Anonymous wrote:Delaware suburbs? Aha, that's funny!

100k, as you know, gets you more of everything outside of any DC suburb.

Thanks for playing.

What a joke. Glad I didn't bother reading.

We obviously have very different needs.

Delaware suburbs? Aha, that's funny!

100k, as you know, gets you more of everything outside of any DC suburb.

Thanks for playing.

why are you posting on DCUM if you're in Delaware? I totally get that people can live easily on 100K/year in certain parts of the country, but in the metro DC area, you're not going to find a house, or even an apartment for 100K in a safe area with reasonable schools.

Anonymous wrote:Do both of you work? What do you do?

Yup; we're both teachers and we run a small online business on the side. I'm FT, wife is PT. She SAHP for a few years but got cabin fever and now is back PT, which gives us more money, but also daycare costs.

Anonymous wrote:Which suburbs? (DC suburbs?)

How did you pay off your home? Did you have any familial help?

Agree that you need to post a budget for this to be worthwhile!

Delaware suburbs! No family help for paying it off--see above post. I posted a light budget above. If there's anything specific you'd like to know how much we spend money on, ask, and I can ballpark a number. For example, we spend only around 100 a year (if that) on maintaining both vehicles, including oil changes. On years when we buy tires, it naturally grows.

Anonymous wrote:where do you live? how did you pay off your house in early 30s?

Without entering into too many details, we're in Delaware. We paid off the house in our mid 20s within 4 years of purchase by making sure it didn't cost more than 2x our income; at the time, we made 50k, so we bought a 100k house on a 15-year mortgage. Made extra payments from the start, salaries went up, killed it off.

Anonymous wrote:Can you post your monthly budget and details of your retirement savings (if any)?

Sure. We don't really budget, but here's a ballpark idea off the top of my head (I can look up specifics later). Food is probably around 300-400/mo, utilities are maybe 300/mo including phones, we spend probably 200/mo on gas, and insurance is around 130/mo for home and cars. Oh, and a few hundred a month for childcare (spouse works PT). There's fun spending, but as I said, it's not budgeted. Charity is 1k/mo (we each give 500). Everything else is thrown into mutual funds and we keep around 20-30k in the bank. Retirement savings are around 130k right now, not counting a tiny pension that may or may not exist when we retire and which we aren't figuring into retirement plans.

Do both of you work? What do you do?

Which suburbs? (DC suburbs?)

How did you pay off your home? Did you have any familial help?

Agree that you need to post a budget for this to be worthwhile!

What city are you in?

How'd you pay off your home with a 100k HHI, only 10 yrs out of school?

where do you live? how did you pay off your house in early 30s?

Can you post your monthly budget and details of your retirement savings (if any)?

Inspired by the previous AMA and in further efforts to bring some reality into the DCUM financial fora, here's an AMA. We're in our early 30s, 2 kids with plans for 2 more, a paid off home, 2 cars, 3 pets, and a roughly 100k HHI of which 12k a year goes to charity.

We have everything we need, and the things we want but don't have are primarily related to how our society is structured (we'd like universal health care, etc).

Any questions?