I'll answer the question above b/c we were making <100K (one parent back to school) while living in a different HCOL area when we became parents.

We used family daycare and a less expensive preschool. Our DC had a wonderful experience all the way through. I wasn't personally impressed with the most expensive daycares / preschools I visited. For infant care, we went with a new small home daycare that was very close to our house and then recruited most of the other parents through a forum similar to this one. We had a great community and set up a babysitting coop among the parents for date nights and similar. For daycare, we went with a place that had older toys, nothing fancy, but super experienced, kind, loving staff who were 100% focused on the kids. The expensive daycare I visited had bored, inexperienced staff who looked at their phones during playtime.

We rented a house that had two extra bedrooms and served as a host family for international students studying English in our city. Not for everyone but it brought in an extra 1K per month and most of the kids were self-sufficient after a week. The kids who did spend at a lot of time at home were usually family oriented and helpful. We met really wonderful young people from all over the world.

Finally - we did go into the red but not that much and it's been paid off for many years now.

Living in a HCOL on less than let's say 200-500K per year without family money is no joke but resilience and creativity can go a long way.

Anonymous wrote:Did not go into the red. We bought a fixer upper house that is cheap relative to our salaries, and have put off all but the most needed updates. Retirement savings have stayed on track and we manage to put some away in the 529s, but other savings have slowed down.

I wouldn’t say we are cheap, but we do try to spend in a value conscious way. Food comes from Aldi, kids clothes are hand me downs or Target/thrift, home repairs are focused on getting the best value for the money, and vacations are focused on what will make our young family the best memories instead of impressing Instagram. We bargained hard for our cars and plan to drive them for a decade or more. I wish we could get our monthly expenses lower but things like the cleaning service, the yard service, and occasional takeout or casual dining meals are must for two busy working parents.

I fully recognize the only reason we can stay on track for savings is we make a decently high income ($300k) and don’t live like it. It’s just not possible to spend $40k+ in after tax income and not have it take a hit on most salaries.

Exactly- we have a similar HHI and I feel bad for those making less because it's so tight. How do people making only $150-200k have kids, I don't know.

Did not go into the red. We bought a fixer upper house that is cheap relative to our salaries, and have put off all but the most needed updates. Retirement savings have stayed on track and we manage to put some away in the 529s, but other savings have slowed down.

I wouldn’t say we are cheap, but we do try to spend in a value conscious way. Food comes from Aldi, kids clothes are hand me downs or Target/thrift, home repairs are focused on getting the best value for the money, and vacations are focused on what will make our young family the best memories instead of impressing Instagram. We bargained hard for our cars and plan to drive them for a decade or more. I wish we could get our monthly expenses lower but things like the cleaning service, the yard service, and occasional takeout or casual dining meals are must for two busy working parents.

I fully recognize the only reason we can stay on track for savings is we make a decently high income ($300k) and don’t live like it. It’s just not possible to spend $40k+ in after tax income and not have it take a hit on most salaries.

Anonymous wrote:We are getting ready to TTC and I understand that we will likely be paying about $25k for daycare. Messing around with our budget I don't know how to cut out that much - sure we will be traveling less, but that's about the only big thing that we can change. I think we will basically be breaking even. What about you?

We did not go in the red, but we did save quite a bit less. When we married, we started out saving one of our take home incomes and 15% (401k contribution) of the others. When we had children in the daycare years, we used most of that take home amount to pay for daycare.

Tough years financially. Reduced retirement and had to watch spending but managed to break even. We had bought our house at a price point that allowed this.

I have friends who took out home equity loans and otherwise went into debt in the childcare years.