How do people afford kids?

[Anonymous]

I've found you can never do enough planning but there is some planning you can do depending on what your goals are and in an effort to avoid expenses that may come later that you will no longer be able to afford once kids come along. My husband and I decided to adopt after trying unsuccessfully to have kids naturally. Before moving forward with the adoption, my husband asked to delay the process because he wanted to finish graduate school. He knew he would not be able to afford it or have the time once the baby was here. We also bought a bigger house in a more sought after neighborhood in anticipation of expanding our family and being somewhere where there were good public schools. We now have two kids and are paying private school tuition. Before we had kids, we traveled extensively. Now, we do a lot of local, domestic trips. Before we started paying private school tuition, we tried to have most of the major repairs done on our house and upgraded appliances, added a new HVAC system. We knew the tuition would wipe out any discretionary spending or big ticket items. Having kids is a major financial adjustment even when you have a decent income. Sometimes I think about how much more DH and I would have in retirement without kids but I would not live such a full life without them. I agree, you have to make sacrifices. But, there will always be expenses that come up that you won't be able to anticipate. That's just how life is.

[Anonymous]

Child care costs in the area are crazy. How do people find informal daycares, ie just another mom watching your kid for a lesser fee?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh boy!

Not you again. This is a very expensive area and there are a lot of hidden costs associated with having an income in the $275-400K range. Why can you not understand this simple fact?

[Anonymous]

You are not getting by. You have a house, car, health care, and you are saving for retirement. You are not getting by on 180K.