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[quote=Anonymous]We stopped at one.  HHI back then of probably $300k. Now (8 years later) around $1m.  While of course we could have comfortably had a second kid, financial was a major reason for stopping at 1.

We pay around 45% taxes on our income (no loopholes when it's all earned income), so only get to keep around half after taxes.

We are both biglaw lawyers. Work very reasonable hours for lawyers, but definitely work close to "full time".   If we had two kids, given our focus on quality family time, it's almost certain one -- or both -- of us would have had to have scaled back on their job.  Currently, I make +$400k, but probably would have ended up only making $150k if we'd had two kids - think, government lawyer or similar (if I worked at all - our son has some mild special needs that require a lot of meetings/appts so with two kids, I might have thrown up my hands and quit. But we didn't know about the SNs when we decided on one kid).

We also plan to fully fund college and grad school for DS.  So plan around $1m for that, thinking 10-15 years in the future.

We have always wanted to retire very early. Ideally 55.  We can't wait to start spending time together as a family and not working 9-6 every day.

We live in a $1m house, old reasonably priced cars.  No major vacations.

I assume a second kid would have added $50k a year during a few of the early childcare years (nanny, plus general extra costs of a second kid).  During school aged years, I assume another $15k a year for 12 years.

So if we'd had a second kid, we'd be saving at least $150k less per year than now (that's after tax) - which over 20 years is $3m.  But would need probably $1.3m extra to save for school plus annual extra costs.

So adding an extra kid would have meant we'd have after-tax $3.3m in extra costs/opportunity costs over 20 years (20 years of lost income plus additional costs).  Assuming $400k after tax income (based on the expected lower income with two kids and one of us cutting back hours), we'd have to work almost 10 extra years to make up that $3.3m.

As said, retiring early (solely to hang out with our family more and work less) is a huge goal for us.  A second kid would have meant 10 additional working years to end up at the same financial place.

That wasn't a trade off we were interested in.  [/quote]

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