Anonymous wrote:We make much less than $400K (closer to $250K), and we have three kids. We live fine, and would only need slightly more income to have a fourth. The main budget busters are mortgage, child care/private school, college savings, student loan payments, and activities/vacations. A family could need anywhere from $100K to $1 million a year depending on what you "need" to live well.

We live in a close in area with strong public schools (older home, purchased after the market drop). We have two in daycare, but use DoD centers so it's only $1200/month total. We have two prepaid college funds (and a 529) and are fine with public college for our kids. Students loans are being forgiven by the public loan forgiveness repayment program. We don't do a lot of international travel, though kids do private music lessons, travel sports, and academic tutors. This is doable on $250K/year.

can you post your budget?
it seems like you get a ton for your money.

We make much less than $400K (closer to $250K), and we have three kids. We live fine, and would only need slightly more income to have a fourth. The main budget busters are mortgage, child care/private school, college savings, student loan payments, and activities/vacations. A family could need anywhere from $100K to $1 million a year depending on what you "need" to live well.

We live in a close in area with strong public schools (older home, purchased after the market drop). We have two in daycare, but use DoD centers so it's only $1200/month total. We have two prepaid college funds (and a 529) and are fine with public college for our kids. Students loans are being forgiven by the public loan forgiveness repayment program. We don't do a lot of international travel, though kids do private music lessons, travel sports, and academic tutors. This is doable on $250K/year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unreal! I have 4 kids with HHI of 180K, and we are living just fine. People on this forum are unrealistic.

What are your plans for paying for college? Do you live in DC or close in suburbs?

Not to derail completely, but why does everyone on DCUM think that their snowflakes are entitled to a completely parent financed college education? This was the exception and not the rule when I was in school and most of us worked part-time or had odd jobs around campus to help pay for expenses. Not knocking it, but not every kid is college material either so just curious why everybody seems to think that it's mandatory to be able to pay for a full 4-5 years of private school living on campus.

Probably because it is so expensive. It is estimated to cost ~100k a year when my 3 yo is 18. Even if you paid for half and the kid covered the rest in student loans, that would be a crippling debt load to start out with in life. Do you want your kid to be 200k or more in the hole at age 22?

I don't think anybody wants that, but I'm not sure the best solution is for parents to foot the entire bill. I assume, given a long enough timeline, that a bachelor's degree will become out of reach for most middle class children because their parents won't be able to afford to pay for it and the students themselves will be unwilling to shoulder the debt load when it becomes as large as a mortgage in most places. I suppose those children will enter the trades or military and we'll see lower college matriculation rates. A corollary that I would never have predicted are the rise of the pseudo-colleges (SNHU, Phoenix, etc.) that have graduation rates that are below 20% (lower than their student loan default rates!). I would have expected these to go away once people figured out what they really are, but they apparently are here to stay (kind of like educational title loan places).

Not in time for our children though, I suspect. Maybe by the time our grandkids are ready for college. Changes like this take a long time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unreal! I have 4 kids with HHI of 180K, and we are living just fine. People on this forum are unrealistic.

What are your plans for paying for college? Do you live in DC or close in suburbs?

Not to derail completely, but why does everyone on DCUM think that their snowflakes are entitled to a completely parent financed college education? This was the exception and not the rule when I was in school and most of us worked part-time or had odd jobs around campus to help pay for expenses. Not knocking it, but not every kid is college material either so just curious why everybody seems to think that it's mandatory to be able to pay for a full 4-5 years of private school living on campus.

Probably because it is so expensive. It is estimated to cost ~100k a year when my 3 yo is 18. Even if you paid for half and the kid covered the rest in student loans, that would be a crippling debt load to start out with in life. Do you want your kid to be 200k or more in the hole at age 22?

I don't think anybody wants that, but I'm not sure the best solution is for parents to foot the entire bill. I assume, given a long enough timeline, that a bachelor's degree will become out of reach for most middle class children because their parents won't be able to afford to pay for it and the students themselves will be unwilling to shoulder the debt load when it becomes as large as a mortgage in most places. I suppose those children will enter the trades or military and we'll see lower college matriculation rates. A corollary that I would never have predicted are the rise of the pseudo-colleges (SNHU, Phoenix, etc.) that have graduation rates that are below 20% (lower than their student loan default rates!). I would have expected these to go away once people figured out what they really are, but they apparently are here to stay (kind of like educational title loan places).

You don't need to take extravagant vacations, driving is just fine. In fact everyone I know with 4+ kids (and that is a lot of families) are not extravagant with travel destinations not because they don't have the financial resources but because it is more practical to drive the minivan and not pay for air travel for 6+ and rental car.

You can make 4 kids work on much less than $400k, if not you are a terrible money manager or have crazy debt.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unreal! I have 4 kids with HHI of 180K, and we are living just fine. People on this forum are unrealistic.

What are your plans for paying for college? Do you live in DC or close in suburbs?

Not to derail completely, but why does everyone on DCUM think that their snowflakes are entitled to a completely parent financed college education? This was the exception and not the rule when I was in school and most of us worked part-time or had odd jobs around campus to help pay for expenses. Not knocking it, but not every kid is college material either so just curious why everybody seems to think that it's mandatory to be able to pay for a full 4-5 years of private school living on campus.

Probably because it is so expensive. It is estimated to cost ~100k a year when my 3 yo is 18. Even if you paid for half and the kid covered the rest in student loans, that would be a crippling debt load to start out with in life. Do you want your kid to be 200k or more in the hole at age 22?

Anonymous wrote:Unreal! I have 4 kids with HHI of 180K, and we are living just fine. People on this forum are unrealistic.

+1 these people are insane.

I would like to have an income of about $400k with four kids. We're raising two kids inside the beltway and will never get close to $100k and money is a constant stress.

Having more money would not do much to change our choices of our house or car. The excess would mostly go to the future (college, retirement) or buying time (lawn care, cleaning the house, house maintenance) or fun stuff (interesting trips, music lessons).

I would also like to be able to give my kids some material advantages when they leave home. We had a lot of college debt, didn't get furniture or other stuff from our families and couldn't buy a house until we were past age 40. We have some long time friends with similar income history but they are miles ahead of us financially because they didn't spend their first 15 years digging out of debt.

No, I don't view being a SAHM as a cop out. I was just saying I hear more negative views of SAHMs so wondered what the other poster meant about 4 kids and SAHM being a status thing. I haven't heard that. Anywhere.