What HHI is needed for this lifestyle in the area?

[Anonymous]

And the other question is how do you travel internationally? Do you go first class to Japan or coach to Mexico? There is a huge difference. My guess is 800-900k to be comfortable, but it CAN be done on less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say you need a 800k income.

We used to have a 600k income and would not have been able to do all that. We travel more though.

We are at $500k, do most of the things on this list except we live in a $1M house and use public schools, and put $12k/month directly into a brokerage. We could ostensibly put another $2k into a bigger mortgage and the rest to 2 private school tuitions. I would not choose to do so, but it's certainly economically feasible.

I’m sure you could but I would not say comfortably.

Many private school kids have family money. Grandparents pay tuition or inheritance is coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1.5 mil house in a desirable zip code
Private school for 2 kids
2 cars, one should be luxury: think bmv or Audi
1 internal trip per year; skiing trip in the winter for the whole family
Fully funded 401k and IRAs
Fully funded college funds for the kids

1 mil?

Naw. This is us, to a T.

House is 1.7M
2 kids both private
2 cars, one a porche, one a Toyota
Christmas trip is to Aspen every year $15K
Max 401Ks
Fully funded college hard to say, but $200K in each and the kids are 6 and 8.

We did it on $400K with difficulty and by the time we got to $600K with room to spare.

How did you save up for the downpayments for your home?

Did you *pay* $1.7M for the house, or did you roll over equity from an appreciating house? And what is tuition?

We rolled over. But most people buying a $1.7M are. That’s not a starter home.

Tuition is $55K for one kid and $42K for other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And the other question is how do you travel internationally? Do you go first class to Japan or coach to Mexico? There is a huge difference. My guess is 800-900k to be comfortable, but it CAN be done on less.

Paying for F class to Japan would be like $10,000 per ticket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1.5 mil house in a desirable zip code
Private school for 2 kids
2 cars, one should be luxury: think bmv or Audi
1 internal trip per year; skiing trip in the winter for the whole family
Fully funded 401k and IRAs
Fully funded college funds for the kids

1 mil?

You don’t need $1m. This is us exactly, living in Vienna, and we do it on $500k. Slightly less travel spend, but we also have a nanny

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1.5 mil house in a desirable zip code
Private school for 2 kids
2 cars, one should be luxury: think bmv or Audi
1 internal trip per year; skiing trip in the winter for the whole family
Fully funded 401k and IRAs
Fully funded college funds for the kids

1 mil?

Which zip codes/neighborhoods are considered desirable in DC, MD and VA?
DC: WotP only?
MD: Bethesda, CC and Potomac?
Not sure about VA because I don’t spend much time there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1.5 mil house in a desirable zip code
Private school for 2 kids
2 cars, one should be luxury: think bmv or Audi
1 internal trip per year; skiing trip in the winter for the whole family
Fully funded 401k and IRAs
Fully funded college funds for the kids

1 mil?

Define “fully funded college funds.” In other words, how much should the FFCF contain at the start of your child’s senior year of high school?

[Anonymous]

My 67-year-old parents did all of this on a single $225K salary (except for the car – they used to have Toyotas and only now have Audis). Retirement was accomplished by their $225,000 pension, private school was 75% paid for by the job, etc. Home was purchased for $300K but is now $1.5 million. Amazing how much easier things were 30 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Housekeeper, cook and cleaning woman?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1.5 mil house in a desirable zip code
Private school for 2 kids
2 cars, one should be luxury: think bmv or Audi
1 internal trip per year; skiing trip in the winter for the whole family
Fully funded 401k and IRAs
Fully funded college funds for the kids

1 mil?

You don’t need $1m. This is us exactly, living in Vienna, and we do it on $500k. Slightly less travel spend, but we also have a nanny

We do it on $500k too. 1.5 million house plus $100k tuition plus all the rest. However, we are not wealth building beyond funding 401ks or putting $12k a month into a brokerage like an previous poster mentioned. Many high income people ($500k, 600k,
800k) people say "they can't afford it" but it's because they're saving really aggressively off the top. The "we can't afford it" means a lot of different things to different people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 67-year-old parents did all of this on a single $225K salary (except for the car – they used to have Toyotas and only now have Audis). Retirement was accomplished by their $225,000 pension, private school was 75% paid for by the job, etc. Home was purchased for $300K but is now $1.5 million. Amazing how much easier things were 30 years ago.

$225 was a lot 30 years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 67-year-old parents did all of this on a single $225K salary (except for the car – they used to have Toyotas and only now have Audis). Retirement was accomplished by their $225,000 pension, private school was 75% paid for by the job, etc. Home was purchased for $300K but is now $1.5 million. Amazing how much easier things were 30 years ago.

$225 was a lot 30 years ago.

Yes, it was. Equivalent to $464,400.

So there’s part of your answer. You’ll need more than that unless you also have a fully funded pension, private school paid for by work, SAHP, and drive Toyota’s.

[Anonymous]

Assuming you are asking about a family getting no help from parents/others, I would say $600k, having been making that for a number of years leading up to having 2 kids (to have grown financially into that $ house). You don't need 1M to have that lifestyle unless you have other unmentioned goals (retiring early, building significant additional wealth outside of retirement vehicles, etc)

[Anonymous]

ski trips out west are really expensive. like 10-15k for family of four, assuming you want ski in/ski out (why do it otherwise).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1.5 mil house in a desirable zip code
Private school for 2 kids
2 cars, one should be luxury: think bmv or Audi
1 internal trip per year; skiing trip in the winter for the whole family
Fully funded 401k and IRAs
Fully funded college funds for the kids

1 mil?

Depends on what you mean by these. Do you mean that you want to have 400k per kid by the time they are 18? Somewhere between $5-10 million by retirement? That's what "fully funded" means to me. If that's what you mean, you will need at least 1 mil per year. Less than that, you will not b e saving as much as you should be with the other expenses you want to incur, particularly with private school.