What income is needed to live the american dream - close in DC area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I drive to Forest Glen metro and my door to door commute to downtown is usually around 40-45 min. If you want to argue school quality that’s one thing but weird for the one poster to just not believe this timing is possible

Very similar for me- I think it's a great location if you are commuting on the red line. My spouse has a crappier driving commute- they leave early (6am) so the morning is generally not bad but the afternoon is pretty much terrible no matter when they leave. But working in two different parts of the DMV means there's no one ideal spot for both of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much do you need to make for the following:

- Single family home within a 45 minute commute of downtown DC
- 2 cars
- Save for retirement at age 65
- Pay for college, 2-3 kids
- 1 week domestic family vacation every year
- No financial stress about all the regular, and unplanned, maintenance, repairs, etc

I live a similar lifestyle except the house which is a townhouse about 1hr from DC. Current spending about 8-9k a month. If we were to move up to a $1M SFH our mortgage would jump by $4k a month so 12-13k spending. Now add few thousand a month for retirement and medium term savings and you need 15-16k after taxes.

Bare minimum $250k and that doesn’t give you much room to save. Ideally $300k+ and probably $400k+ to really feel like you can be comfortable