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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a mother of 4. I get it, op.

But the greatest gift you can give your kids is not being a financial burden to them as you age. You should focus on buying a little home and building your retirement and savings. [/quote]

I posted about buying a home and I agree with this. I’m glad you’re ok with not helping your kids pay for college but I wouldn’t be. DH and I spent 15 years saving and paying off 100K of student loans before we had kids ajd could buy a house. Student loans really hurt us for the majority of our adult years as we lived on such a tight budget we could not do the things many of our working peers could do because every month we were spending upwards of 800 on loan and interest payments. Student loans are an albatross for your kids - we would have even married and had kids earlier had we not been so fiscally strapped. At a minimum you should be contributing to your retirement accounts and have college funds set up and have at least 4-6 months of savings in cash plus more if you’re being financially responsible. Your budget and lifestyle don’t sound like you have economic stability. Can you absorb a financial shock? Don’t you want to give your kids better than you had? I don’t know about you but it’s important to me for my kids to have greater economic security than I had. I got through college on used clothes from my friends, fast food/freezer meals, and Pell grants and I want more for my kids. 
[/quote]

OP here. We have financial stability. We save over 20% of our income. We have emergency savings, retirement savings, TSP, etc. At this point in our lives I prefer building up our savings and living simply, renting (no 200K+ down payment), and waiting until we really want to buy a home before we do it. Not because random other people think it is necessary for a growing family.
I do think eventually we'll buy. Like, maybe when the oldest is in high school. We should have a better idea of where we'd want to live long-term at that point.
I'm 100% not interested in buying a home in the next 5 years at least.

I get it that to many people, that's the #1 financial move you must make after when you're financially stable.
I also have friends with 2 young daughters close in age, who have separate rooms, complain about not having much space in their 4 bedroom row house with a finished basement which is used as a massive playroom.
Another family of 5 in a row house complaining about wanting to move to TX so they can have a bigger house.
I'm so not of that mindset.
My 2nd oldest brother lives in the Midwest with his wife in a tiny home they built. Honestly at some point if we wanted our own home we'd probably have someone like him build us a little home on our own land.
But, again, that's not in the near future. More likely 10-20 years from now. We're happy where we are (next to one of the best DC elementary schools) and have no desire to buy here anytime soon.[/quote]

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