Am I crazy for thinking that we could afford this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here... just wanted to address some of the earlier posts

- in terms of spending close to 500k for a home in gaithersburg, I don't see a problem. I work at home, my wife works in gaithersburg... we have no desire or need to be close to DC. all our close friends live in the area.

- in regards to childcare. i am not planning for childcare to be completely free... but considering the fact that we have two sets of inlaws that have agreed to watch the children, plus the fact that i work from home with an EXTREMELY flexible schedule... i think it is likely that we won't ever have to have our kids in a daycare (we would end up putting the kids in some sort of part time preschool at 3-4 to prepare them for kindergarten though). There could obviously be unforseen circumstances, but I am accounting for the LIKELY scenario, not the absolute worst case scenario.

-in terms of a fund, yes we have an emergency fund

-we currently rent a 1br for around 1400 a month.

You simply cannot expect to watch a child while you're working from home. If you can arrange to work only while hte kids are sleeping (at night, not naps), then maybe. But please don't rely on that.

[Anonymous]

OP's family might be from a culture where it is traditional to care for the grandchildren.

[Anonymous]

Still wouldn't assume though. We're from such a culture, our parents love our son to death, but they had no interest in being full time care givers.

[Anonymous]

DH makes 120K-ish and our mortgage is 410K. We live a pretty good life, but neither of us are big spenders. However, I stay at home, so we don't have daycare costs. I'm not sure you can depend on your parents and inlaws, so I would make sure you have enough extra to pay for childcare in case it doesn't work out.

Do you have 20% downpayment saved up? I think that would be important.

Our PITI is about $2500/month. Can you afford that? A good idea would be to save your expected PITI for now. Take your expected PITI amount and bank it and see if you can make your budget work while saving that, and that would be a good little nest egg for when you do buy the house.

[Anonymous]

Make a budget not only calculating PITI, but also utilities, maintenance, lawn care, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to be absolutely, positively, 100% sure that you won't have to pay for childcare to even consider this plan--with chld #1 and any other kids you might have.

We have a $500k mortgage at 3.5% (monthly PMI of about $3100) and an income of $250K and this allows us to live a comfortable lifestyle-- rent a summer beach house, eat out on occasion, pay for preschool, save for retirement, save some for college, buy clothing as needed at places like the Gap/Jcrew (on sale), etc. A very nice lifetstyle where we never worry about money-day-to-day but we have to budget for larger purchases like new furniture. On $160K and a mortgage of that size you'll probably be spending what you make each month. Kids are expensive--even with free childcare.

I think the best advice is to figure out how much exactly your mortgage will be and live a few months with that amount set aside each month (if it's greater than your current rent). AND make sure to check and double check about the childcare for kid #1 and beyond. That will completely change everything because it can be thousands per month.

Disagree with this. We have a 4 year old and a 1 year old and have never paid of childcare and so far our kids have really not cost us much at all. We live on 90k a year and have a $250k mortgage and consider ourselves relatively wealthy. OP, it sounds like you are in a great financial position.

[Anonymous]

With a similar HHI, no other debts, and 1 child care, we bought a 600k house (480K mortgage) and we are fine. But we had 150K cash at the time and things were tight (but doable) until our HHI jumped 30% after 2 yo.

[Anonymous]

To the pp with a 4 year old and 1 year old:

Camps (even the cheap ones) are expensive. And most grandparents aren't equipped to entertain school aged kids all summer. Camps are easily $350-500/week per kid.

Sports and gear are expensive (football, lacrosse especially). My kid's sneakers cost well over $100, and he'll outgrow them quickly. Not to mention cleats, basketball shoes, etc.

If you have girls, best of luck with that. Dance lessons, costumes, etc. are $$$. And girls are way more interested in clothing, shoes and jewelry than boys....but you'd be surprised how much we spend on basic clothing for our boys.

You haven't hit the birthday party stage yet. I'll spare you the gory details, but $350-500 for a basic party is typical.

Music lessons and instruments are expensive.

Trust me, everything adds up quickly when raising kids. You just haven't hit that stage yet since your kids are so young.

And, free child care won't last forever. Grandparents get old and slow down. Trust me, at some point you will end up having to pay (whether its a nanny or summer camp).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the pp with a 4 year old and 1 year old:

Camps (even the cheap ones) are expensive. And most grandparents aren't equipped to entertain school aged kids all summer. Camps are easily $350-500/week per kid.

Sports and gear are expensive (football, lacrosse especially). My kid's sneakers cost well over $100, and he'll outgrow them quickly. Not to mention cleats, basketball shoes, etc.

If you have girls, best of luck with that. Dance lessons, costumes, etc. are $$$. And girls are way more interested in clothing, shoes and jewelry than boys....but you'd be surprised how much we spend on basic clothing for our boys.

You haven't hit the birthday party stage yet. I'll spare you the gory details, but $350-500 for a basic party is typical.

Music lessons and instruments are expensive.

Trust me, everything adds up quickly when raising kids. You just haven't hit that stage yet since your kids are so young.

And, free child care won't last forever. Grandparents get old and slow down. Trust me, at some point you will end up having to pay (whether its a nanny or summer camp).

Not the OP, but the majority of the stuff you mention isn't a necessity. $500 parties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some details...

160k combined income (we both work for the government, in 5 years we expect to have about a 190k combined income)
50k cash for a downpayment

we both have 5 year old cars that are paid off, will be able to drive them for a long time


only debt/loan is a 200 dollar student loan/month

we are planning on trying for kids next year or so... we have both sets of inlaws in the area so childcare won't really be an issue.

we're interested in the rockville/gaithersburg area... i work from home and my wife works in gaithersburg. it seems that for a decent townhome/house in a good school district, you have to pay a minimum of 450-500k for a house. I have seen houses that I like at this price range.

We are in the same price range as you and have a 410k mortgage.


I know that dcurbanmom is generally conservative, but I feel that in our situation, it would be reasonable to have a 400-420k mortgage, considering our stable jobs and guaranteed salary increases (albeit small) in the next few years.

what do you guys think?

[Anonymous]

To 15:41 - I understand they aren't necessities, but most folks end up sending their kids to camp (for child care purposes), most kids play sports or do activities, and mst parents end up throwing a party at a bounce house or bowling alley. And I stand by the increasing cost of clothing. To wit, I was able to buy three pairs of jeans for my little guys at children's place on sale for $30 total, but my older son's jeans were $30 alone. And you don't want to know how much an under Armour hoodie or Nike elites (note: these are ridiculously overpriced socks) will set you back. Not to mention sneakers (which kids outgrow quickly). Everything gets more expensive as your kids get older.

[Anonymous]

We do a 300k mortgage on a 190k HHI and are barely getting by with home repairs and childcare costs. However, we have extremely high childcare costs (over 2000/month) -- and it sounds like you will probably be able to pay less. You definitely cannot depend on grandparents, but with a flexible job and living in Gaithersburg where childcare is a bit cheaper, you could probably pay considerably less.

But the problem is that even if you can squeak by with childcare for one baby, what about when you want #2? If you're stretching the budget to its extreme to buy a house. Do you really want the mortgage to take the place of a sibling?

And repairs ... good god, they are expensive. Factor in 1-2% of purchase price per year.