Anonymous wrote:You are clearly doing something wrong if you can’t save with this income. Are you buying designer clothes? Eating out non stop? Even then I can’t see how you can go through this much money.

I was OP without doing those things.

OP, one thing I found that really helped was a monthlong "spending fast." Almost no spending for a month. Eat from the pantry/freezer except for some fresh vegetables and fruits, shop your closet, make your coffee. It really helps you reset and also see where you're mindlessly spending.

Your reported spending doesn’t add up at all. Our HHI is $320k and we max out a post-tax Roth 401k, a Fed 403b plan, and 15k to an employee stock purchase plan.
Our childcare is $6k for extended day for 2 kids in public school, $8k for camps ($400/week 2 kids 10 weeks), plus $1500 in school break camps, sports fees, coach gifts, cleats, suits, and googles.
Our mortgage is also $600k on a $1.5m house, just under 3%.

Last year we got a new flagstone patio and did some large landscaping projects (planned) and a new furnace and A/C unit (not planned).

We also go on one trip to the west coast to see family - $2k+ in plane tix alone, a week at a rented beach house, and a few long weekends to a resort or nearby city like NYC or Philly. We also entertain less formally on a monthly basis and host 2-4 catered parties for 25-50 people each year.

We live a modest lifestyle and don’t feel stretched at all. We feel pretty comfortable.
I’m not sure where your money is going, but I think you are underestimating what you actually spend on childcare and activities.
Do you eat out a lot? Have food delivered?
Do you meal plan and eat seasonally - or do you have high grocery bills and high food waste?
Do you have high healthcare costs?
Expensive pets - boarding, grooming, special food?
Expensive hobbies?
Do you have expensive clothes? Dress your kids in expensive clothes?

You don’t need to donate to charity if you feel not wealthy yourself.

Start using Mint or Personal Capital. They will aggregate your expenses and you will pretty quickly see where you money is going. Both Apps require you to normalize your data here and there but it is well worth the effort to have an accurate picture.

I am a quicken user and have a lot of insight into my annual expenses:

PITI is $32K (bought house in ‘98)
Dinning out is $10K
Groceries are $12K
Travel is $15K
Savings $100K
Taxes also about $100K
Etc

Anonymous wrote:We live a fairly modest lifestyle but with $400k salary and we do reasonable travel (not international or anything, like 4 star domestic trips, half drive half fly, public schools, just paid off cars but before payment was $600 a month, 567k mortgage balance (house worth 1.4 from appreciation), childcare is about $7k a year total, camps/activities for kids add up to several thousand but run of the mill team stuff… What’s the thing that had the biggest impact for everyone on just cutting down on spending? We spend on everything! A lot is charity, at least $15k a year for that and then it seems like endless other expenses and emergency expenses related to kids, pets and home. Advice needed. I would love to be more meaningful with our money and at least have something more to show for it like doing an amazing trip every year.

How old are you to umhave such expensive house with low mortgage

Anonymous wrote:Here is some simple advice. You do NOT know what you are spending your money on. That much is clear from your post. Start with tracking everything that you are spending. Categorize the spend. Then you will see, really easily, where you can cut. From there, you can determine which buckets you want to increase using the savings from the wasted spend.

+1. There's a serious gap in how you track your spending when your income is that high and the two biggest line items for many people (mortgage amd child care) are relatively low for you.

I dunno, OP. Our HHI is half yours and you don’t seem to feel more comfortable than we do. We’ve used You Need A Budget and it’s an awesome way to track spending. you could also use something like Quicken.

You mentioned 4 star domestic travel. That can eat up tens of thousands of dollars a year. How many trips per year? I’d look there for one source of lots of spending.

You are clearly doing something wrong if you can’t save with this income. Are you buying designer clothes? Eating out non stop? Even then I can’t see how you can go through this much money.

Anonymous wrote:We live a fairly modest lifestyle but with $400k salary and we do reasonable travel (not international or anything, like 4 star domestic trips, half drive half fly, public schools, just paid off cars but before payment was $600 a month, 567k mortgage balance (house worth 1.4 from appreciation), childcare is about $7k a year total, camps/activities for kids add up to several thousand but run of the mill team stuff… What’s the thing that had the biggest impact for everyone on just cutting down on spending? We spend on everything! A lot is charity, at least $15k a year for that and then it seems like endless other expenses and emergency expenses related to kids, pets and home. Advice needed. I would love to be more meaningful with our money and at least have something more to show for it like doing an amazing trip every year.

Where on earth is all your money going? You clearly don't have a modest lifestyle especially given your income. A 1.4 million dollar house is not modest.

You Need A Budget (the program). You’ll end up saving thousands the first year - we did.

Start tracking every dollar for a few months just to see where it goes. Then you can find easy low hanging fruit to cut.

You make more than the vast majority of people, even in DC. There has to be obvious places to trim back once you have identified them.

Youre spending jt on something. Qe have under $300k HHI and do all these things and still save a bunch. Track every penny in a spreadsheet or an app for 6 months and then see.
$15k on charity is just about 5% of your net so thats not a lot actually.

So, we have 465k left on our mortgage. Have two teens. HHI is 130k. My husband maxes out his 401k, we put away 6k for college each year. Two cars, paid off. Have about fifty thousand in savings outside of 401k and 529s. About 250k equity in house.

You are doing something wrong if you can’t save more on that HHI.

Here is some simple advice. You do NOT know what you are spending your money on. That much is clear from your post. Start with tracking everything that you are spending. Categorize the spend. Then you will see, really easily, where you can cut. From there, you can determine which buckets you want to increase using the savings from the wasted spend.

We live a fairly modest lifestyle but with $400k salary and we do reasonable travel (not international or anything, like 4 star domestic trips, half drive half fly, public schools, just paid off cars but before payment was $600 a month, 567k mortgage balance (house worth 1.4 from appreciation), childcare is about $7k a year total, camps/activities for kids add up to several thousand but run of the mill team stuff… What’s the thing that had the biggest impact for everyone on just cutting down on spending? We spend on everything! A lot is charity, at least $15k a year for that and then it seems like endless other expenses and emergency expenses related to kids, pets and home. Advice needed. I would love to be more meaningful with our money and at least have something more to show for it like doing an amazing trip every year.