Reply to relocating to DC - budget for family of 4

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Currently living abroad and interviewing for a position in DC. Never lived there and have no family ties. About to discuss salary. I would be most interested in feedback as to what is a reasonable budget for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 young kids) in DC metro area. Assume reasonably good sized home (2000-3000 sqf) in a nice area west of Rock Creek Park. Would prefer not to have a car if thats possible/realistic. Understand from other posts on this forum we should be expect to fork out about 60k in rent (possibly more?) but struggle to put a figure on childcare/afterschool, utilities and food and understand some expenses have been going up sharply so figures dated 2/3 years ago may no longer be accurate. Thanks in advance to all who will contribute.[/quote]

We're car-light (one old car for weekends) west of rock creek in a 2k sqft row home with one kid. Income in about 300k/year. Rent in Glover Park would run you 5K/+mo but we are at the low end of your sqft requirement (and only satisfy them due to the walkout basement). Aftercare can be annoying unless you sign up very early, but au pairs are a good stopgap solution for a year. (Aftercare isn't too expensive, like 400/mo each, au pair is 20k/year - we have a basement studio with an exterior door for them).  Utilities are free for us (solar completely offsets everything), but were more like 240/mo before that. We walk/bike to whole foods, trader joes, or safeway on the way home from work - we spend about 150-200/week.

Our monthly budget is:

700 food and household supplies
500 kid stuff
75 car insurance, maintenance, and gas
50 bike stuff
1000 eating out + entertainment
4500 house (we have a low interest rate; includes sinking fund for maintenance)
300 stuff that comes up
100 health insurance + typical copays

We spend another 15-20k/year on travel.  [/quote]

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