Reply to At what point did you throw in the towel because DC is just too expensive?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here, sorry for not responding when I checked earlier no one had posted.

We both lived at home prior to getting married so we started off with no debt, both put in 20% of income plus great company matches.  I was getting a commission bonus which went straight to savings.  We also sold one car that was totally paid off when we moved here since we didn't need two cars.  Since we had just moved here literally after we got married, we took all gifts and put them into CDs.  No, we don't come from money, we just tried to sock away as much as we could so we wouldn't live paycheck to paycheck like both of our parents did when we were young. i didn't want that life and here I am. The reality is, we TOTALLY miscalculated how much stuff is here.  And until you've gone elsewhere you don't realize that it's all the little things that add up.

Where has our savings gone? Well, a good chunk to the random need a root canal but insurance pays 20% type crap, car repairs that we weren't expecting to be so much with a relatively new-er car.  (We bought both cars used and have only had a second car recently).  And grad-school which I think is very important.  Promotions and pay increases and bonuses were promised and never materialized.  Did we spend a little on the anticipation, yes and lesson learned the hard way.  Add in a merger that left me out of a job right at the correct time (first child born) and we were down to one income.  Me going back to work wasn't a real option because for what I was making, I would be paying directly to daycare.

The CC debt is also random stuff like when DH switched jobs and our HSA got out of wack and we had to come up with a large amount of money for our new high deductible out of nowhere so the cc was the 'easy' fix.  When the OB says you have to pay today after not expecting it and you are 8 months pregnant, you do what you have to do.

As far as buying here, we said we'd come for 5 years for 'the experience' and weren't sure which neighborhood to settle in at first so we rented and have been since.  It was also the top of the crazy 20 offers on a place time, so we weren't ready to deal with that.

Living beyond our means.  Been there, done that and learned.  We rented a place just a little too expensive for a year and learned quickly to cut back on everything, having kids and one income cut us back even further.  We live in a modest place paying some of the cheapest rent in town- I searched high and low- there is no granite in this place!

Preschool is the cheapest in town and I don't know of any free preschools in NOVA nor do I think we'd qualify.  I contemplated applying for tuition assistance but after posting on that and people telling me to get off my lazy ass and get a job, decided it wasn't for us.  FWIW, I volunteer a ton at the school and do all the fundraising there so I'm quite involved.

To the person saying move and be worried about job security, that is our main concern.  If we move just a little far away, we can afford a house, great schools, etc.  Here, we are scraping by with sub-par schools and a child about to go to kindergarten.  But, the job security is here.  I'm just wondering, I know there are people out there who took the plunge but what was the deciding factor that put you over the edge to try it somewhere else.

Oh, vacations are to grandparents houses, our only luxury is cable and if we could find a way to get sports, it would be cut.

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