Anonymous wrote:225k is a very good monthly income in MoCo

I would think that is a very tight income in MoCo unless you have no students, kids are not in daycare, and you have owned your home for quite some time so you have a low monthly mortgage.

225k is a very good monthly income in MoCo

That's almost exactly what we gross. We max out a 401(k), 403(b), family HSA, and take home $9,500/month. We do not have a mortgage (paid it off a few years ago). Here is our budget in case it's helpful. We pay for medical expenses out of our take-home pay and save the HSA for retirement.

Cash allowance (260)
Groceries (792)
House: Sinking Fund (350)
House: HOA (110)
Houseroperty Tax (833)
Houseroperty Insurance (70)
Insurance:Umbrella (40)
Auto: Insurance (110)
Auto: Sinking Fund (150)
Auto:Fuel, Tolls, Metro, Park (225)
Insurance:Life (60)
Medical: Sinking Fund (550)
Vacation: Sinking Fund (300)
Utilities:Gas & Electric (140)
Utilities: Internet & Phone (90)
Utilities: Water (92)
Clothing (100)
Eating Out (50)
Entertainment (50)
Gifts Given (108)
Household Items (150)
Husband spending (200)
Wife spending (100)
Child activities/summer camp (1,500)
College 529 (417)
Roth IRA Sinking Fund (917)
Taxable Savings (1,750)

Anonymous wrote:Op here. A salary increase will take us from $165 to $235, and I'm trying to determine how much of an impact it will make.

Our mortgage is under $2k.

No child care (kids are older).

College will be in-state tuition with help from the grandparents.

I'm hoping we can save more (although we both have pensions and 401ks), but I'm really hoping we can travel more and update our home (nothing crazy---thinking new furniture, not construction/renovations).

We already travel a fair amount: one big trip that involves airplanes, plus 4-6 overnights or long weekends throughout the year (involving cars, not planes). And, we go to the local beaches 2x a summer. Nonetheless, I'm hoping the bump will allow us to do Disney and Europe sometime in the next couple years.

Seems doable. We make $220k/year. PITI is $3600 (15 year mortgage.) 529 is $800/month. No other debt or childcare expenses. Probably $350/month in extracurriculars (total for 2 kids.) 2 flying vacations/year, but so far have been domestic. Could afford international if backed it down to 1 trip a year. We drive sensible paid for cars and are not shopaholics.

Our hii is $250k and our take home is $11.5k. Our piti is $3100.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have $235k hhi. Piti is $3400. Childcare is about the same and we couldn’t do it without help. We do one international carribeqn vacation a year or visit friends in Europe to save on lodging. If not for the childcare it would be so so nice (and was). I don’t go crazy shopping for brand name stuff but I have enough clothes, furniture, gadgets etc.
We have an old house so spend more fixing it up than we’d like and due to childcare Dh is still driving a 15 year old Toyota.

We have about the same piti at childcare and things always feel too tight for vacations. Can I ask what your take-home number is?

Hmm. Just under $11k. We do have grandparent help with childcare (their offer and choice do help now instead of later) hence we can do the vacations and we use the CC points (dh flies a lot for work). We saved agressivelynore kid so home maintenance (new hvac etc comes out of the large old emergency fund).

16:08 here.

RE tuition, we have two kids in college, both at private schools with merit aid. Our out of pocket costs are $40K/year for DC#1, and $50K/year for DC#2. We will be done paying in 2022, and have enough in dedicated college savings accounts that we are no longer saving for that.

We do, however, set aside some money each month for their future needs (e.g. grad school or a down payment on a house), and contribute to Roth IRAs for each of them every year.

Ours is about that.

Our kids are older, so we have no child care or tuition costs.

We bring home about $9.5K/month. We both max our retirement contributions at work, including catch-up contributions (we are both just over 55).

Our PITI was $2400, but we have just made our last mortgage payment.

We probably spend $5-$8K on travel per year, depending on the year. Nothing extravagant.

Anonymous wrote:Assuming no child care or tuition costs, what's your lifestyle like?

How much do you bring home with $235 gross?

How much do you budget for housing?

How much do you spend on travel? What kinds of vacations do you take?

We take home $12,350 a month at the beginning of the year, then hit 13,560 mid year when SocSec tax goes away. Housing takes up a third of our budget as we moved from a low cost of living area and had a ridiculously small downpayment.

Max one 401k, and don’t travel much as we’re saving fo a kitchen remodel.

Anonymous wrote:We have $235k hhi. Piti is $3400. Childcare is about the same and we couldn’t do it without help. We do one international carribeqn vacation a year or visit friends in Europe to save on lodging. If not for the childcare it would be so so nice (and was). I don’t go crazy shopping for brand name stuff but I have enough clothes, furniture, gadgets etc.
We have an old house so spend more fixing it up than we’d like and due to childcare Dh is still driving a 15 year old Toyota.

We have about the same piti at childcare and things always feel too tight for vacations. Can I ask what your take-home number is?

Op here. A salary increase will take us from $165 to $235, and I'm trying to determine how much of an impact it will make.

Our mortgage is under $2k.

No child care (kids are older).

College will be in-state tuition with help from the grandparents.

I'm hoping we can save more (although we both have pensions and 401ks), but I'm really hoping we can travel more and update our home (nothing crazy---thinking new furniture, not construction/renovations).

We already travel a fair amount: one big trip that involves airplanes, plus 4-6 overnights or long weekends throughout the year (involving cars, not planes). And, we go to the local beaches 2x a summer. Nonetheless, I'm hoping the bump will allow us to do Disney and Europe sometime in the next couple years.

That's around what we make. We have one child and pay $600/month for before and aftercare. Our mortgage payment is $2500. We usually do a week long vacation in the summer and then a few long weekends away either as couples trips, girls trips or guys trips. We are going to Disney in the fall so we decided against a week at the beach this summer since it can cost us up to $4000 for the week with house rental, meals, activities, etc.

I would like to spend more and DH would like to save more, but I'd say we have a pretty good lifestyle.

We have $235k hhi. Piti is $3400. Childcare is about the same and we couldn’t do it without help. We do one international carribeqn vacation a year or visit friends in Europe to save on lodging. If not for the childcare it would be so so nice (and was). I don’t go crazy shopping for brand name stuff but I have enough clothes, furniture, gadgets etc.
We have an old house so spend more fixing it up than we’d like and due to childcare Dh is still driving a 15 year old Toyota.

We have an HHI of ~180K and our mortgage is around $2k

Assuming no child care or tuition costs, what's your lifestyle like?

How much do you bring home with $235 gross?

How much do you budget for housing?

How much do you spend on travel? What kinds of vacations do you take?