Savings - screened porch v college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, why did you post if you don’t want to accept any feedback? As others have said, stop paying extra on the mortgage and funnel any extra funds to your student loans. After that, save as much as possible in 529s and don’t stop until the second child has finished college. With a HHI of $300k, you won’t receive any financial aid. Also, please start speaking with your children to let them know they have limited funds for college.

We never broke $300k in HHI until last year and have $400k saved for three kids and a NW of $3.5. What have you been spending your money on?

I am not, not taking feedback - I said got it to consider adding more to college over porch.

I am talking to my kids - that we will pay for 4 years of in state tuition/room & board or the equivalent amount at a private college. And they need to pay their own spending money. I want them to have some skin in the game. I am ok with this.

The way I had previously been looking at it which I guess everyone else is against - is UVA costs $40,000 a year to attend now (just an example). We have the 529 - plus assuming after we pay off mortgage and just put that straight to college - an extra $3600x12= $43,200 a year to put towards college - so that's more than tuition. (And, that leaves $1000 for insurance and taxes / month on the house). I believe there are only two years where I will have 2 kids in college at the same time fwiw also.

You haven’t answered this question: how much do you have in non-retirement savings? Your (taxable) HYSA or otherwise. That is how we will be able to tell you how off-base this situation actually is.

Oh - I thought I said in the original post $1.2m.

Oh sorry that is retirement. Right now I have about $30K myself that I was ideally wanting to earmark for the porch and put more in. Some people seem to hate debt more than we do. We are generally ok with having mortgage, car payment, and student loans - as long as we don't have credit card debt. Though I suppose it would be nice to not have debt.

Oh & we have $27K in other accounts but it’s earmarked for other specific things in the future that we need to pay for.

[Anonymous]

He did say we could stop paying the extra towards the mortgage if I really wanted to stop recently but then I said - no, it’s ok because I thought that was better than spending the money.

BUT I guess I can say actually we should first put it to my student loan and then to the kids college fund - which is not tax deductible like to mortgage and maybe that works.

Still no porch for me! Maybe some day.

[Anonymous]

A small, bare-bones screened porch for us would have been 70K. Approximately the annual cost of attendance we're paying for my oldest's private university. We went without the screened porch. I want it, but not that badly. I have a second kid to put through college, and I don't want to be limited to state schools.

Also, not to put too fine a point on it, but I have a lot more assets than you. Not only are you operating without margin here, but you're actively undermining your financial future with all this poor judgement.

[Anonymous]

Why are you pouring extra toward your house with a low interest rate when you literally could be earning double at the back and then keeping the 6% student loan???? Use the extra mortgage money to pay off the student loan asap.

[Anonymous]

I mean, it sounds like you want to get the porch.

Is it the best financial plan? No, but I think you know that without asking us.

Not all decisions make good financial sense.

[Anonymous]

Do you have girls? After college, there will most likely be weddings to pay for. Even a modest wedding is around $20k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do you have girls? After college, there will most likely be weddings to pay for. Even a modest wedding is around $20k.

I’m paying appx $15k each for 3 not over the top bar / bat mitzvahs now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He did say we could stop paying the extra towards the mortgage if I really wanted to stop recently but then I said - no, it’s ok because I thought that was better than spending the money.

BUT I guess I can say actually we should first put it to my student loan and then to the kids college fund - which is not tax deductible like to mortgage and maybe that works.

Still no porch for me! Maybe some day.

Update - he said yes to this plan. I still want to sleep on it tonight and maybe talk to a few people I know IRL to confirm they agree Looks like it’s a go tho…

[Anonymous]

I get that you all think we are being lackadaisical about college - but did none of you have multiple kids in daycare? At one point we had to pull $38,000 a year out of our butts with no such thing as an 529 or 18 years to save and we did it. ($1600x2).

[Anonymous]

I’m trying to spend more time responding to the questions here. Regarding the mortgage tax deduction- fwiw we take the standard tax deduction.

I slept on it, and googled some articles on the topic. It turns out you can Google should I pay off my mortgage or save for college. Still leaning towards using the $400 / week to pay off my student loans and then putting in 529s. Seems to make sense now considering how close oldest is to college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I get that you all think we are being lackadaisical about college - but did none of you have multiple kids in daycare? At one point we had to pull $38,000 a year out of our butts with no such thing as an 529 or 18 years to save and we did it. ($1600x2).

Your choice isn’t food v 529. It is porch v 529.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, why did you post if you don’t want to accept any feedback? As others have said, stop paying extra on the mortgage and funnel any extra funds to your student loans. After that, save as much as possible in 529s and don’t stop until the second child has finished college. With a HHI of $300k, you won’t receive any financial aid. Also, please start speaking with your children to let them know they have limited funds for college.

We never broke $300k in HHI until last year and have $400k saved for three kids and a NW of $3.5. What have you been spending your money on?

I would be curious to know how you’re spending your money! Maybe I can pick up some tips.

I would say our biggest expenditures are food, mortgage, retirement, disability & life insurance, 3 week Jewish sleepaway camp, travel & visiting family, kids’ activities and gifts for people (family & friends).

We previously had daycare payments but not for a while now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m trying to spend more time responding to the questions here. Regarding the mortgage tax deduction- fwiw we take the standard tax deduction.

I slept on it, and googled some articles on the topic. It turns out you can Google should I pay off my mortgage or save for college. Still leaning towards using the $400 / week to pay off my student loans and then putting in 529s. Seems to make sense now considering how close oldest is to college.

Good grief. You are like a parody of a financial illiterate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK I take the point that you are all aligned on college over porch. So I will take that into extreme consideration going forward.

On the mortgage vs. student loan thing - I think my DH and DCUM are going to have to agree to disagree. I get what you are saying about 6% being higher than 3.6%. But his feeling on the loans is the total amount of interest paid on $150K at 3.6% is more actual money than what you pay on $28K at 6% and then he also feels secure in where we have to live. Without being able to do the actual math on the interest myself - I think it's a close enough call to be a wash.

HHI is $300K. I don't know the actual amounts currently in the 529s - I will find that out ASAP.

Why are you incapable of doing the math? Also your husband is a complete moron.

If I go to bankrate.com and do the loan calculator - I get $11,283 in interest on the mortgage if we pay it off in 4 years, and $3,563 in interest on the student loans if we pay it off in 4 years. That’s the math I was talking about fwiw.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK I take the point that you are all aligned on college over porch. So I will take that into extreme consideration going forward.

On the mortgage vs. student loan thing - I think my DH and DCUM are going to have to agree to disagree. I get what you are saying about 6% being higher than 3.6%. But his feeling on the loans is the total amount of interest paid on $150K at 3.6% is more actual money than what you pay on $28K at 6% and then he also feels secure in where we have to live. Without being able to do the actual math on the interest myself - I think it's a close enough call to be a wash.

HHI is $300K. I don't know the actual amounts currently in the 529s - I will find that out ASAP.

Why are you incapable of doing the math? Also your husband is a complete moron.

If I go to bankrate.com and do the loan calculator - I get $11,283 in interest on the mortgage if we pay it off in 4 years, and $3,563 in interest on the student loans if we pay it off in 4 years. That’s the math I was talking about fwiw.

That is because the principal is bigger. Omg. You have to factor that in. If you owe $1m at 1% and 10,000 at 50%, your interest will be higher for the $1m loan. That doesn’t mean you should take your first $10,000 and pay the $1m loan. Geez.