Reply to S/O American Dream. Would $500-750k HHI be enough for this lifestyle?

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "S/O American Dream. Would $500-750k HHI be enough for this lifestyle?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]4 bedroom house in a close in suburb of a US city. Is this possible with a 1.5 mil mil budget? We are willing to relocate to a cheaper city, if necessary.

3 kids - college 100% paid for, no worries about paying for activities or day camps. No worries about paying for the things teens want: nice clothes, sneakers, gadgets, sleep away camp, basic first car. So planning 1 mil for college savings alone.

4-5 vacations per year. This is my big ask, I know. I like to go on vacation and don’t want to have to give it up when we have kids. My ideal travel schedule would be: 1 week long winter ski trip out west (we love Breck), 1 week long spring break to the Caribbean or Central/South America, 2 week summer trip to Europe, 1 week trip to an East Coast beach town. 1 week couples only trip. This is what we do now. My idea is that we’d take our 3 kids on the first 4 trips with 1 couple trip. Tbh, I’m thinking this would be like 70k a year with 3 kids?

No worries about eating out at casual dining restaurants whenever we want, no worries about grocery prices, occasional fine dining experiences for anniversaries or celebrations

Responsible saving for retirement

I feel like this is the true “American Dream” as portrayed in the mainstream media we all consume endlessly. A nice suburban house where everyone has their own bedroom, there are lots of books, art, fresh flowers everywhere. The kids do lots of activities and go to camp in the summer. Frequent travel over every school break. Nice cars. No worries about things like grocery prices. College is paid for. It used to be possible on a lot less bit now 500-750k is needed? Or is even that amount too low?[/quote]

This easily reflects a monthly spend (plus monthly savings) of $34,000. Back of the envelope, you need $610,000 pretax to make this work. And this doesn't include saving for a down payment, paying off debt, saving up for fancy cars, private school, or saving for an emergency/job loss. It also estimates only $60,000/yr in monthly travel, which seems really low given the number of trips you anticipate. And it spreads the up-front costs of childcare over a lifetime, which underestimates the costs of things in the early years.

PITI: $8,500
Home maintenance: $1,250
Utilities: $600 
Medical: $500
Groceries: $2,000
Dining Out: $1,500
Clothing: $500
College savings: $5,000 (if starting at birth)
Childcare (camps, daycare, ECs, averaged over lifetime): $1,500
Car insurance: $300
Car maintenance: $400
401k contributions: $4,000
Backdoor Roth contributions: $1,100
Gas: $350
Gifts: $600
Fun: $1,000
Travel: $5,000[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics