Family of 5, appx $300K HHI - would you do anything different?
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Anonymous
You are spending too much on kids activity. You should drop everything on this list. Activities are free. Can't your kids go out and play? There are playgrounds everywhere. Don't they have friends they can play with? |
Anonymous
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Here are two concrete things that have happened.
1) oldest kid got asked his intention for an activity for next year and he asked me what I thought and I said - well let’s talk realistically about your schedule next year. Are you going to move to swim 5 days a week (his only option next year at his current club) and he said no, he’d rather switch to a cheap summer pool 1 day a week winter option. 2) I decided to learn my various login / passwords starting with one account a day. 3 codes and 1 password change later I logged into some savings account that had 2 retirement accounts and a health savings account with $1000. And I said to my husband - what is this health savings account and he said - we can call the bank and find out how we can spend that on healthcare expenses. And I said yes, let’s do that. I could tell you the retirement account total there but I know that’s not the end of the retirement money question. We have more accounts somewhere. |
Anonymous
It's not like the olden days, mee-maw, times are different now. |
Anonymous
Lol this made me laugh. Love u guys. |
Anonymous
Right?! Mee-maw here thinks they're gonna run down the "crick" and make damns and hunt for crawdads and such.... lol Not that there's anything wrong with that but that's just not what's going on for the most part in the DMV |
Anonymous
Keep spending $16k a year on this then. But don't come back here crying about bleeding money. |
Anonymous
No it is a fair point to reduce but it still made me laugh. Yes - they have friends - that's how we have all these carpools to these activities. They are going with them! 
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Anonymous
| It’s really silly to put $1600 a month into your mortgage. I would stop that right now. |
Anonymous
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How did you all learn to do finances / what to do with your money? I just completely handed it all over to DH once we had our first kid and I didn’t really make much money at all before that.
I feel the only lesson my parents taught me was don’t spend more than you have - which I did take to heart and I guess if you’re going to teach 1 lesson only that would be it. But I feel we could somehow be doing more with our money and I shouldn’t feel like I need to debate like I have for the past few weeks, whether or not I can justify buying this dress. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V5D2NRF?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share |
Anonymous
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I guess this whole convo is making me realize how weird our finances are. I did recently complain about the additional mortgage payment and he deposited an additional $15K into my bank account that pays the mortgage from another account we have. That I don’t know the login in to this other account but I’ll get there eventually.
And now I do think he has something irrational going on with the mortgage payment like a PP said. I think he gets worried about money & he thinks if we could just pay off the house, that would be some kind of huge weight off his shoulders that no matter what happens we’d be OK or have a house or something. And I don’t know how hard to press it because on the one hand - that’s kind of annoying but on the other side at least he’s not running us into debt… But maybe I can help a bit by being involved more. I’m going to try to watch the Netflix show a pp mentioned. Thanks again. |
Anonymous
| You probably have a great interest rate on your mortgage. Why are you paying so much extra every month? |
Anonymous
You are making more than 2/3 of the HHI but he is the one calling the shots, he is the one knowing where money is being spent. Maybe he is the one spending the money and you don't know where the money is going. You are a good spouse. |
Anonymous
This is true but it appears to be a DH blinders on focus hang-up that's he's unlikely to retreat from and it's not a hill that OP should die on when there is plenty of other areas for improvement... and it's not the worst thing to be allocating $1600 a month on, it just not the smartest w/ the outstanding student debt sitting there at a higher interest rate. And, it's not $1600/mo on hookers and blow, so there's that. |
Anonymous
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We prepay our mortgage too, and my husband is a financial advisor/CFP with an MBA, so I don't feel like we're idiots for doing that. Part of it is psychological, yes. But it's not just about the feeling of safety . . . it's also using your psychology in a positive way. If you aren't spending that money on your mortgage, you might just spend it on unnecessary stuff, and then you'll really never get ahead financially. It's important to recognize that maximizing returns isn't the only factor . . . it's also important to mitigate risk (risk of job loss, etc.).
That said, I agree that it doesn't make sense to focus on this when you have student loans. Pay those off first. If your spouse can't completely give up on overpaying the mortgage, then propose $1000 extra to the mortgage and $600 extra to the student loans. Re personal spending . . . We've recently implemented slush funds. Again, it's working with your psychology. I'm less spendy that my husband, so he's merrily buying himself whatever he wants and I'm debating the $39 Amazon dress like you are. So the slush fund helps him spend less and me spend more. Let's be honest, I donated some of mine to the PTA, but I also took my kids to Disney World, so there's that. And I bought myself some expensive shampoo. I also agree that the kids' activities seem excessive, not just financially, but time/energy wise. Good for you for wading through everything to get to the bottom of your financial situation! |
Anonymous
This. Are you really certain than extra $1600 is in fact going toward the mortgage? |