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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Are you saving for retirement and have some easily accessible emergency savings for an unexpected expense? If so I would not worry about the financial situation right now. [b]Most people with young kids are, not exactly living “paycheck to paycheck” but also not exactly building up a huge emergency fund and savings for a down payment on a new home[/b]. That goes if you have two working parents and day care/nanny expenses, or one parent and a SAHP and thus lesser income. Again is it worth her happiness to send her to a rec center gym and cut off her clothes spending to a few trips to Walmart each year to bank an extra $750 savings at the end of the year, I don’t think it is.[/quote]

This was pretty much the attitude of all my friends who at 50 still have terrible savings and retirement feels like a pipe dream (even with excellent jobs).  It's not like costs go down. It's just that the early baby costs get replaced by other equally (or more) expensive stuff as the kids get older.  Botox, hair dye, cars for the teens, tutors, expensive extracurriculars, vacations for 4 instead of 2, etc.  And sure, people are going to respond and say they don't have these expenses for their teens. But anyone who is spending on OPs budget on a HHI of $250k at OP's is exactly the type of person is spending on all these other things 10 years later.  You think OP's wife, with her twice-a-year $1000 purse and $200/month gym membership is going to share a room with her family of four at the best western for vacations in 10 years?

In the mean time, those of us (and there are plenty) who lived frugally when kids were born (and had good jobs) are all looking at retirement by 55 if we want.  [/quote]

Most people don’t want to penny pinch their whole lives and retire at 55 or whatever. And then penny pinch for 25+ more years in retirement. You and the other terminally online cheapos are in the minority nationally on this. [/quote]

If there were a bunch of seniors out there saying they are so glad they spent as they did in their younger years and pushed off retirement, you’d have a point. But I don’t see that going on anywhere.[/quote]

Big difference between seniors retiring at 65+ and people trying to retire in their mid 50s or earlier. Big, big difference.

Also- OP and his wife are presumably millennials, likely born in the late 80s, if they have 2 young children. The life experience between millennials and yourself - seemingly an older Gen X if not even a younger Boomer - can’t even be compared. They are spending far more than you ever did on their mortgage, car payments, student loans, thanks to the skyrocketing costs of housing and college. Those are the big expense categories- not “$100/month on takeout.” And if he wants his wife to be cheap now and cut back her spending, he’s not going to like when she goes back to work and is spending on all the exact same stuff + day care + transportation and more takeout lunches + a cleaning service + a professional wardrobe. [/quote]

You realize that everything you wrote counsels to not spending this much on beauty maintenance, right, it doesn’t excuse it?  Per OP, she is spending more on many items now than when she was working. If you cannot see the fallacy with your thinking (what does this small expenditure matter when I have big student loans), then I don’t know what to say besides, life down the road will be tighter than you could have made it.[/quote]

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