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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I honestly cannot figure this out.  Our gross hh income is $245k.   We have a $2000/month house payment (including property taxes).  Car paid off (not fancy, getting old so might need to replace in the next year or two).   Student loan payment of $700/month.
We don't take vacations except camping. I am the least fashionable person you'll ever meet, so not much in clothing expenses.   We both WOH, so we have a cleaning person come a couple times per month ($250 monthly).  Cable, phone, regular utilities.  I do occasionally get classes or lessons for the kids as "extras", and piano lessons.   So, we don't live extravagently, but we do live very comfortably.   We sock away a moderate amount into our TSP, but we haven't started saving for college (though the grandparents have). 
We have 2 kids, and live in a good MCPS district, so planned to send our older to public.   But now DC seems to be both super bright and also quite shy and sensitive, so we think public might not be a good fit.    If we send one to private, I think we will want to send the other as well.
Anyone in similar circumstances?  I would hate to start at private and then have to pull DC for financial reasons.  But I would hate to have her not like school because of a bad experience in public ES.
 :?:[/quote]

I'm at the other end of this, since my kids are 16 and 11. But I will tell you that things are tighter now with older kids than I imagined they would be.

Our HHI is $215k, so lower than yours. We have a similar monthly house payment, cars paid off, home-owner's loan about the same as your student loan (will be paid off in 2 years). No other debt. We too live modestly but very comfortably.

We struggled over a decade ago with whether we could afford private school for our eldest. We really thought certain private schools would be better for him, given his personality and learning style. What we decided at the time was that we could swing it for one, but not for two (I was pregnant with DC2 at the time). So we went with public. From a financial perspective, I am very, very glad we made that decision, for it was absolutely on target. Where we sit now, we could afford private school for one, and still save appropriately for college for one child and our future retirement on our current salary. We most definitely could not save enough for college for two and for retirement if we were paying private school tuition for two without a significant lifestyle change. We would certainly be "school-poor" in that circumstance.

For us, public school has worked out very, very well. That small child I worried so much about is 16 now and thriving. We have no regrets whatsoever.[/quote]

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