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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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. 
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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]

So when you’re 55 you will then be signing up for a 30 year mortgage? When your kids are going to college? And you are approaching retirement? You think the home you can afford now you will be able to afford then with the rise in housing costs? It sounds to me like you have very short term thinking. Having retirement is good but are you putting enough into it? Like 15 percent? Your money is far better invested into a house for 10-20 years where it will appreciate and grow interest and you will build equity than it will in a savings account with a lousy return. Your mentality just strikes me as not trying to improve your financial station in life, and short sighted. [/quote]

Haha no... Okay this is why I keep saying we obviously think and do very differently than most people around here.
No, we likely would never do a 30 year mortgage. 15, maybe. We don't like debt. I'm 33. So if all of you who are so focused on the BUY A HOUSE thing which I keep saying is not a huge factor in this at all for me... If this helps end this sentiment repeating, here is what my IDEAL home buying dream is:

Continue saving, living frugally, yes 3 kids can share a room at least until the oldest is a preteen. That's 8 years from now.
By then, our federal student loans will be forgiven as will both have been feds for over 10 years, making qualified payments.
Over the next several years we will have visited/checked out some options for where we might like to live when the kids are in high school (we don't really plan for our kids to go through all of middle or high school here. Elementary, yes, as we live 1 block away from one of the best).
We will have saved a lot for a hefty down payment and we have excellent credit.
So we'd likely buy a house. Then. In 8-15 years, when the kids are out of elementary school. Not now.
Hopefully that ends that. Lol.[/quote]

It sounds like you have it all figured out in your mind and aren’t open to suggestions. But I’m telling you, you are making a huge mistake planning to rent for 8-15 more years and just then thinking you can jump into the housing market when your kids are in high school in a good school district. Kids of any age generally have difficulty moving. You think that somehow uprooting your 3 kids in middle school or high school is a good idea? Once they are settled and have a friend group, established activities, etc? And since you say you live in the best school district I’m guessing you probably live in NW DC and are a renter, which means at two fed salaries unless you can afford a 1.8 plus million house or more in 10 years time you’re going to have to relocate very far out to get a good school district because good schools in Maryland and Virginia that are close in have houses that are priced accordingly and those prices are rising faster than you can imagine. The housing market is so insane now even mediocre school districts have homes easily going for 700K or more. This will only get worse with time. The DC housing market is a rare animal - it’s always going up and you’d be a fool not to jump in the moment it’s humanly possible for you because you will literally lose hundreds of thousands of dollars sitting out.

Then there is just the sheer math of how much money you are literally flushing down the toilet in rent. Let’s say your rent for a family of 5 in your good school district is 3,000 a month. That’s 36K a year you are literally giving away and getting nothing back. Over 8 years that is 288,000. Over 15 years that is 540,000. And that is not even taking into account rent raises each year. You are literally telling me that you would rather live frugally and give away more than half a million dollars instead of buying a house and investing that money in yourself in an appreciable asset with a flat cost every month? Do you really think interest rates will stay this low forever?

You say that you don’t like debt, but you and your husband both have student loan debt so I’m guessing your smugness about not wanting to buy a house because of “debt” (which is a dumb argument - it doesn’t put you in the moral high ground like you seem to think it does) is really thinly veiled fear and jealousy that you cannot afford it. And while it is great that you love your kids, and want a big family, you are not doing them any favors by your poverty mentality. Don’t resign your kids to a future that isn’t any better than you. Speak to any kind of financial advisor or planner and they will tell you that planning to rent for 8-15 years is not a good way to ensure you and your family’s long term financial security.

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