100k HHI in suburban envirnoment, and we live like kings. AMA.

[Anonymous]

Do you live in a decent school district? (What is the great schools ranking for your elementary school). I have friends in Delaware, but they paid quite a bit more for their house than 100K to live near decent schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:where do you live? how did you pay off your house in early 30s?

Without entering into too many details, we're in Delaware. We paid off the house in our mid 20s within 4 years of purchase by making sure it didn't cost more than 2x our income; at the time, we made 50k, so we bought a 100k house on a 15-year mortgage. Made extra payments from the start, salaries went up, killed it off.

Are you living in a bad neighborhood in Wilmington?

We're not necessarily in Wilmington. But no, the neighborhood is good. Very quiet, day and night. I think a few years ago there was allegedly a teenager going about taking things from unlocked cars, but that's about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:why are you posting on DCUM if you're in Delaware? I totally get that people can live easily on 100K/year in certain parts of the country, but in the metro DC area, you're not going to find a house, or even an apartment for 100K in a safe area with reasonable schools.

Suit yourself. Running a COLA calculator gives us an HHI of ~154k if we lived in DC metro. Also, most people who work in DC don't actually live there (like 75% or so).

http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html

And you don't think there's a big difference between 100,000 and 154,000 (an over 50% effective salary increase?) no wonder your perspective is skewed! Also the COLA in the DC inner suburbs (i.e. Within a one hour commute) is pretty much on par with DC proper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok--ignoring the fact that you are in Deleware suburbs--is $300-400 on food and a $100K home really "living like Kings"?

I suppose it depends on what you consider to be a good life. We have unlimited access to healthy food, we love our home, and have all of our needs met and then some.

good for you OP-I'm impressed at the amount you are donating to charity

Thank you! We decided a few years ago to shoot for 10%+, and have kept it up ever since, mostly to international charities since the money goes so much farther. We're very happy with it.

[Anonymous]

A house in a DC suburb will cost you at a minimum 300k that is pretty far from the city. 100k would be nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:why are you posting on DCUM if you're in Delaware? I totally get that people can live easily on 100K/year in certain parts of the country, but in the metro DC area, you're not going to find a house, or even an apartment for 100K in a safe area with reasonable schools.

Suit yourself. Running a COLA calculator gives us an HHI of ~154k if we lived in DC metro. Also, most people who work in DC don't actually live there (like 75% or so).

http://money.cnn.com/calculator/pf/cost-of-living/index.html

And you don't think there's a big difference between 100,000 and 154,000 (an over 50% effective salary increase?) no wonder your perspective is skewed! Also the COLA in the DC inner suburbs (i.e. Within a one hour commute) is pretty much on par with DC proper.

The COLA adjust means that to live the life we're living in DC would take a 154k salary. Most threads here by people making 2-3x that amount are filled with complaints about being barely middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A house in a DC suburb will cost you at a minimum 300k that is pretty far from the city. 100k would be nice.

Most people who work in DC don't actually live anywhere close to it; it's the price of living there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A house in a DC suburb will cost you at a minimum 300k that is pretty far from the city. 100k would be nice.

Where are the 300K homes in the DC suburbs? PG county?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you live in a decent school district? (What is the great schools ranking for your elementary school). I have friends in Delaware, but they paid quite a bit more for their house than 100K to live near decent schools.

We don't put any stock in school rankings since they're pretty much direct reflections of SES. We're planning on homeschooling right now until middle school or high school simply because there's so much we disagree with in public education (as noted earlier, we're teachers). The only schools we'd consider for elementary are Montessori or Waldorf-type programs, and we'd rather have that money available for charity and savings than wrapped up in tuition.

[Anonymous]

What does homeschool look like with two working parents? Especially homeschooling four kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think your 100k house in the DE suburbs is going to be big enough for the family of 6 you're planning? How much do you save each month for college?

Yup. It's got 3 bedrooms and the kids will share bedrooms the way kids do all over the world, including in the US.

We don't budget separately for college; we simply save most of our money and we'll divide things up when the kids reach college age.

Do you have/anticipate having enough to fully fund four college tuitions and your retirements? If not, do you worry your children will resent your seemingly cavalier approach when having to take out exorbitant loans and/or subsidizing your elder care?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does homeschool look like with two working parents? Especially homeschooling four kids?

It looks like a lot of work for mom, is my guess.

[Anonymous]

Homeschooling =/= living like kings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does homeschool look like with two working parents? Especially homeschooling four kids?

The plan right now is for one of us to stay home to teach, most likely my wife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you think your 100k house in the DE suburbs is going to be big enough for the family of 6 you're planning? How much do you save each month for college?

Yup. It's got 3 bedrooms and the kids will share bedrooms the way kids do all over the world, including in the US.

We don't budget separately for college; we simply save most of our money and we'll divide things up when the kids reach college age.

Do you have/anticipate having enough to fully fund four college tuitions and your retirements?

Retirements? Yup. We live simply.

College? It depends. If it costs 750k/student the way a number of models suggest, no way--just like 99% of the country. If it costs less, perhaps. We're not going to worry about it, because it's not something we can control. We'll just save what we can.