Anonymous wrote:Why all the whining? We're 30 year old millenials and are not having problems financially. Dual feds, we own a sfh, have a child and plan on two more, paid off cars, etc. Paid off our student loans (80k).

We do not have the salary that my parents had at this age (dad had the same job my dh has, but it was enough to support a sahm), but we're doing just fine. We struggle with daycare costs and feel like we're drowning sometimes, but we saved up before having our child.

I have noticed that there is less inter generational wealth transfer than in generations past. Greatest generation hoarded it all and then Boomers spend it all. All of our grandparents are still alive with large estates (10-15 million) in their 90s. I love them and would hate for them to die, but as people live longer, less wealth passes on. My great grandparents all died in their 60s. My parents each receive 14k from each of their parents every year, that's 56k. And then they gloat about it and blow it on trips, appliances or cars. DH and I have never received any money and my parents say they will spend it all before they die. Seems to be the boomer mentality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goddamn. DC is a bubble. No wonder why democrats lost.

No, four kids isn't why. In many areas of the country four kids doesn't kill you. In the suburbs of Richmond, VA I have several relatives with four kids, gorgeous homes, and good public schools.

Yes it is. Sending four kids to college is expensive. Doing anything with four kids is expensive. Even the cheapest vacation becomes expensive with four kids.

Lets just look at this....

each kid as activities: music lessons in this area are at least $40/week; 2000/yr.
Food...they have to eat. Small kids eat less than big kids, but teen...wow....on average (over ages): 2400/year
Religious education: $400/yr

Clothing? Vacations? Etc...


Each kid costs about 5K per year. You make 50K (just over the median), and have 4 kids, you are poor. Ok. No music lessons. Food is required. Clothing? Hand-me-Downs. lets assume free.

Before housing or transportation (just food for the kids and social security taxes): $3000/month --- housing? probably at least 1000 (low cost of living area). 2K per month left over. Now, you need health care/insurance. Figure that will be $800/month on average. 1,200/month. And we haven't paid the bills. You need a car (or two), but you drive a clunker (or two), 200/month repairs, $150/month gas, $50/month insurance. That is get you down to $800/month. Utiltiies? $200 for gas/electric/water? $600/month. Oh wait. Mommy and daddy did not eat year. Another 400/month.

So, the median family in a low cost of living area is looking at $200/month left over before any discretionary spending. Cell Phone for the adults? $100/month. No cable. No Internet.

This is life in middle america.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goddamn. DC is a bubble. No wonder why democrats lost.

No, four kids isn't why. In many areas of the country four kids doesn't kill you. In the suburbs of Richmond, VA I have several relatives with four kids, gorgeous homes, and good public schools.

Yes it is. Sending four kids to college is expensive. Doing anything with four kids is expensive. Even the cheapest vacation becomes expensive with four kids.

No it is not. Pop your damn bubble.

Repeat after me: you can help your kids get into college. You can help your kids apply for scholarships. You can introduce your kids to others who will also assist. You do not however have to pay full freight for four kids. College students CAN work a part time job.

For fucks sake. I'm a millennial and I worked four part time jobs all throughout college. And I didn't have the benefits of being covered under my parents' insurance so I had to cover that too.

So sounds like you have different goals than the PP. most upper middle class people want to pay for their kids to attend college, which is epsensiev with four kids. This is not unique to DC! If it were they wouldn't have all of these 529 plans in other states!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goddamn. DC is a bubble. No wonder why democrats lost.

No, four kids isn't why. In many areas of the country four kids doesn't kill you. In the suburbs of Richmond, VA I have several relatives with four kids, gorgeous homes, and good public schools.

Yes it is. Sending four kids to college is expensive. Doing anything with four kids is expensive. Even the cheapest vacation becomes expensive with four kids.

No it is not. Pop your damn bubble.

Repeat after me: you can help your kids get into college. You can help your kids apply for scholarships. You can introduce your kids to others who will also assist. You do not however have to pay full freight for four kids. College students CAN work a part time job.

For fucks sake. I'm a millennial and I worked four part time jobs all throughout college. And I didn't have the benefits of being covered under my parents' insurance so I had to cover that too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goddamn. DC is a bubble. No wonder why democrats lost.

No, four kids isn't why. In many areas of the country four kids doesn't kill you. In the suburbs of Richmond, VA I have several relatives with four kids, gorgeous homes, and good public schools.

Yes it is. Sending four kids to college is expensive. Doing anything with four kids is expensive. Even the cheapest vacation becomes expensive with four kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Goddamn. DC is a bubble. No wonder why democrats lost.

No, four kids isn't why. In many areas of the country four kids doesn't kill you. In the suburbs of Richmond, VA I have several relatives with four kids, gorgeous homes, and good public schools.

Yes it is. Sending four kids to college is expensive. Doing anything with four kids is expensive. Even the cheapest vacation becomes expensive with four kids.

Anonymous wrote:Goddamn. DC is a bubble. No wonder why democrats lost.

No, four kids isn't why. In many areas of the country four kids doesn't kill you. In the suburbs of Richmond, VA I have several relatives with four kids, gorgeous homes, and good public schools.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of whiners here on this thread, and 3 different generations (boomers, X, and millenials) all seem pretty well represented in the woe-is-me-I-had-it-tougher-than-you club.

We are late 40s (don't know what category that puts us in, could someone please tell me?). We are doing less well economically than my parents did and are worried that our kids will do even less well than we have. We are grateful that we are on solid ground.

In 91/92, as a PP said, there weren't many jobs. Lots of us went back to school. At UVA law school, resident tuition was $6,200 dollars a year in 95 or so. A PP got it right - in state tuition now is not the deal it used to be. Anywhere. And to the person who mentioned 1987 re the market, what about when the dot.com bubble burst in 2,000?

Kids go to public school and we are still living in our starter house now with three of them (we are both feds so the way house loans are determined now - income not assets - we cannot move up). We live way below our means like my parents did, no Starbucks, not a hell of a lot at Whole Foods, no ordering out, flip phones and shitty cars, second hand clothes when the kids were younger and now Target (I had older cousins so had second hand clothes all the way through). And we are fine with all of that, the kids less so as they become teenagers. But clearly we are not going to get to where my parents are now (or where they were when I left the nest) even though we both work and my mother was a SAHM.

My parents sent three kids to private school in DC on one maybe upper middle class income. There is no way we could do that. There is also no way that we could pay for college for them - tuition has gone up in this area at private schools and in the US for higher education in such an exponential way that no one really seems to understand, and everyone now has to go to college to get decent jobs. And most of the crappy colleges cost just as much as the ones with the name recognition. Both ought to be rethought, but not in time for our kids.

Just really sad that my kids cannot live the life me and my siblings had growing up in the same frigging place - Washington DC - private schools, no college debt, etc, most of our family on federal salaries for three generations. Knowing the income caps as feds we always planned to move to VA, CA or TX (those two required two years for residency for college or beyond, know a lot of peers who did it), but in state tuition now absolutely sucks.

Maybe we will still get it all together. But I worry. I had it easy because of my parents "wealth" - my grandfather was also a fed and all 4 kids in my father's family got college paid but he and the rest all had to pay for law school etc. I had parents who could actually pay for both and were willing to do so - and had siblings who went more expensive post college routes as well.

But this tuition issue in higher education is absolutely brutal. Not sure I would want my kids in DC privates the way they are now, but really wish that I would be able to say to all of them that they could go to college anywhere and not have to worry about debt. They already know not to major in 16th century French literature.

Maybe community college for the first two years is the answer.

All I know is that the economic divide has become like the grand canyon, and even though we have nothing to complain about, the sinking standard of living over three generations (especially with so many feds) has come as a shock to me. Saw a stat recently - kids born in 1950's had a huge percent chance to live better economically than their parents did, (90 something), kids born in 1982 had like a 7% chance. Don't know what the odds look like for us, born about ten years earlier, but they don't feel good.

Not a whiner. Saw fellow classmates sunk by debt 25 years ago. Do not want my kids to be stuck that way. Do not want them to stay with us while they go to community college. Living on my own for 4 years was invaluable to me. I would hate to have to advise my kids to deprive themselves of that opportunity for economic reasons. Ironically, if we put all our kids in DC privates we cannot afford (and do not qualify for financial aid), we might have a much better chance of our kids getting need based financial aid for college. We are right in the wrong economic space. Savers seem to get screwed when it comes to college tuition, but we are trying so hard to find a way not to screw our kids or completely deplete our savings.

Any ideas?

Please don't slam me. I know I sound like an entitled twit, but the reality is we are not in the 1% and never will be. And the gaps have just widened and will continue to. As I said, we are on solid financial ground. Just worried about the kids.

How many kids do you have and when did you have them?

We have four but planned for two. 2000 (accident and bad career move for a litigation associate at a Biglawfirm on partnership track (is that what you call it?). 2004,2005 (did not plan on Irish twins either) and then............ 2010 plus a few years. Complete accident, already was a fed so benefits were secure. Think everyone sees our age range and knows about the last one. OTOH, out of our friends and my female colleagues, we had babies earlier (now 25 years out of college) than most. But as I said, the first one was not planned, and then I became determined to get a sibling, and the last one was completely unexpected.

Note to women up to the age of 48: if you think you are going through menopause don't assume you are right. Take a pregnancy test. Luckily I was living a relatively healthy life in terms of alcohol etc. Damn lucky. Would not give the kid back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see a lot of whiners here on this thread, and 3 different generations (boomers, X, and millenials) all seem pretty well represented in the woe-is-me-I-had-it-tougher-than-you club.

We are late 40s (don't know what category that puts us in, could someone please tell me?). We are doing less well economically than my parents did and are worried that our kids will do even less well than we have. We are grateful that we are on solid ground.

In 91/92, as a PP said, there weren't many jobs. Lots of us went back to school. At UVA law school, resident tuition was $6,200 dollars a year in 95 or so. A PP got it right - in state tuition now is not the deal it used to be. Anywhere. And to the person who mentioned 1987 re the market, what about when the dot.com bubble burst in 2,000?

Kids go to public school and we are still living in our starter house now with three of them (we are both feds so the way house loans are determined now - income not assets - we cannot move up). We live way below our means like my parents did, no Starbucks, not a hell of a lot at Whole Foods, no ordering out, flip phones and shitty cars, second hand clothes when the kids were younger and now Target (I had older cousins so had second hand clothes all the way through). And we are fine with all of that, the kids less so as they become teenagers. But clearly we are not going to get to where my parents are now (or where they were when I left the nest) even though we both work and my mother was a SAHM.

My parents sent three kids to private school in DC on one maybe upper middle class income. There is no way we could do that. There is also no way that we could pay for college for them - tuition has gone up in this area at private schools and in the US for higher education in such an exponential way that no one really seems to understand, and everyone now has to go to college to get decent jobs. And most of the crappy colleges cost just as much as the ones with the name recognition. Both ought to be rethought, but not in time for our kids.

Just really sad that my kids cannot live the life me and my siblings had growing up in the same frigging place - Washington DC - private schools, no college debt, etc, most of our family on federal salaries for three generations. Knowing the income caps as feds we always planned to move to VA, CA or TX (those two required two years for residency for college or beyond, know a lot of peers who did it), but in state tuition now absolutely sucks.

Maybe we will still get it all together. But I worry. I had it easy because of my parents "wealth" - my grandfather was also a fed and all 4 kids in my father's family got college paid but he and the rest all had to pay for law school etc. I had parents who could actually pay for both and were willing to do so - and had siblings who went more expensive post college routes as well.

But this tuition issue in higher education is absolutely brutal. Not sure I would want my kids in DC privates the way they are now, but really wish that I would be able to say to all of them that they could go to college anywhere and not have to worry about debt. They already know not to major in 16th century French literature.

Maybe community college for the first two years is the answer.

All I know is that the economic divide has become like the grand canyon, and even though we have nothing to complain about, the sinking standard of living over three generations (especially with so many feds) has come as a shock to me. Saw a stat recently - kids born in 1950's had a huge percent chance to live better economically than their parents did, (90 something), kids born in 1982 had like a 7% chance. Don't know what the odds look like for us, born about ten years earlier, but they don't feel good.

Not a whiner. Saw fellow classmates sunk by debt 25 years ago. Do not want my kids to be stuck that way. Do not want them to stay with us while they go to community college. Living on my own for 4 years was invaluable to me. I would hate to have to advise my kids to deprive themselves of that opportunity for economic reasons. Ironically, if we put all our kids in DC privates we cannot afford (and do not qualify for financial aid), we might have a much better chance of our kids getting need based financial aid for college. We are right in the wrong economic space. Savers seem to get screwed when it comes to college tuition, but we are trying so hard to find a way not to screw our kids or completely deplete our savings.

Any ideas?

Please don't slam me. I know I sound like an entitled twit, but the reality is we are not in the 1% and never will be. And the gaps have just widened and will continue to. As I said, we are on solid financial ground. Just worried about the kids.

How many kids do you have and when did you have them?