What can I do on this HHI?

[Anonymous]

We have a 320K HHI (one is a fed salary so half of gross goes to pension and insurance etc).

Help me figure this out which of these can I reasonably expect to be able to do? Trying to get a reality check.

One international vacation
One child in private school
One child in daycare
Max out 401K
Max out 10K for 529
Max out IRA
Have a new Subaru car
Go out to eat at restaurants
Two stateside flights to visit family for holidays
Cleaners once a month
Organic groceries

[Anonymous]

Depends on your mortgage - is it 2000 or 7000? That matters a LOT

[Anonymous]

What is your monthly take home and how much is your mortgage or rent?

[Anonymous]

Remove private school, and make the international vacation an every few years thing that you save and/or accumulate miles/points for. The rest should be doable unless you have housing costs or debt that are out of whack.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Remove private school, and make the international vacation an every few years thing that you save and/or accumulate miles/points for. The rest should be doable unless you have housing costs or debt that are out of whack.

I was gonna say why the need for private school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a 320K HHI (one is a fed salary so half of gross goes to pension and insurance etc).

Help me figure this out which of these can I reasonably expect to be able to do? Trying to get a reality check.

One international vacation
One child in private school
One child in daycare
Max out 401K
Max out 10K for 529
Max out IRA
Have a new Subaru car
Go out to eat at restaurants
Two stateside flights to visit family for holidays
Cleaners once a month
Organic groceries

It depends on your other finances.

[Anonymous]

We have a slightly higher income (closer to $350k) and all of that is easily affordable except privates, unless we are talking about Catholic.

[Anonymous]

all of it except private school

[Anonymous]

Waste of money on organic groceries.

[Anonymous]

Don’t need to max retirement with fed pension

[Anonymous]

Lifestyle matters a lot… you could do all of this if you have a very small mortgage or rent. Less if you have a bigger house that requires upkeep.

[Anonymous]

You are spending lavishly. You can’t afford it on that income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:all of it except private school

+1 When our HHI was around $350K, we did all of that (including the new subaru) but no private school. But we did contribute more than $10K to the 529 for two kids.

[Anonymous]

If you can’t use a calculator to figure this out, I’m not sure you can do anything, and question how you even manage to make $320 HHI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a 320K HHI (one is a fed salary so half of gross goes to pension and insurance etc).

Help me figure this out which of these can I reasonably expect to be able to do? Trying to get a reality check.

One international vacation
One child in private school
One child in daycare
Max out 401K
Max out 10K for 529
Max out IRA
Have a new Subaru car
Go out to eat at restaurants
Two stateside flights to visit family for holidays
Cleaners once a month
Organic groceries

Hmmm... we do some of your list -
1. One international vacation
2. Max out 401K
3. Max out IRA
4. Go out to eat at restaurants
5. Organic groceries
6. Cleaners come weekly. Lawn mower guy comes every 2 weeks. Mulch, pruning, weeding, planting, cleaning - three times a year.

Then we have other costs that you do not have -
1. Prepaid tuition for both kids for state colleges for undergrads (100K total)
2. Significant savings for future weddings of two kids (200K each)
3. Hosting large number of people (50-70) once a year (cost around $2-4K for caterers, bartender, server)
4. Saving for new cars for kids, graduate schools, seed money for teaching them to invest (20K each).
5. Two trips to Asia solo to meet relatives. Gifts for all of them.
6. Hire tutors/coaches to come to home to teach kids.

Then we do not have some costs like you have - private school, stateside visits to parents etc
1. No stateside trips since parents live in Asia.
2. No new Subaru. We drive our trusted Toyota.
3. Never paid for childcare. I have been a SAHM for a long time.

Lots of lucky breaks financially -
1. Nice SFH in an inexpensive neighborhood. Mortgage could not be lower than what it is.
2. No student debt
3. Parents paid for our wedding
4. Kids went to public magnets. No cost of private schools.
5. No pets.
6. Driving our old Toyotas.