Anonymous wrote:Our HHI is about $50K and we have three kids. I am in school and work part time. We get help with the kids from family. We have a nice home, children who are dressed decently, and are happy. We were saving for college but one child was recently diagnosed with a disability and we are spending our money on private therapy. We aren't saving for retirement while I'm in school.

are you in DC? Even a low mortgage of 2k a month would eat up most of your 50k pretax income.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's threads like this that show how materialistic DCUM is.

True. I also have worked much harder than the average DCUM poster has over the past 25 years. Work should equal reward, right?

no, reward is about the value of your work not how hard you work.

I'm good either way.

Our HHI is about $50K and we have three kids. I am in school and work part time. We get help with the kids from family. We have a nice home, children who are dressed decently, and are happy. We were saving for college but one child was recently diagnosed with a disability and we are spending our money on private therapy. We aren't saving for retirement while I'm in school.

We were living on 56K HHI with one SAHP when we had DC1 (5 years ago). It was tough but manageable although we did add some debt during that time. We have two kids now and HHI is about 175K with both parents working. We bought a house and are financially comfortable. I will add that our 2 BR, 1000 sf space started to feel pretty tight after DC#2 came along.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's threads like this that show how materialistic DCUM is.

True. I also have worked much harder than the average DCUM poster has over the past 25 years. Work should equal reward, right?

no, reward is about the value of your work not how hard you work.

Anonymous wrote:It's threads like this that show how materialistic DCUM is.

True. I also have worked much harder than the average DCUM poster has over the past 25 years. Work should equal reward, right?

I would say 100k for the first kid is definitely reasonable. I do think if you already live in a 3 bedroom home (as opposed to a 1 or 2 bedroom where you'd run out of space quickly with more than 1 kid) and are sending your kids to public school that you might see some diminishing income needs for child 2, maybe not 200k but more like 175-180. So maybe it's:

100k for the first kid
175 for 2nd
250 for 3rd

This is a bare minimum though. A family of 3 on 100k in this area isn't going to be living in luxury and probably won't be able to save much for college, retirement, etc. if the child is in day care. It might be a different story if the 100k income was all from one parent and the other stayed home by there's still the expenses of activities and eventually pre-school.

$500k

Anonymous wrote:In your experience, whats the minimum HHI you need to have a baby here?

I always assume these post refer to how much income you need assuming the following:
No SAHM parent, grandparent help, or subsided daycare,
Buying a home within the last three years
No defined benefit pension plan
Children's college isn't being paid by grandma, scholarship, or military
Either great public schools or private
No trust, parents paying the bills, or significant pre-existing wealth.

If all of these apply, then $100K per kid isn't too far off. Many people around here seem to have some of the abovetaken care of - grandma watching the baby, trust fund or inheritance, purchased a house in the 90s, multiple pensions, ect. In these situations, one can live on way less.

one million dollars

It's threads like this that show how materialistic DCUM is.

Anonymous wrote:$100k to live
$200k to live comfortably
$300k to add good vacations and savings
$400k to add in private school or a 2nd kid
$500k to be stress free + save for retirement + college paid for

I agree!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is the u come evenly split or is one spouse making more? Hi of $100k is plenty of one spouse is staying home. You'll need to budget at least 2k for daycare a month until kindergarten. So count on that and whatever your mortgage is.

If we go with sahm for the first year or two would we still need 2k a month for daycare?

to have the interaction and socialization piece for the child ?

Of course you don't need daycare if you have a SAHM for the first couple years. If you are home longer, you probably will want DC in a part-time preschool at 3 or 4, but that's not $2K per month. My kids went to a church preschool that at it's most expensive -- 5 days/week for a 4 yr old -- was about $4200k for the whole school year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel like things can get a little tight with our $220K HHI and one child but definitely not struggling. I think two children might be a bit difficult.

Are you kidding me!? You obviously live way above your means. We are 140k with one car payment, a mortgage (but not an insane one), max contributions to 401k plus saving cash each month, and we don't worry about money at all. We even take vacations.

Thank god for people like you who post here and give me hope considering we're in our early 30s and planning for at least 1, possibly 2 babies within the next 5 years. We are also getting into our first mortgage (not insane), and a car loan.