Afford $1.8M on 300K?

[Anonymous]

You may be able to force your children at their current ages not to have computers in their rooms but it's going to be difficult or impossible to force that requirement once they reach high school. I foresee the lack of individual office "problem" solving itself in a couple of years as your children reach high school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $300K and we live in a low cost area and our mortgage is only $2,000 a month and I can say we live a lavish lifestyle.

We eat out once a week. We can’t afford 15K vacations. We have to save to buy some furniture. Just groceries are about 2K a month.

We spurge $24K a year on DC for a private school.

I can’t imagine having 9K mortgage. That would make us poor.

Good grief what are your expenses? You sound like you have a lot of bills.

Here is our monthly budget after from net income after 10% is put away into 401k:

$1,000 new car savings (we pay cash for our cars)
$1,000 vacation savings
$2,000 college savings
$2,000 private school tuition

$2,000 mortgage
$500 utilities

$500 car gas

$2,000 groceries, pet food, and home supplies
$100 dining out

$1,000 kid expenses (sports, tutors, camps, books, clothes, shoes, etc)

$400 my personal expenses (clothes, shoes, entertainment, gym, personal care products, etc.)

$400 DH's personal expenses

$300 house cleaning

$200 phones

$200 charity

$1,500 we save for various once a year or expenses (HOA, car insurance, gifts, medical copays, yard maintenance, car repairs, vet, rainy day fund)

This is $16,000. Like I said, we don't live lavishly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $300K and we live in a low cost area and our mortgage is only $2,000 a month and I can say we live a lavish lifestyle.

We eat out once a week. We can’t afford 15K vacations. We have to save to buy some furniture. Just groceries are about 2K a month.

We spurge $24K a year on DC for a private school.

I can’t imagine having 9K mortgage. That would make us poor.

Good grief what are your expenses? You sound like you have a lot of bills.

Here is our monthly budget after from net income after 10% is put away into 401k:

$1,000 new car savings (we pay cash for our cars)
$1,000 vacation savings
$2,000 college savings
$2,000 private school tuition

$2,000 mortgage
$500 utilities

$500 car gas

$2,000 groceries, pet food, and home supplies
$100 dining out

$1,000 kid expenses (sports, tutors, camps, books, clothes, shoes, etc)

$400 my personal expenses (clothes, shoes, entertainment, gym, personal care products, etc.)

$400 DH's personal expenses

$300 house cleaning

$200 phones

$200 charity

$1,500 we save for various once a year or expenses (HOA, car insurance, gifts, medical copays, yard maintenance, car repairs, vet, rainy day fund)

This is $16,000. Like I said, we don't live lavishly.

Most of that stuff is fine. However, I question $200 for phones. I spend $15 a month and so does my wife for cell service. We spend about $50 per year on phone hardware each (average cost to replace a phone every 3-5 years with trade in).

$500 car gas seems excessive. Buy smaller cars or hybrid.

[Anonymous]

Regarding the separate offices for kids, it is excessive. Put the computers in their bedrooms and use some kind of control that prevents them from using it or disable the internet on those computers at certain times of the day every day. There are may apps...

[Anonymous]

300k is really not a lot of money in DMV, just a normal middle class life. Maybe 500k can put OP closer to his aspirational life, but she'd better increase income before she increases life aspirations.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:300k is really not a lot of money in DMV, just a normal middle class life. Maybe 500k can put OP closer to his aspirational life, but she'd better increase income before she increases life aspirations.

This. My spouse and I make 250K, have no mortgage with 3 kids. We are middle class in this area. No way would we even buy a 1M house today.

[Anonymous]

This started off questionable and jumped the shark when OP said she'd like her children to have their own offices. If you're concerned about your kids having a computer in their bedroom, what do you think will be so different when they are holed up in their personal offices?

[Anonymous]

I think OP just wanted investment advice. We have this money leftover every month, should we buy a bigger house in a fancier neighborhood? But she shouldn’t be asking us! Even the finance forum! Ask a freaking professional! (Who I think would tell her the same thing- bad idea). It’s fun that s-he has stayed around and keeps popping in with hysterical bits like, my kids need their own offices. Hahahahahahaha

[Anonymous]

OP, I have a $400k HHI and we bought a $1.8m house. We had a bigger downpayment from savings and our other house, so we borrowed around $1.1 and our mortgage is like $6k. It feels pretty doable w/2 kids in public. We still max our retirement accts and put money in our kids' 529s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $300K and we live in a low cost area and our mortgage is only $2,000 a month and I can say we live a lavish lifestyle.

We eat out once a week. We can’t afford 15K vacations. We have to save to buy some furniture. Just groceries are about 2K a month.

We spurge $24K a year on DC for a private school.

I can’t imagine having 9K mortgage. That would make us poor.

Good grief what are your expenses? You sound like you have a lot of bills.

Here is our monthly budget after from net income after 10% is put away into 401k:

$1,000 new car savings (we pay cash for our cars)
$1,000 vacation savings
$2,000 college savings
$2,000 private school tuition

$2,000 mortgage
$500 utilities

$500 car gas

$2,000 groceries, pet food, and home supplies
$100 dining out

$1,000 kid expenses (sports, tutors, camps, books, clothes, shoes, etc)

$400 my personal expenses (clothes, shoes, entertainment, gym, personal care products, etc.)

$400 DH's personal expenses

$300 house cleaning

$200 phones

$200 charity

$1,500 we save for various once a year or expenses (HOA, car insurance, gifts, medical copays, yard maintenance, car repairs, vet, rainy day fund)

This is $16,000. Like I said, we don't live lavishly.

Most of that stuff is fine. However, I question $200 for phones. I spend $15 a month and so does my wife for cell service. We spend about $50 per year on phone hardware each (average cost to replace a phone every 3-5 years with trade in).

$500 car gas seems excessive. Buy smaller cars or hybrid.

I don't think pp was looking for advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This started off questionable and jumped the shark when OP said she'd like her children to have their own offices. If you're concerned about your kids having a computer in their bedroom, what do you think will be so different when they are holed up in their personal offices?

+1
13 pages of discussion because OP assumes something magical happens when a computer sits in one rather than the other of each child's rooms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $300K and we live in a low cost area and our mortgage is only $2,000 a month and I can say we live a lavish lifestyle.

We eat out once a week. We can’t afford 15K vacations. We have to save to buy some furniture. Just groceries are about 2K a month.

We spurge $24K a year on DC for a private school.

I can’t imagine having 9K mortgage. That would make us poor.

Good grief what are your expenses? You sound like you have a lot of bills.

Here is our monthly budget after from net income after 10% is put away into 401k:

$1,000 new car savings (we pay cash for our cars)
$1,000 vacation savings
$2,000 college savings
$2,000 private school tuition

$2,000 mortgage
$500 utilities

$500 car gas

$2,000 groceries, pet food, and home supplies
$100 dining out

$1,000 kid expenses (sports, tutors, camps, books, clothes, shoes, etc)

$400 my personal expenses (clothes, shoes, entertainment, gym, personal care products, etc.)

$400 DH's personal expenses

$300 house cleaning

$200 phones

$200 charity

$1,500 we save for various once a year or expenses (HOA, car insurance, gifts, medical copays, yard maintenance, car repairs, vet, rainy day fund)

This is $16,000. Like I said, we don't live lavishly.

So you can’t afford a $15k vacation but you can certainly afford a $12k one. You’re just crying poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:300k is really not a lot of money in DMV, just a normal middle class life. Maybe 500k can put OP closer to his aspirational life, but she'd better increase income before she increases life aspirations.

This. My spouse and I make 250K, have no mortgage with 3 kids. We are middle class in this area. No way would we even buy a 1M house today.

No you’re not. Stop the BS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:


So you can’t afford a $15k vacation but you can certainly afford a $12k one. You’re just crying poor.

I can't afford a European vacation. I can afford a couple cheaper vacations per year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is $300K and we live in a low cost area and our mortgage is only $2,000 a month and I can say we live a lavish lifestyle.

We eat out once a week. We can’t afford 15K vacations. We have to save to buy some furniture. Just groceries are about 2K a month.

We spurge $24K a year on DC for a private school.

I can’t imagine having 9K mortgage. That would make us poor.

Good grief what are your expenses? You sound like you have a lot of bills.

Here is our monthly budget after from net income after 10% is put away into 401k:

$1,000 new car savings (we pay cash for our cars)
$1,000 vacation savings
$2,000 college savings
$2,000 private school tuition

$2,000 mortgage
$500 utilities

$500 car gas

$2,000 groceries, pet food, and home supplies
$100 dining out

$1,000 kid expenses (sports, tutors, camps, books, clothes, shoes, etc)

$400 my personal expenses (clothes, shoes, entertainment, gym, personal care products, etc.)

$400 DH's personal expenses

$300 house cleaning

$200 phones

$200 charity

$1,500 we save for various once a year or expenses (HOA, car insurance, gifts, medical copays, yard maintenance, car repairs, vet, rainy day fund)

This is $16,000. Like I said, we don't live lavishly.

your only savings is maxing out 401k?