, our kids do costly activities, and we take really bougie trips for a little of probably ~ 75k. My husband has a porche which he pays to store in the winter. We belong to an expensive golf club etc. I can keep going on here).

And yet even with all of this spending, we still managed to save up 6 mil for retirement in the last 10 years. Could it be more without all of the above? Sure. But you also have to enjoy life. We might get cancer and die young.

What are ya’ll spending your money on aside from mortgage?

You saved an average of 600k a year on a 750k income?

Savings = savings and liquid investments

We also have our kids college funds, which together are worth about a million, and our house, easily another million. But we don’t count them in net worth.

People are winding you up, probably out of envy. It’s a legit insane to say that an annual income of 750k is tight or middle class or that you’ll only be able to afford to vacation in the Poconos. INSANE.

It really is a perfectly fine income. It may not be enough for the OP to have their dream life, however. 750K gross is about 500K Net.

Here were their demands.

4 BR House - One would presume, some place nice and safe with good school districts, which also tend to be the wealthier parts of the country. Assuming a very low 1.5M house with a 500K down payment (OP said something about this elsewhere), that's 80K a year in expenses (low balling things like real estate taxes and insurance)

3 Kids with college 100% paid for and all activities, clothes, gadgets, first car, etc. - Not including college or cars, it's about 30K per kid a year if they don't go to private schools, times 3 kids = 90K per year in just expenses. College is an additional let's say 500K for 4 years, times 3 (assuming market does some of the work). Per year, that works out to about 80K. So just kids' expenses is 170K

4-5 Vacations per year for a family of 5 (plus grandma/nanny) - 70K (using OP's numbers, which IMO are too low. As a family of 3, we easily spend 15K on week long vacations, and that doesn't include business class travel). 125K is probably more like it.

Responsible savings for retirement (20%?) - 100K per year

At this point, OP is up to $420,000, and have $80,000 left for all other expenses. They still have to pay for groceries, cars (car payments, gas, insurance), electricity/gas bill, cleaning lady, nanny/au-pair for vacations, etc. never mind art, fresh flowers, and all the rest.

[Anonymous]

As an example, our HHI is usually between $800k-1M depending on the year. We’ve been at this income for the past ~5 years so have good savings. Some reality checks for you OP:

-The house you want probably is closer to $2M. Even with a good down payment of 25-30%, expect a mortgage close to $8k/month.
-With that HHI probably comes demanding jobs. You’ll need to outsource a lot to have the leisure time you desire. We have two young kids in daycare plus an au pair for backup. Au pair is also nice if you want to relax the slightest bit on vacation. We spend roughly $100k/year on childcare. Outsourcing home to dos (weekly cleaning, laundry, yard, handyman) probably runs us $1k/month.
-We really don’t worry about money and pay cash for everything - cars, home renovations, etc. With that said, I don’t think we could swing the vacations you described and comfortably afford what I described above.

Good luck!

[Anonymous]

If you are both going to work full time and have three kids, you won’t be taking 4-5 vacations a year. Kids will be involved in various activities and sports, and if you’re making $500k-$700k you’ll both have busy high pressured jobs and you won’t be able to take 5 vacations a year. Anywho, our income is $650k a year and our lifestyle is mostly like you describe except the vacation piece like I described above. But we typically do 2 weeks in Europe in the summer, 1 week Caribbean for Spring Break, travel Xmas break to visit family, and then some weekends here and there, especially extended weekends when there are teacher work days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Don’t have kids. You’re already talking like you’re giving up too much for them and you don’t want to adjust your life around them. Saying that as someone who’s also planning to start a family soon who makes more than you also working 100% remote. You need to be 100% in it if you’re having kids today. Otherwise don’t bother, or wait until you’re ready to think about their needs vs accommodating your travel needs.

+1

As someone who experienced infertility, I don't often say that delaying having kids is a good idea, but in OP's case, I'd give it at least 3 years before starting to try. Regardless of current age.

+1
OP sounds too naive to have kids.

Even if you can travel with small kids it’s a huge pain - will they eat/sleep/nap - will we be able to do xyz given the kids’ mood. As my kids got older they didn’t agree on what to do. So we opted for vacationing at relatives vacation homes because it’s on the beach/mountains/England/france/Italy. We can just leave them at the house and they can have fun with cousins or grandma can spoil them

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Not with your other expenses. We have two kids and do, on average, a long ski weekend, a week or two weeks in Europe/similar, and two in Maine every year. Our europe trips, which are not budget but are not at all high-spend, are at least $17k each. Skiing is another several thousand, and Maine is also several thousand. Add in another kid and even more travel, I think this is at least $100k in travel alone.

I really question how people are finding an income of 750k tight. I posted earlier in the thread about how we are pretty sloppy spenders (we don’t budget, we don’t look at grocery prices, we eat lunch out frequently or get takeout for dinner, our kids do costly activities, and we take really bougie trips for a little of probably ~ 75k. My husband has a porche which he pays to store in the winter. We belong to an expensive golf club etc. I can keep going on here).

And yet even with all of this spending, we still managed to save up 6 mil for retirement in the last 10 years. Could it be more without all of the above? Sure. But you also have to enjoy life. We might get cancer and die young.

What are ya’ll spending your money on aside from mortgage?

Yeah your kids are in public school. Most people at this income have kids in private. Sounds like you’d rather burn money on pointless things than give your kids a lifelong gift of solid education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges are we talking about? Because for even UVA in state, COA is conservatively projected to be 100k per kid per year in 18 years.

When is UVA is supposed to be 100K instate?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Not with your other expenses. We have two kids and do, on average, a long ski weekend, a week or two weeks in Europe/similar, and two in Maine every year. Our europe trips, which are not budget but are not at all high-spend, are at least $17k each. Skiing is another several thousand, and Maine is also several thousand. Add in another kid and even more travel, I think this is at least $100k in travel alone.

I really question how people are finding an income of 750k tight. I posted earlier in the thread about how we are pretty sloppy spenders (we don’t budget, we don’t look at grocery prices, we eat lunch out frequently or get takeout for dinner, our kids do costly activities, and we take really bougie trips for a little of probably ~ 75k. My husband has a porche which he pays to store in the winter. We belong to an expensive golf club etc. I can keep going on here).

And yet even with all of this spending, we still managed to save up 6 mil for retirement in the last 10 years. Could it be more without all of the above? Sure. But you also have to enjoy life. We might get cancer and die young.

What are ya’ll spending your money on aside from mortgage?

You saved an average of 600k a year on a 750k income?

DP
Of course - it’s called lying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Short answer: no. It's not possible.

Longer answer: What you're describing is essentially our lifestyle for years, although two kids (but in private, so feels like more lol). We were able to do it fine at $1.5M. Now we make closer to $3M and we don't worry about money. We couldn't have done it on $500-$750K.

How do people make $3M per year and I only make $125k. I am a civil engineer with 15 years work experience.

What kind of job do you have? At my firm I think the highest paid engineer barely makes $200k.

My DH is an engineer and makes 350K. You have to go higher in management at a large firm or state your own small business.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What kind of colleges are we talking about? Because for even UVA in state, COA is conservatively projected to be 100k per kid per year in 18 years.

When is UVA is supposed to be 100K instate?

In 18 years. It assumes a 3.21% annual increase in cost annually, which is the average over the last three years for four-year public colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an example, our HHI is usually between $800k-1M depending on the year. We’ve been at this income for the past ~5 years so have good savings. Some reality checks for you OP:

-The house you want probably is closer to $2M. Even with a good down payment of 25-30%, expect a mortgage close to $8k/month.
-With that HHI probably comes demanding jobs. You’ll need to outsource a lot to have the leisure time you desire. We have two young kids in daycare plus an au pair for backup. Au pair is also nice if you want to relax the slightest bit on vacation. We spend roughly $100k/year on childcare. Outsourcing home to dos (weekly cleaning, laundry, yard, handyman) probably runs us $1k/month.
-We really don’t worry about money and pay cash for everything - cars, home renovations, etc. With that said, I don’t think we could swing the vacations you described and comfortably afford what I described above.

Good luck!

+1
We had a FT nanny we paid $70k/yr many years ago. Kids went to half day preschool at 18mo to socialize them (more $$) We had a cleaning person weekly $800/month. Our yard guy costs $400/mo. We spend ~40k/yr on vacation - nothing fancy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

You can do a lot of things on this HHI, but there are tradeoffs. A close in 4BR, $1.5M house isn't particularly big or "nice" if by that you mean for open spaces, modern appliances, home office, etc. You can have art and flowers, of course, but the art will be from art fairs and the flowers will be from the market and put into a vase by you. There are sooooo many errands you never imagined with kids, and a grandparent will never cover them all. You can probably optimize your planning to make it easier to get them done, but doing this is time out of your schedule that you're not working, spending with your kids, spending on yourself, or spending planning/taking those 4 vacations. My nanny did a lot of the errands and optimizing when the kids were little...but we paid ~$70K (after taxes for us) for this.

You are absolutely not going to suffer at $500-700K, but you are describing a lifestyle with 3 kids and no tradeoffs...that's not possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Not with your other expenses. We have two kids and do, on average, a long ski weekend, a week or two weeks in Europe/similar, and two in Maine every year. Our europe trips, which are not budget but are not at all high-spend, are at least $17k each. Skiing is another several thousand, and Maine is also several thousand. Add in another kid and even more travel, I think this is at least $100k in travel alone.

I really question how people are finding an income of 750k tight. I posted earlier in the thread about how we are pretty sloppy spenders (we don’t budget, we don’t look at grocery prices, we eat lunch out frequently or get takeout for dinner, our kids do costly activities, and we take really bougie trips for a little of probably ~ 75k. My husband has a porche which he pays to store in the winter. We belong to an expensive golf club etc. I can keep going on here).

And yet even with all of this spending, we still managed to save up 6 mil for retirement in the last 10 years. Could it be more without all of the above? Sure. But you also have to enjoy life. We might get cancer and die young.

What are ya’ll spending your money on aside from mortgage?

Yeah your kids are in public school. Most people at this income have kids in private. Sounds like you’d rather burn money on pointless things than give your kids a lifelong gift of solid education.

Most people at this income don’t send their kids to private school. Just look at high income zip codes and percent of kids in public vs private. At most, it’s 50/50, but more often it’s 60%+ in public. That’s why they move to say the Langley zip code.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Not with your other expenses. We have two kids and do, on average, a long ski weekend, a week or two weeks in Europe/similar, and two in Maine every year. Our europe trips, which are not budget but are not at all high-spend, are at least $17k each. Skiing is another several thousand, and Maine is also several thousand. Add in another kid and even more travel, I think this is at least $100k in travel alone.

I really question how people are finding an income of 750k tight. I posted earlier in the thread about how we are pretty sloppy spenders (we don’t budget, we don’t look at grocery prices, we eat lunch out frequently or get takeout for dinner, our kids do costly activities, and we take really bougie trips for a little of probably ~ 75k. My husband has a porche which he pays to store in the winter. We belong to an expensive golf club etc. I can keep going on here).

And yet even with all of this spending, we still managed to save up 6 mil for retirement in the last 10 years. Could it be more without all of the above? Sure. But you also have to enjoy life. We might get cancer and die young.

What are ya’ll spending your money on aside from mortgage?

Yeah your kids are in public school. Most people at this income have kids in private. Sounds like you’d rather burn money on pointless things than give your kids a lifelong gift of solid education.

Most people at this income don’t send their kids to private school. Just look at high income zip codes and percent of kids in public vs private. At most, it’s 50/50, but more often it’s 60%+ in public. That’s why they move to say the Langley zip code.

I honestly think that where in your "luxury spending" priority list private school education falls is a huge cultural divide (leaving aside uber-wealthy who don't have to think about this at all). My parents are immigrants. By the time I was in MS, they weren't scraping together private school tuition by any means...but even if they were less wealthy they would have sacrificed the big, custom-built house and fancy vacations to provide it. And this was in a nationally-ranked school district...our private (not DC area) was better. They were wealthier than most of their immigrant friends, who all prioritized private school education for their kids before other luxuries.

My DH goes back to Mayflower on one side and several generations in the US on the other. His UMC parents lived in a great school district, and private would never have occurred to them. When we got married, I said we needed to manage our finances such that private would always be an option wherever we lived. Kids did not start in private, but they are both in one now (MS and upper ES).

Statistically, we can argue about the differences...just like we can argue about the difference between some of my high end luxury good vs other things...but for me there are clear differences that matter. It's worth paying for those to me, and I'd live in a smaller house and sacrifice my designer goods for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This seems like some lala land weird idea of what family life should look like. We have an 8 figure hhi yet don’t take that many vacations, and it’s nothing to do with money. You seem to have an idealized version of life and want to slot kids into it, but that’s not how it works. Maybe when the kids are very young, but if your kids do serious sports or school activities, a lot of your schedule will revolve around that. For vacations, it depends what level of nice you want, but we have 4 kids, and a ski week alone is well over half your travel budget. You also seem to be ignoring sleep away camps, sport camps, etc. I think you want some instagram version of parenting.

This. We are very wealthy. In order to be wealthy, spouse doesn’t take six weeks off a year. I mean really…Also, kids activities, etc. This person is delusional and it’s hilarious that they think traveling with three kids is so easy. Come back and report on this once you have one kid.

What’s the point of being wealthy if you cannot even take 6 weeks off spread around the entire year?
Also, travel sports and activities are not mandatory to raise kids, you are just conforming to other people’s choices. If you don’t like it don’t do it? You can choose to cultivate different experiences for your kids where travel fits in and is a part of it. It’s hardly uncommon for families whose kids are good friends to travel together on vacation. does’t need always involve sharing a home, could be diff hotels, diff budgets, but the idea is being in the same place at the same time. Kids have fun while adults don’t have to constantly entertain them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I’ve been reading all the replies and people seem to be really stuck on the 6 weeks of vacation thing.

My H and I both work remotely right now and are digital nomads moving from AirBnB to AirBnB. We really like to see different parts of the country and world and I don’t want that to change too much when we have kids, though I know we’ll have to pick a place to live to give them stability. To answer some questions, my in laws are gifting us a large down payment and my mom is planning to move near us when we have a baby to be our nanny. She’s very excited about this, it’s not something I asked for.

On the subject of vacations, do you think 4 trips would be doable on 500-750k?

Not with your other expenses. We have two kids and do, on average, a long ski weekend, a week or two weeks in Europe/similar, and two in Maine every year. Our europe trips, which are not budget but are not at all high-spend, are at least $17k each. Skiing is another several thousand, and Maine is also several thousand. Add in another kid and even more travel, I think this is at least $100k in travel alone.

I really question how people are finding an income of 750k tight. I posted earlier in the thread about how we are pretty sloppy spenders (we don’t budget, we don’t look at grocery prices, we eat lunch out frequently or get takeout for dinner, our kids do costly activities, and we take really bougie trips for a little of probably ~ 75k. My husband has a porche which he pays to store in the winter. We belong to an expensive golf club etc. I can keep going on here).

And yet even with all of this spending, we still managed to save up 6 mil for retirement in the last 10 years. Could it be more without all of the above? Sure. But you also have to enjoy life. We might get cancer and die young.

What are ya’ll spending your money on aside from mortgage?

Yeah your kids are in public school. Most people at this income have kids in private. Sounds like you’d rather burn money on pointless things than give your kids a lifelong gift of solid education.

Most people at this income don’t send their kids to private school. Just look at high income zip codes and percent of kids in public vs private. At most, it’s 50/50, but more often it’s 60%+ in public. That’s why they move to say the Langley zip code.

I honestly think that where in your "luxury spending" priority list private school education falls is a huge cultural divide (leaving aside uber-wealthy who don't have to think about this at all). My parents are immigrants. By the time I was in MS, they weren't scraping together private school tuition by any means...but even if they were less wealthy they would have sacrificed the big, custom-built house and fancy vacations to provide it. And this was in a nationally-ranked school district...our private (not DC area) was better. They were wealthier than most of their immigrant friends, who all prioritized private school education for their kids before other luxuries.

My DH goes back to Mayflower on one side and several generations in the US on the other. His UMC parents lived in a great school district, and private would never have occurred to them. When we got married, I said we needed to manage our finances such that private would always be an option wherever we lived. Kids did not start in private, but they are both in one now (MS and upper ES).

Statistically, we can argue about the differences...just like we can argue about the difference between some of my high end luxury good vs other things...but for me there are clear differences that matter. It's worth paying for those to me, and I'd live in a smaller house and sacrifice my designer goods for that.

That’s irrelevant to the facts. PP for some bizarre reason said most people with this HHI send their kid to private…that’s just not true.