relocating to DC - budget for family of 4

[Anonymous]

We lived in Woodley Park without a car and two children (one elementary, one middle school- age) for a year and loved it. Everything is close or reachable by metro/bus. My kids did plenty of activities. Also close to the zoo, which they loved. Never for one minute missed having a car. We rented one a couple of times for roadtrips.
As for the budget, we did accept it was a trade-off. The good location meant a smaller home for us, but it worked great. We spent around 10k a month on basics (this was 2019). Public school, no aftercare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Many thanks to all who responded. The insights and different points of view are all very helpful. I don't mind driving, just not a big individual car aficionado, but as some suggest when in Rome might as well do as the Romans do. One point that wasn't immediately clear to me - are the salary ranges quoted gross or net of taxes? They seem higher than the living costs discussed, but I assume that this is because the figures factor in a substantial level of savings to deal with some of the more expensive aspects of long term living in America, like healthcare, higher ed, etc.?

The annual salaries quoted are gross, the monthly spend is likely net. Yes, healthcare and taxes, and at least one car, but also you'll be wanting to make retirement contributions and save for your childrens' college, right? When I told you minimum $400K per year combined, I was assuming you'll do some saving and have one car.

[Anonymous]

I would second the suggestion to look at suburbs and either pick one, like North Old Town Alexandria, Del Ray, or Arlington or even parts of Rockville where you can get by without a car or just a few Ubers every now and then. You will save so much in terms of rent, eating out, groceries, etc. As a former non-car owner, I found a car extremely helpful for shopping in America with kids, where you can buy a haul of groceries once a week or less as opposed to walking home with just what you can carry/fit in a stroller. There is also the issue of Ubers in general not being what they used to be in terms of cleanliness and safety. And of course, none of them want to transport pets or have car seats for kids!

I would say 300-400k gross but you need to reduce the SF you are willing to accept to keep rent in line. In the areas you mentioned of NW DC, rent for 2-3,000 SF will easily be over the 5k you quoted. More like 5500-7000k. Utilities will be a few hundred a month cause all the SF homes in NW are old and don’t have insulation or insulated windows. Internet is easily is $100/month. A row home in Capitol Hill is a good compromise and makes a car less desirable…

[Anonymous]

DC is not a real city, just a town of extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Not for the middle class. It is not worth giving up the comfort of suburban living for. Looking from your question about net vs gross income, I'm assuming you are coming for a job at WB/IMF type of international organizations. That salary is a middle class salary in DC. You need two of such salaries to sustain an upper middle class lifestyle you desire in NW DC. If you have only one salary, either rent an affordable condo in NW DC for less than 4000 to have the carless life you want, or move to the suburb to try the American life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Many thanks to all who responded. The insights and different points of view are all very helpful. I don't mind driving, just not a big individual car aficionado, but as some suggest when in Rome might as well do as the Romans do. One point that wasn't immediately clear to me - are the salary ranges quoted gross or net of taxes? They seem higher than the living costs discussed, but I assume that this is because the figures factor in a substantial level of savings to deal with some of the more expensive aspects of long term living in America, like healthcare, higher ed, etc.?

PP here who posited a $200K-$400K range. We live outside the beltway and have two college age kids and earn in the lower end of that range, gross. Yeah $400K would be comfortable but we have roughly the lifestyle you seem to want with a lot less HHI than that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is not a real city, just a town of extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Not for the middle class. It is not worth giving up the comfort of suburban living for. Looking from your question about net vs gross income, I'm assuming you are coming for a job at WB/IMF type of international organizations. That salary is a middle class salary in DC. You need two of such salaries to sustain an upper middle class lifestyle you desire in NW DC. If you have only one salary, either rent an affordable condo in NW DC for less than 4000 to have the carless life you want, or move to the suburb to try the American life.

Lol please tell me an American city with a population over 600k where that’s not the case.

P.S. if you want to see some extreme poverty, visit Baltimore or Philadelphia sometime.

[Anonymous]

Op if you get a car you definitely don’t need a huge car! Certainly wouldn’t be where to start

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Currently living abroad and interviewing for a position in DC. Never lived there and have no family ties. About to discuss salary. I would be most interested in feedback as to what is a reasonable budget for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 young kids) in DC metro area. Assume reasonably good sized home (2000-3000 sqf) in a nice area west of Rock Creek Park. Would prefer not to have a car if thats possible/realistic. Understand from other posts on this forum we should be expect to fork out about 60k in rent (possibly more?) but struggle to put a figure on childcare/afterschool, utilities and food and understand some expenses have been going up sharply so figures dated 2/3 years ago may no longer be accurate. Thanks in advance to all who will contribute.

That is not realistic in the US generally. If you want your kids to have activities, you are going to need a car. The US is not like other parts of the world where you can get by without a car.

My DH's cousin recently did a post-doc year in the US, after growing up in a European country. The cousin was sure he'd be fine without a car, but he ended up borrowing one of our cars frequently because it was so limiting to be in the US (and in the DC area) without a car. He was able to enjoy his US experience much more, once he had a car.

And ideally, buy a car that's large enough to do a carpool (if your kids want to do activities). If you get a small car (where no friends will fit), that will be a limitation.

Car free is possible in DC, but not easily west of rock creek, the area doesn't even have protected bike lanes. If you live closer in, especially parts of the city with good bike and walking infrastructure it is much easier, but ward 3/west of rock creek lack most of this stuff. Mt Pleasant may be a good compromise if you want to get rid of the car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These are very UMC answers. We lived and rented in the Deal zone with a HHI of $150k (lived in a smaller place and with one car). If you want a nice house, yes, it can cost much more.

For walkability, I’d actually suggest living in/near downtown Bethesda, walking distance to Bethesda Elementary.

When was that?

2021

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you don’t need private school if you can live in a nice suburb. That will save you 50k+ per year. Enough to entertain having a car. Rent is cheaper in suburb too. 5-7k can get you a 5,000 sqft nice house in great school area. Try the American lifestyle (big house big car). Maybe you will like it. We also moved from a dense European city to here, and found having a car is quite liberating as you don’t need to rely on public transport which is always shared and limited no matter how good it is. Also DC public transport sucks. 100 years backwards compared to Asian cities like Singapore, HK or Shanghai .

This might win as the worst advice I have ever seen on this site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Currently living abroad and interviewing for a position in DC. Never lived there and have no family ties. About to discuss salary. I would be most interested in feedback as to what is a reasonable budget for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 young kids) in DC metro area. Assume reasonably good sized home (2000-3000 sqf) in a nice area west of Rock Creek Park. Would prefer not to have a car if thats possible/realistic. Understand from other posts on this forum we should be expect to fork out about 60k in rent (possibly more?) but struggle to put a figure on childcare/afterschool, utilities and food and understand some expenses have been going up sharply so figures dated 2/3 years ago may no longer be accurate. Thanks in advance to all who will contribute.

We're car-light (one old car for weekends) west of rock creek in a 2k sqft row home with one kid. Income in about 300k/year. Rent in Glover Park would run you 5K/+mo but we are at the low end of your sqft requirement (and only satisfy them due to the walkout basement). Aftercare can be annoying unless you sign up very early, but au pairs are a good stopgap solution for a year. (Aftercare isn't too expensive, like 400/mo each, au pair is 20k/year - we have a basement studio with an exterior door for them). Utilities are free for us (solar completely offsets everything), but were more like 240/mo before that. We walk/bike to whole foods, trader joes, or safeway on the way home from work - we spend about 150-200/week.

Our monthly budget is:

700 food and household supplies
500 kid stuff
75 car insurance, maintenance, and gas
50 bike stuff
1000 eating out + entertainment
4500 house (we have a low interest rate; includes sinking fund for maintenance)
300 stuff that comes up
100 health insurance + typical copays

We spend another 15-20k/year on travel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Many thanks to all who responded. The insights and different points of view are all very helpful. I don't mind driving, just not a big individual car aficionado, but as some suggest when in Rome might as well do as the Romans do. One point that wasn't immediately clear to me - are the salary ranges quoted gross or net of taxes? They seem higher than the living costs discussed, but I assume that this is because the figures factor in a substantial level of savings to deal with some of the more expensive aspects of long term living in America, like healthcare, higher ed, etc.?

It is hard to be car-free, but one car is very easy to do (we mainly use bikes and walking - buses are unreliable, though the metro is fine).
Never drive into DC downtown even if you own a car, that is what taxis/ubers are for. Salaries are almost always gross here; taxes vary by where you live; they are the highest in Maryland and lowest in parts of Virginia with DC in the middle. Healthcare is usually taken care by your employer, so look into the details (we pay $100/mo with minimal costs outside of that; higher was birth with a $100 fee). Retirements vary again, pensions are rare, many upper middle class folk save 20%, though often employees will chip - ours give us 10% or our gross to our retirement fund (think aussi super-style).

[Anonymous]

We lived in DC for years without a car (east of the park tho). It was easy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We lived in DC for years without a car (east of the park tho). It was easy.

If so, did you have children? And if yes, were they involved in activities?

Also, did you like to go places on the weekends? There is a lot to explore outside of the DC area on weekends, but having a car is pretty much necessary (or at least makes things a lot more pleasant).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We lived in DC for years without a car (east of the park tho). It was easy.

If so, did you have children? And if yes, were they involved in activities?

Also, did you like to go places on the weekends? There is a lot to explore outside of the DC area on weekends, but having a car is pretty much necessary (or at least makes things a lot more pleasant).

There’s Amtrak & coach buses.