Middle class people how do you raise a family here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make $130,000 and have one DD. I dont understand why you cant manage?
We have a small SFH that cost 360,000 we pay a mortage on, My 2007 Honda is paid off but DW's newer Ford is not. We can't afford private school and DD attends the local ES which happens to be a Focus school that so far we are happy with.
But we travel twice a year, DD gets to do swimming, gymnastics etc and goes to nice summer camps for a few weeks each summer. We like to go to shows so we do that when a show comes along we want to see.
We don't eat out a lot mainly due to us both doing shift work but we do when we want to and have the time. We get together with friends at each others houses or go for hikes with other families.
I don't compare my life to those making $500,000, it would drive me crazy. We have a nice life and i am happy with it. 2010

( We live in eastern Moco)

when did you buy it?

2010. Houses in our neighborhood are high 300s/low 400s now.

You are probably my neighbor. Agree, far eastern moco and *i think* upper silver spring aren’t as crazy even now.

[Anonymous]

Also: university park! Wonderful neighborhood, not far from college park metro, still affordable. Good # of sub-400 houses in hyattsville. Also, consider fha. We put 3.5% down and paid PMi. But it was worth it. We refinanced when we could, for us it was close to 20% equity but you may be able to refinance before then?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make $130,000 and have one DD. I dont understand why you cant manage?
We have a small SFH that cost 360,000 we pay a mortage on, My 2007 Honda is paid off but DW's newer Ford is not. We can't afford private school and DD attends the local ES which happens to be a Focus school that so far we are happy with.
But we travel twice a year, DD gets to do swimming, gymnastics etc and goes to nice summer camps for a few weeks each summer. We like to go to shows so we do that when a show comes along we want to see.
We don't eat out a lot mainly due to us both doing shift work but we do when we want to and have the time. We get together with friends at each others houses or go for hikes with other families.
I don't compare my life to those making $500,000, it would drive me crazy. We have a nice life and i am happy with it.

( We live in eastern Moco)

when did you buy it?

Right? Dear lord, I purchased a rambler built in 1955 with no updates in Sterling Virginia back in 2004 for 359k.to get the same thing now, you'd have to go to West Virginia. Not even exaggerating.

Op don’t listen to this. Search Redfin - hundreds of homes sub 350-400 in this area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make $130,000 and have one DD. I dont understand why you cant manage?
We have a small SFH that cost 360,000 we pay a mortage on, My 2007 Honda is paid off but DW's newer Ford is not. We can't afford private school and DD attends the local ES which happens to be a Focus school that so far we are happy with.
But we travel twice a year, DD gets to do swimming, gymnastics etc and goes to nice summer camps for a few weeks each summer. We like to go to shows so we do that when a show comes along we want to see.
We don't eat out a lot mainly due to us both doing shift work but we do when we want to and have the time. We get together with friends at each others houses or go for hikes with other families.
I don't compare my life to those making $500,000, it would drive me crazy. We have a nice life and i am happy with it.

( We live in eastern Moco)

when did you buy it?

Right? Dear lord, I purchased a rambler built in 1955 with no updates in Sterling Virginia back in 2004 for 359k.to get the same thing now, you'd have to go to West Virginia. Not even exaggerating.

Op don’t listen to this. Search Redfin - hundreds of homes sub 350-400 in this area.

One SFH in Fairfax under 400. Its a tear down. 1 in Reston, 3 in Sterling, 0 in Springfield, 0 in Burke.

I'm not even going to look close in, waste of time. Where are these hundreds?

I cant speak to Maryland. All of my potential jobs are in Northern Virginia.

[Anonymous]

COL here varies huge from family to family depending on when you bought. It’s the difference of anything up to several thousand a month in mortgage costs for a modest house. If you bought years ago during the recession (or decades ago) you can “live comfortably” on 150k a lot more easily than others who bought during expensive times. Trying to enter the market today on 150k? Hah. Yeah, it’ll hurt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make $130,000 and have one DD. I dont understand why you cant manage?
We have a small SFH that cost 360,000 we pay a mortage on, My 2007 Honda is paid off but DW's newer Ford is not. We can't afford private school and DD attends the local ES which happens to be a Focus school that so far we are happy with.
But we travel twice a year, DD gets to do swimming, gymnastics etc and goes to nice summer camps for a few weeks each summer. We like to go to shows so we do that when a show comes along we want to see.
We don't eat out a lot mainly due to us both doing shift work but we do when we want to and have the time. We get together with friends at each others houses or go for hikes with other families.
I don't compare my life to those making $500,000, it would drive me crazy. We have a nice life and i am happy with it.

( We live in eastern Moco)

when did you buy it?

Right? Dear lord, I purchased a rambler built in 1955 with no updates in Sterling Virginia back in 2004 for 359k.to get the same thing now, you'd have to go to West Virginia. Not even exaggerating.

Op don’t listen to this. Search Redfin - hundreds of homes sub 350-400 in this area.

One SFH in Fairfax under 400. Its a tear down. 1 in Reston, 3 in Sterling, 0 in Springfield, 0 in Burke.

I'm not even going to look close in, waste of time. Where are these hundreds?

I cant speak to Maryland. All of my potential jobs are in Northern Virginia.

3 homes in Loudoun County sub 350K.
9 homes total in Loudoun County sub 400K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make $130,000 and have one DD. I dont understand why you cant manage?
We have a small SFH that cost 360,000 we pay a mortage on, My 2007 Honda is paid off but DW's newer Ford is not. We can't afford private school and DD attends the local ES which happens to be a Focus school that so far we are happy with.
But we travel twice a year, DD gets to do swimming, gymnastics etc and goes to nice summer camps for a few weeks each summer. We like to go to shows so we do that when a show comes along we want to see.
We don't eat out a lot mainly due to us both doing shift work but we do when we want to and have the time. We get together with friends at each others houses or go for hikes with other families.
I don't compare my life to those making $500,000, it would drive me crazy. We have a nice life and i am happy with it.

( We live in eastern Moco)

when did you buy it?

Right? Dear lord, I purchased a rambler built in 1955 with no updates in Sterling Virginia back in 2004 for 359k.to get the same thing now, you'd have to go to West Virginia. Not even exaggerating.

Op don’t listen to this. Search Redfin - hundreds of homes sub 350-400 in this area.

One SFH in Fairfax under 400. Its a tear down. 1 in Reston, 3 in Sterling, 0 in Springfield, 0 in Burke.

I'm not even going to look close in, waste of time. Where are these hundreds?

I cant speak to Maryland. All of my potential jobs are in Northern Virginia.

3 homes in Loudoun County sub 350K.
9 homes total in Loudoun County sub 400K.

And I’m agreeing with you. There are no hundreds of homes. We are in Loudoun County but not in SFH. $360K for two level condo. Moved close to West Virginia to get a SFH for under $450K.

[Anonymous]

I am a Fed and often see announcements in DC for higher grades often. While it is tempting at times, I’ll gladly keep my GS 13 Step 8 in a much lower COL area.

Together we made $150k for a very long time. We’re now at $170k but I’ll tell ya what kind of lifestyle $150-170k gets us here (FL).

4K sq ft house with a pool, kids in highly ranked public school system, we pay $2k per year for summer care only-max we ever paid, when they were in diapers, was $1,200/mo. We have a boat with no note, newly remodeled kitchen, paid off vehicle for me, and spouse’s vehicle is within $5k of being paid off. We have a housekeeper that cleans twice per month. We spend about $300/mo on kids extracurricular activities. The kids college accounts are 100% funded (FL Prepaid). There are no state taxes here either. We’re in the Disney Vacation Club and go to Disney World 1-2xs per year. We stay in deluxe resorts every visit. We vacation other places, sometimes we do staycations too. We take either a vacation or mini vacation once every 3-4 months.

There is a FL Bright Futures Scholarship, thanks to FL lottery, which is extremely easy to earn and can cover most of tuition. I know of many people who had FL Prepaid and Bright Futures, never worked in college, and earned an undergraduate degree with no debt.

My point is that $150k may be peanuts there but it affords a great lifestyle in other areas. If I were you, I’d consider moving to somewhere that a $150k HHI isn’t struggling.

Oh and there are non-tangibles, such as tomorrow my kids and I will be bike riding at the beach when it is 65 degrees and sunny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also: university park! Wonderful neighborhood, not far from college park metro, still affordable. Good # of sub-400 houses in hyattsville. Also, consider fha. We put 3.5% down and paid PMi. But it was worth it. We refinanced when we could, for us it was close to 20% equity but you may be able to refinance before then?

I'm looking there! Is that where you live? Do you like it? Only a few sub-400 homes for sale right now, hoping it will uptick.

[Anonymous]

It was tight with two kids in daycare and hii of $130k, but we managed. We live outside the beltway and have a pretty good life, but definitely weren’t able to save or do expensive extras in the early years. Now kids are in elementary and HHI is closer to $175k, and we have a lot more room to breathe. We still are delaying some house repairs and need to choose between things like private piano lessons and going on ‘real’ vacations (I.e. not just drives to visit family) and don’t regularly eat out but overall have a good life.

We did decide to stop at 2 kids based on our income and the cost of raising them here, which was a bummer. We could have done 3, and I wanted that, but the financial implications and stress that would bring stopped us. Our friends with similar incomes and similar lifestyle with 3 are living off credit cards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We made the same money in our early 30s as OP, but we also did not have student loans - I think that can make a big difference in whether or not you feel stretched at $150K.

I would give the same advice as many others have - track your spending to see where you money is going, then create a budget that prioritizes what you want out of life and stick to it. I think the tracking part is really important because most people see the big expenses but don't see where the dribs and drabs of their money (that add up to a lot) go.

We used Mint for quite some time, but we not use You Need a Budget (YNAB). Mint is free; YNAB is not, but I like the budgeting forward rather than backward concept of YNAB.

+1 we also use YNAB and think it has helped a lot

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a Fed and often see announcements in DC for higher grades often. While it is tempting at times, I’ll gladly keep my GS 13 Step 8 in a much lower COL area.

Together we made $150k for a very long time. We’re now at $170k but I’ll tell ya what kind of lifestyle $150-170k gets us here (FL).

4K sq ft house with a pool, kids in highly ranked public school system, we pay $2k per year for summer care only-max we ever paid, when they were in diapers, was $1,200/mo. We have a boat with no note, newly remodeled kitchen, paid off vehicle for me, and spouse’s vehicle is within $5k of being paid off. We have a housekeeper that cleans twice per month. We spend about $300/mo on kids extracurricular activities. The kids college accounts are 100% funded (FL Prepaid). There are no state taxes here either. We’re in the Disney Vacation Club and go to Disney World 1-2xs per year. We stay in deluxe resorts every visit. We vacation other places, sometimes we do staycations too. We take either a vacation or mini vacation once every 3-4 months.

There is a FL Bright Futures Scholarship, thanks to FL lottery, which is extremely easy to earn and can cover most of tuition. I know of many people who had FL Prepaid and Bright Futures, never worked in college, and earned an undergraduate degree with no debt.

My point is that $150k may be peanuts there but it affords a great lifestyle in other areas. If I were you, I’d consider moving to somewhere that a $150k HHI isn’t struggling.

Oh and there are non-tangibles, such as tomorrow my kids and I will be bike riding at the beach when it is 65 degrees and sunny.

And you're on the DC board (for the DMV) responding to how do people raise a family here (the DMV) because???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We only manage because we got lucky buying an older house years ago and do pretty much all of our own home maintenance.

When you bought your home in the DMV makes all the difference. When we were new to the area
Homes selling for $180k were close to $300k by the time we were ready to buy just 3 years later.
If you have student loans and child care expenses it can be hard to save even on $150k. Many people in this area enter their careers when they are older after grad school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most of my coworkers make that much and are on a single income woth stay at home moms with multiple kids. They don’t live in MoCo and don’t vacation to Europe and drive to the beach and I’ve never seen them go out for lunch. But they seem happy and their spouses and kids are lovely and doing well in school from what I hear. They do all have commutes however.

Same, although our workplace is lower MoCo so most of them live upper MoCo (e.g., ckarksburg, brookville) or Howard. With one spouse at home the other can do the long commute. Most of them are a bit older and bought a long time ago too, which helps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is so discordant. On one hand, you have the posts where people wring their hands over making *only* $300K per year and say that anything under $200K in this area is poor (which is ridiculous). On the other hand, you have posts like this where people making what are truly moderate incomes for this area are reprimanded for not being able to make it on said moderate incomes.

It is great that some people were able to buy houses a long time ago for a small amount, but that is not the case for most people. We have a 60s-era rambler that cost $499K, and that was 10 years ago. It was the cheapest thing we could find in a reasonably good school district and safe, non-gang infested area. My commute is too long. Houses in our neighborhood now go for $650K, and trust me these are not extravagant. Could we buy a 2 bedroom condo farther out in VA? Yes, but then I would have a 90 minute commute.

The reality is that it is hard to make it in this area with kids. Increasingly, the metro DC area is for Biglaw partners and lobbyists.

Correction: the area is for the children of the top 5%. We make it on $160k a year for a family of four, but bought in ‘90s. No grad school loans. Still drive 10-year-old cars and few luxuries. There are plenty of families like us in NW DC and just over the line in Chevy Chase, Bethesda, etc. Kids get a warped sense of reality from their classmates. Sorry, no ski trips or exotic vacations here.