How much should a family be making to afford to raise 2 children in this area?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| I'm asking because my birthing decision is going to be based on how many kids I can afford. When I was younger I wanted 4 now that I'm older I want 2. But I want to make sure I can afford it and be comfortable. I don't care for all the expensive extracurricular activities and camps etc. I'm talking about the basic necessities. Ideally I want to be able to afford 2 kids on just my salary, so that my husband's salary will just be extra income. If you have 2 children what's your HHI, where do you live and are you comfortable. |
Anonymous
| I would say 100k and you're breaking even. |
Anonymous
| It's absurd that anyone could even consider answering this. Way too many factors to consider. |
Anonymous
| 100K to strape by, 250K to be comfortable 350K do be really comfortable |
Anonymous
|
Need a lot more info to answer. One person might require a neighborhood with excellent public school options and a 4 bedroom house with yard, walkable to metro, close to or in the city, whereas another might be fine with whatever public school district they find themselves in, 2 bedroom apartment is fine, hour commute to the city is fine.
|
Anonymous
+1 do you have loans, what's your mortgage, car payments, etc. I think you need to ask what's the cost of raising a child in the DC area. That would help you better. Try googling it. We have 2 kids, and I was a sahm for a year or so, and my DH was making $140k at the time. Our mortgage+insurance+tax = $1900, prek $700/month. Didn't have any other extraneous expenses, but DH did put max in the 401K, so that reduced the net income. We were just breaking even. Our utilities was something like close to $1000/mo. on average (includes, cable, wireless, etc.., and we have heat oil, which can be costly). We lived comfortably, but a bit frugally. |
Anonymous
| Ugh, this question again? Fine, I'll indulge the OP. $3M per year minimum for a bare bones childhood experience. $4M if you want to have a pet too. |
Anonymous
| I know lots of people that do fine with 2 kids and an income of 100K here. That said, most of them have their wife stay at home, and they live and work farther out (Springfield, Chantilly, Sterling, etc.) |
Anonymous
| With 1 kid and a SAHM, in an apartment, you could make it on $65-$75. With two kids in care full time, and a house or townhouse, you could make it on $150-$175, but you either won't be living very close in or you won't have great public schools. |
Anonymous
Exactly. No one here knows what op means by comfortable. |
Anonymous
| No one can answer this but you. I would guess most of my friends with two kids are in the $200-$300K HHI range with two working parents and daycare bills and all of us are living comfortably. Nice, but not luxurious houses. Nice, but not luxurious neighborhoods. |
Anonymous
I like you |
Anonymous
| we had 2 kids, lived in MD, both of us worked, and we moved out of state. We make 180K per year, and we couldn't live how we wanted - which is a house. with a yard. in a good school district/safe neighborhood with a decent commute. |
Anonymous
|
OP, Please realize that what may not matter to you now may start to matter when you see children who are less able than yours make it to higher echelons (teams, orchestras, advanced classes, better colleges, better jobs) just because they were given more opportunities. DH and I have two children on a 120k income. It's perfectly do-able, if you can swing daycare at first (my salary went directly there!), put your kids in public, don't live in the most expensive house and don't travel internationally. Since we are international, this has been a difficult realization for us - that we can't travel to see our close family members in Asia and Europe as much as we want. Also, we haven't moved out of our starter home, which is now too small, because we want to save for college (20-50K a year for this year, but costs increase much quicker than inflation). Realize that in many circles, everything is a race to college and beyond, and children are pushed into every kind of extra-curricular and tutoring to make them perfect packages for the best universities. Just one example: SAT prep is now pretty much a given for every high schooler. The top-notch tutoring business next to my house starts at $200/hr and goes up to $400/hr. |
Anonymous
| We make 225k and are about to have two kids. It's doable. |