4 kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I mean you have a poverty mentality because you don’t see how dumb it is to plan to flush 500K in rent away down the toilet every month for over a decade. I mean poverty mentality because you fail to see how purchasing a home now means you could spend the same 3000 per month on a mortgage on a 700K house that will be worth over 1mm in 15 years and you’ll have 15 years left to pay it off and then you own it instead of owning nothing in 15 years and having wasted half a million dollars. You’re trying to sound breezy and international but you just sound immature and unrealistic about what it takes to achieve long term financial security. Many of us on here grew up with less and want to give our kids more. Your 3-4 kids will not be ok with moving in a decade, they won’t want to wear used clothes, and they won’t be pleased about taking out over 100K in student loans that will be an albatross for their young adult lives because you didn’t plan for their futures. But sure, keep having kids and let the hormones keep dictating your life choices. At a minimum if you’re so fiscally responsible you should have college savings plans for your kids.

Again, you are not using poverty mentality correctly. Poverty mentality is an attitude that you never have enough, even when you do. Example: Larla pays $6K a month on her mortgage or rent for a 5 bedroom home for her 3 person family. She regularly says to her housekeeper, "Oh I DO wish we could afford a place like the Jones' -- we are barely scraping by!" Although Larla's lobbying lawyer husband Dardo makes 8 figures a year, it is never enough for Larla, who spends her days alternating between fundraising for her DD's school and maintaining herself. She has a poverty mentality. No matter how much money they have or how large their home, in her mind she believes she is poor.

Now regarding your numbers - you are SO off. I have said we are getting an amazing deal. You would not believe how good our rent is for a 2.5 bedroom condo, with laundry and utilities included. The owner loves us and has not even hinted at raising rent in the last 5 years. I don't think she would want to try to find new tenants so we just maintain a really good relationship.
$3K is WAY OFF. Like, many hundreds off. That includes utilities (other than wifi) and a w/d! I'm telling you, we are happy where we are. I've looked at home prices and rental prices, and we can't beat what we have.
Again, you can keep pushing this "You must buy a home!!" but I think that's ridiculous. We're happy where we are and I am choosing not to be like several of my friends who bought homes and then spend a year focused on renovations before they can even move in. I'm happy with my simple living for the next many years!

[Anonymous]

Mom of 4 here. I own a house and am a total house person — love beautiful spaces and decorating (a challenge with 4!) But it perplexes me why people are so confident that buying a house is a big factor here. We have bought houses wisely and foolishly and gained and lost hundreds of thousands, once because we bought into a gentrifying neighborhood, once because my husband got sick and we had to sell. It’s just not so simple and, while I still prefer to own, I would not use this “rent or own”’idea in my math for having a 4th. However I would definitely consider whether you could absorb a big financial shock (terrible illness) or a kid with special needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mom of 4 here. I own a house and am a total house person — love beautiful spaces and decorating (a challenge with 4!) But it perplexes me why people are so confident that buying a house is a big factor here. We have bought houses wisely and foolishly and gained and lost hundreds of thousands, once because we bought into a gentrifying neighborhood, once because my husband got sick and we had to sell. It’s just not so simple and, while I still prefer to own, I would not use this “rent or own”’idea in my math for having a 4th. However I would definitely consider whether you could absorb a big financial shock (terrible illness) or a kid with special needs.

OP here-- exactly. This has turned from a 4 kids thread to a home buying thread.
I'm pretty much no longer interested in having 4 kids, lol. It is unnecessary and we're so happy with our family and living situation. Adding a 4th would definitely make it more of a likelihood we'd have to move sooner.
I guess this whole push to buy a home thing has made me think more about why I like living where we do, with the family we have. I really like it (we really like it) and I think we'll stick to the plan of staying here through elementary school.

[Anonymous]

Just a side comment about special needs - it doesn’t have to be severe (relatively speaking, in the grand scheme of things) for it to be extremely expensive. I never thought we’d need a private school since we live in a good school district, but DS is severely dyslexic and tutoring plus whatever the school is doing (or not doing) isn’t cutting it. We’re looking at specialized schools at 40+k per year. Just one example.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t own a home- that’s a more important goal than having four children.

I think you and OP have very different priorities.