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

[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!

Similar but SAHP so don’t have the extra childcare expenses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Where do you ski if you spend 40K on a sling trip??? We've done a lavish skiing trip in Canadian Rockies at $10K for the whole week and fantastic nordic spas this year

For 5 people? No you haven't.

yea what a joke. We just went up to stowe for the 4 day holiday. Flights were $1600, truck rental was $350, lodging was 2,220 (and this was 10min drive from the resort), lift tickets were $3744. And Food was god only knows, I don’t even want to think about it. So before food and whatever miscellaneous crap we were $8k for 4 days in friggin Vermont. No family of 5 is traveling from DC to “the Canadian Rockies” to ski for 7 days for 10k. Lift tickets alone will put a family of 5 close to 10k for lift tickets alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Where do you ski if you spend 40K on a sling trip??? We've done a lavish skiing trip in Canadian Rockies at $10K for the whole week and fantastic nordic spas this year

For 5 people? No you haven't.

yea what a joke. We just went up to stowe for the 4 day holiday. Flights were $1600, truck rental was $350, lodging was 2,220 (and this was 10min drive from the resort), lift tickets were $3744. And Food was god only knows, I don’t even want to think about it. So before food and whatever miscellaneous crap we were $8k for 4 days in friggin Vermont. No family of 5 is traveling from DC to “the Canadian Rockies” to ski for 7 days for 10k. Lift tickets alone will put a family of 5 close to 10k for lift tickets alone.

You can purchase an EPIC pass that gets you unlimited skiing at Stowe and like 40 other resorts for $850/adult at the beginning of the season and $500/kid…including Vail, Whistler and many others for the entire ski season.

If you are a big skier, this is what you would do and you will save thousands per season as a result.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised by all the vacation naysayers. Where I live, it is very common for families to travel this much. Over every school break basically. Maybe not 6 weeks total but 3-4 for sure.

And yeah, the skiing out West, Caribbean spring break, east coast beach vacay schedule is very very common ime.

Anyway, we do this and we still managed to save up 5-6 million in the last 10 years despite facing kids. So idk why you’re all saying it is impossible.

where you “live”? are all of you teachers? My DH has a very busy medical practice and no way in hell is he taking 6 weeks off a year nor are any of our friends who are highly compensated professionals. Even me who is moderately compensated in a finance field could never take 6 vacations a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised by all the vacation naysayers. Where I live, it is very common for families to travel this much. Over every school break basically. Maybe not 6 weeks total but 3-4 for sure.

And yeah, the skiing out West, Caribbean spring break, east coast beach vacay schedule is very very common ime.

Anyway, we do this and we still managed to save up 5-6 million in the last 10 years despite facing kids. So idk why you’re all saying it is impossible.

where you “live”? are all of you teachers? My DH has a very busy medical practice and no way in hell is he taking 6 weeks off a year nor are any of our friends who are highly compensated professionals. Even me who is moderately compensated in a finance field could never take 6 vacations a year.

That must be specialty specific. My brother is an oncologist with a successful practice and he takes a good 2-3 months off each year. He has junior doctors who have to work their way up who of course can’t do that.

[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?

are you planning on dragging your mom around to watch your children while you “digital nomad” it up? because ya know… most of us who work from home , actually have to work. Or are you one of those remote workers that don’t actually work so you do indeed vacation constantly?

[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.

How do you spend $17K on 1-2 weeks in Europe? Are you staying on Lake Como or in Capri? Flying business? Spending $1K / night for lodging? We go all the time and I struggle to find luxury experiences to take my $ outside of Paris, London, Lake Como, etc. Even supposedly luxury places have a very low ceiling. Idk how I’d spend $17K lol.

I’m not the OP, but I’ll take a stab at this:
Flights $1000-$1200 a person x 4 people is $4000-$4800. (Sure, there are occasional great deals out there, but even at this price, you probably planned ahead)
Hotels: let’s say 12 nights at $250 a night is $3000. This may be optimistic, especially in big cities.
Food x 4 people (including snacks)
Transportation x 4 people
Activities x 4 people

I think it would be pretty easy to hit $17k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Where do you ski if you spend 40K on a sling trip??? We've done a lavish skiing trip in Canadian Rockies at $10K for the whole week and fantastic nordic spas this year

For 5 people? No you haven't.

yea what a joke. We just went up to stowe for the 4 day holiday. Flights were $1600, truck rental was $350, lodging was 2,220 (and this was 10min drive from the resort), lift tickets were $3744. And Food was god only knows, I don’t even want to think about it. So before food and whatever miscellaneous crap we were $8k for 4 days in friggin Vermont. No family of 5 is traveling from DC to “the Canadian Rockies” to ski for 7 days for 10k. Lift tickets alone will put a family of 5 close to 10k for lift tickets alone.

You can purchase an EPIC pass that gets you unlimited skiing at Stowe and like 40 other resorts for $850/adult at the beginning of the season and $500/kid…including Vail, Whistler and many others for the entire ski season.

If you are a big skier, this is what you would do and you will save thousands per season as a result.

You know what’s funny? we all agreed after this trip, we will never visit another epic or icon resort again. The over crowding is horrendous.

we did this same trip last year to Powder Mountain and it was so so nice. for us we don’t really care to budget at the expense of a good experience. We had never been to Stowe and only picked it because skiing this winter in the rockies has been hit or miss with snowfall.

[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.

How do you spend $17K on 1-2 weeks in Europe? Are you staying on Lake Como or in Capri? Flying business? Spending $1K / night for lodging? We go all the time and I struggle to find luxury experiences to take my $ outside of Paris, London, Lake Como, etc. Even supposedly luxury places have a very low ceiling. Idk how I’d spend $17K lol.

I’m not the OP, but I’ll take a stab at this:
Flights $1000-$1200 a person x 4 people is $4000-$4800. (Sure, there are occasional great deals out there, but even at this price, you probably planned ahead)
Hotels: let’s say 12 nights at $250 a night is $3000. This may be optimistic, especially in big cities.
Food x 4 people (including snacks)
Transportation x 4 people
Activities x 4 people

I think it would be pretty easy to hit $17k

PP specifically said it wasn’t a luxury trip (“not at all high spend” specific quote). No way you can hit $17K without adding in the Ritz or similar. Now if they said they were chartering a catamaran off Croatia or staying on Lake Como or renting a chateau that’s staffed or whatever sure, $17K is super low. But $17K for a regular European vacation?? How??

[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.

How do you spend $17K on 1-2 weeks in Europe? Are you staying on Lake Como or in Capri? Flying business? Spending $1K / night for lodging? We go all the time and I struggle to find luxury experiences to take my $ outside of Paris, London, Lake Como, etc. Even supposedly luxury places have a very low ceiling. Idk how I’d spend $17K lol.

I’m not the OP, but I’ll take a stab at this:
Flights $1000-$1200 a person x 4 people is $4000-$4800. (Sure, there are occasional great deals out there, but even at this price, you probably planned ahead)
Hotels: let’s say 12 nights at $250 a night is $3000. This may be optimistic, especially in big cities.
Food x 4 people (including snacks)
Transportation x 4 people
Activities x 4 people

I think it would be pretty easy to hit $17k

PP specifically said it wasn’t a luxury trip (“not at all high spend” specific quote). No way you can hit $17K without adding in the Ritz or similar. Now if they said they were chartering a catamaran off Croatia or staying on Lake Como or renting a chateau that’s staffed or whatever sure, $17K is super low. But $17K for a regular European vacation?? How??

If you aim for moderately luxurious (eg premium economy), then airfare alone for a family of five at peak times can be $10k. Or course you can travel more cheaply, but it takes planning and effort. OP said she didnt want to worry about her spending and also do a bunch of discretionary things: travel, eat out frequently, have expensive hibbies, etc. With 3 kids, that costs more than $500-750k can buy or requires planning/worrying.

[Anonymous]

yes. sort of.

house in far out suburb like centerville.
state schools for 3 kids; no private school
cheaper places for vacation (europe - two weeks in romania, ski in canada before dollar craters, take couple only week off in a place like lincoln nebraska or other small cute midwestern town, and find a really cheap spot in off the beaten path part of mexico for winter break, not during peak time.)
no eating out, no fancy car.
not sure how much you will save for retirement.

But why live like this? growing up, the wealthiest families had a summer house in certain parts of coastal maine or massachusetts. they went there for the summer, or they went for a month and other relatives had the place for the rest of the summer. every few years they went skiing in europe. (but most people skiied on weekends cheaply with season passes locally). parents paid for college and kids eventually did a year abroad with some travel. families did have houses with bedrooms for each kid, unless a really big family, and some of these houses were really well located. people had some antiques but very few people had decorators. mainly the biggest thing about the american dream was having an education, and being sure your kids and grandkids would too.

that was kind of it.

[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?

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

DP
Of course - it’s called lying.

lol you can think I’m lying all you want if it makes you feel better but I’m not.

I’m starting to think maybe ya’ll are really bad or at least super conservative about investing? Which is a shame because the market has been really good to a lot of people since 2008.

[Anonymous]

As for private school, why bother buying a house in a good school district if you aren’t going to use the schools? Seems dumb. DS1 got into his top choice college with a big merit scholarship. It worked for him, I have no doubt it’ll work for the other two,

Btw, I already said multiple times that we don’t live in DC and we don’t have a mortgage. That’s where we save a lot of money compared to the rest of the posters in here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Where do you ski if you spend 40K on a sling trip??? We've done a lavish skiing trip in Canadian Rockies at $10K for the whole week and fantastic nordic spas this year

For 5 people? No you haven't.

yea what a joke. We just went up to stowe for the 4 day holiday. Flights were $1600, truck rental was $350, lodging was 2,220 (and this was 10min drive from the resort), lift tickets were $3744. And Food was god only knows, I don’t even want to think about it. So before food and whatever miscellaneous crap we were $8k for 4 days in friggin Vermont. No family of 5 is traveling from DC to “the Canadian Rockies” to ski for 7 days for 10k. Lift tickets alone will put a family of 5 close to 10k for lift tickets alone.

FYI, Canadian lift ticket prices are significantly cheaper than US prices...even resorts owned by US companies.

We were considering Whistler and it would have been US$380/adult for 4 days' lift tickets over Christmas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As for private school, why bother buying a house in a good school district if you aren’t going to use the schools? Seems dumb. DS1 got into his top choice college with a big merit scholarship. It worked for him, I have no doubt it’ll work for the other two,

Btw, I already said multiple times that we don’t live in DC and we don’t have a mortgage. That’s where we save a lot of money compared to the rest of the posters in here.

You do it because house values appreciate better in strong school districts...but I don't disagree with you.

There are many people who love city life and are fine owning in the city feeding to mediocre schools and going private because the quality of the schools usually doesn't factor much into house values and appreciation.