UMC deep in the negative

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can’t take on a large mortgage when you still have student loans. Only way this works out is if you don’t have kids.

+1 or at least that high student loans that is larger than your mortgage.

[Anonymous]

I feel for you op. People act like what until you pay off student loans to have kids. Infertility is real. In my office of women lawyers, every single one of them over 35 is having trouble. We are super close so I know they’ve been trying and the troubles they’ve had. I went to a top 25 law school with partial scholarships and then into government and Dh went into non-profit (no loans for him). We are from the south so we started trying for a child at 26. Infertility. Didn’t see that one coming. Luckily, we didn’t wait until mid to late thirties so we had plenty of time to try everything we could before resorting to IVF. Then I went into private practice to try to pay off my loan faster. Worst mistake of my life. I won’t go into all the horrors of my law firm but if I could do it all over again, I would not have gone into private practice. All your problems are not magically solved if you go into private practice that’s for sure. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel for you op. People act like what until you pay off student loans to have kids. Infertility is real. In my office of women lawyers, every single one of them over 35 is having trouble. We are super close so I know they’ve been trying and the troubles they’ve had. I went to a top 25 law school with partial scholarships and then into government and Dh went into non-profit (no loans for him). We are from the south so we started trying for a child at 26. Infertility. Didn’t see that one coming. Luckily, we didn’t wait until mid to late thirties so we had plenty of time to try everything we could before resorting to IVF. Then I went into private practice to try to pay off my loan faster. Worst mistake of my life. I won’t go into all the horrors of my law firm but if I could do it all over again, I would not have gone into private practice. All your problems are not magically solved if you go into private practice that’s for sure. Good luck.

True, but then you have to live with a lot of debt. You have to pick and choose what you can live with. For most of us, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I had my first at 35 and second at 38, so it's not like I don't know about waiting to have kids. And I'm not a lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel for you op. People act like what until you pay off student loans to have kids. Infertility is real. In my office of women lawyers, every single one of them over 35 is having trouble. We are super close so I know they’ve been trying and the troubles they’ve had. I went to a top 25 law school with partial scholarships and then into government and Dh went into non-profit (no loans for him). We are from the south so we started trying for a child at 26. Infertility. Didn’t see that one coming. Luckily, we didn’t wait until mid to late thirties so we had plenty of time to try everything we could before resorting to IVF. Then I went into private practice to try to pay off my loan faster. Worst mistake of my life. I won’t go into all the horrors of my law firm but if I could do it all over again, I would not have gone into private practice. All your problems are not magically solved if you go into private practice that’s for sure. Good luck.

True, but then you have to live with a lot of debt. You have to pick and choose what you can live with. For most of us, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I had my first at 35 and second at 38, so it's not like I don't know about waiting to have kids. And I'm not a lawyer.

And I never said you could have it all. It’s just people willy nilly push waiting to have kids and with their kind of debt it may not be so easy.
Even though the DC area doesn’t believe it, fertility is on a finite timeline! She’s getting hounded for having kids and not waiting which is crazy to me.

[Anonymous]

What's the balance of your retirement account?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel for you op. People act like what until you pay off student loans to have kids. Infertility is real. In my office of women lawyers, every single one of them over 35 is having trouble. We are super close so I know they’ve been trying and the troubles they’ve had. I went to a top 25 law school with partial scholarships and then into government and Dh went into non-profit (no loans for him). We are from the south so we started trying for a child at 26. Infertility. Didn’t see that one coming. Luckily, we didn’t wait until mid to late thirties so we had plenty of time to try everything we could before resorting to IVF. Then I went into private practice to try to pay off my loan faster. Worst mistake of my life. I won’t go into all the horrors of my law firm but if I could do it all over again, I would not have gone into private practice. All your problems are not magically solved if you go into private practice that’s for sure. Good luck.

True, but then you have to live with a lot of debt. You have to pick and choose what you can live with. For most of us, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I had my first at 35 and second at 38, so it's not like I don't know about waiting to have kids. And I'm not a lawyer.

Yes, this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel for you op. People act like what until you pay off student loans to have kids. Infertility is real. In my office of women lawyers, every single one of them over 35 is having trouble. We are super close so I know they’ve been trying and the troubles they’ve had. I went to a top 25 law school with partial scholarships and then into government and Dh went into non-profit (no loans for him). We are from the south so we started trying for a child at 26. Infertility. Didn’t see that one coming. Luckily, we didn’t wait until mid to late thirties so we had plenty of time to try everything we could before resorting to IVF. Then I went into private practice to try to pay off my loan faster. Worst mistake of my life. I won’t go into all the horrors of my law firm but if I could do it all over again, I would not have gone into private practice. All your problems are not magically solved if you go into private practice that’s for sure. Good luck.

True, but then you have to live with a lot of debt. You have to pick and choose what you can live with. For most of us, you can't have your cake and eat it too.

I had my first at 35 and second at 38, so it's not like I don't know about waiting to have kids. And I'm not a lawyer.

And I never said you could have it all. It’s just people willy nilly push waiting to have kids and with their kind of debt it may not be so easy.
Even though the DC area doesn’t believe it, fertility is on a finite timeline! She’s getting hounded for having kids and not waiting which is crazy to me.

Plenty of people have kids in modest apartments, condos and town homes. Do you get it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What's the balance of your retirement account?

Lower six figures, combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the balance of your retirement account?

Lower six figures, combined.

Then you subtract that from your liabilities and you are in even less debt than you think. You're not doing that badly, OP.

[Anonymous]

More people are in your position than you think.

We make 420-450k HHI and lived off of one salary to pay down student loans. But we purposely purchased a home we could afford on one salary which allowed us to do this. We also made sure to buy a home where we didn’t need to commute via car. We have few fixed expenses. So now we have childcare and college savings but can also save because of our low fixed expenses. Once we have a sizeable brokerage account outside of retirement, we will purchase a nicer home.

You’ll need to make some drastic choices to paydown this debt. My suggestion would be to sell your house and purchase a much less expensive property (2 bed condo) near your job. Or possibly even rent since condos often arent good investments. Get rid of your cars. If you tell me your expenses/budget I can tell you what to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's the balance of your retirement account?

Lower six figures, combined.

Then you subtract that from your liabilities and you are in even less debt than you think. You're not doing that badly, OP.

Don't give OP a false sense of security when she quite literally has no security.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I feel for you op. People act like what until you pay off student loans to have kids. Infertility is real. In my office of women lawyers, every single one of them over 35 is having trouble. We are super close so I know they’ve been trying and the troubles they’ve had. I went to a top 25 law school with partial scholarships and then into government and Dh went into non-profit (no loans for him). We are from the south so we started trying for a child at 26. Infertility. Didn’t see that one coming. Luckily, we didn’t wait until mid to late thirties so we had plenty of time to try everything we could before resorting to IVF. Then I went into private practice to try to pay off my loan faster. Worst mistake of my life. I won’t go into all the horrors of my law firm but if I could do it all over again, I would not have gone into private practice. All your problems are not magically solved if you go into private practice that’s for sure. Good luck.

I feel like many of you use fertility as an excuse as to why you had kids when you still had massive student loans. Sorry but most women do NOT need fertility treatments. There’s a huge difference financially in having kids at 26 vs 34. In your case it didn’t matter when you had kids because you required IVF anyway. So stop the scaremongering. The best thing a woman can do is wait to have children until she is set financially and also in her career. That isn’t the case for most 26 year old women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP needs to be more specific. What is the house worth and what did he pay for it? What's the exact student loan amount? I don't think the OP has any idea of what "net worth" means. We need to do the math for her.

Thanks for the assistance. $310,000 mortgage and "estimated" value of $425. Combined student loans are $575,000.

This is totally insane. Assuming you start renting an apartment and can payoff at least 100k with equity, it will take you almost 10 years throwing one spouse’s income at the loans. You need to start making A LOT more money. Or go into a line of work that will payoff your loans. You’re in a very very precarious situation. I rarely recommend mister money moustache because so many of his suggestions are crazy but you need something like that.

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP above to post your net income, fixed and variable expenses, and get advice here. You might require some drastic financial steps as selling your house, but I think it may be worth it in your situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Geez if $220K is UMC then I must be rich and never got the memo

$220K is solidly UMC if you aren't stupid with money.

You don't DESERVE or are ENTITLED to fancy vacations. If you lease a high-end car, you're a fool. Save up the money for that kitchen remodel first, before you pull the trigger. Smart people at any income level live within their means and don't pretend to be what they're not.

If you don't think $220K is UMC, you don't know how money or the real world work, period.

NP. Rage much?

NP, I think PP is spot on.

+2. Point to what isn't accurate or logical about that statement, other than the fact that you maybe don't like caps for emphasis? -np

NP. Umm, let's try the DC housing market. A family of four with two kids in daycare, setting aside $ for college and aggressively saving for retirement leaves only room for a modest home by DCUM standard.

NP.. Depending on where OP lives, in the wealthier part of DC proper, $220k is about median income.

http://www.city-data.com/city/Washington-District-of-Columbia.html

Yes, but one CHOOSES to live in wealthy part. You can't choose to live there and then pretend you're middle class just because you're at the neighborhood median income!