Today I Learned
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White male privilege is real
World Conflicts
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Peaceful Protest Hasn’t Worked and Has Been Met With Aggression.
Personal Finance
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Biden wants to raise capital gains tax to 40%
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Anyone else have a bloated belly until a huge fart deflates the belly back to normal?
Tech Industry
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What happens when most of your team is Indian?
I want to FIRE. I feel like 2.5M for supporting just myself and half the household costs is a good number. I've never spent more than 55K a year so that # feels like a lot with a 3% SWR and factoring in healthcare (I live in VHCOL). How much did your annual budget increase after having kids? I ideally want 2-3 kids. Side note: I also want to pay for surrogacy because I don't want to be pregnant myself. And have night nannies during the first months of infancy. My husband also works in Tech and he has no interest in FIREing. TC: 330k. Husband's TC: 450k. My NW: 1.3M. His NW: 800k YOE: 6
A house worth!
At least an extra $600 - $3500 per month per kid depending on whether you'll be sending them to private school or not. Doctor visits copay, clothes, toys, diapers, formula, nannies, recreation, extra rent, car fuel and utilities for the extra space / consumption will very easily cost $600 a month. Then at least an extra $50k-$75k per kid for college if you want to foot that for them. A house worth seems ballpark fair.
Private schools are more than $3500 a month on their own. Try more like $4000.
LOL. A woman who wants to live life on easy mode. Tell me something new.
Ew. Saving to be FI is the normal mode; you're the one who brought gender into this. You bitter sexist incel.
Those who go on FI do it as a couple. You are doing it alone. You are just lazy to work or have kids. It'd have been another thing if you'd told me that you wanted to stay home for your kids. Everything I read screams narcissism to me. I feel bad for your husband and the surrogate kids.
On the low end, kids can be close to free. Their clothes are cheap, they don't eat much, and public school is free. On the high end ... $60K for private school, $20K for 529, $1K for clothes, $2500 for food and snacks, $10K for random expenses (medicine, toys, babysitting), $10K for extracurricular activities. And a lot of time and energy in any case, so paying for extra help could be considered, too.
Each of the kids is like a new mortgage, if you want to have both parents working when they’re under 5. Day care fee is 3.6k/month for infant. It gets less once the kid is older. Full time nanny (M-F, 8 to 5) is 50-70k/year depending on the number of kids. More if you want help during weekend or at night. More kids = more space needed = bigger house. Real numbers from Seattle area.
My wife stays at home so no nanny or day care. It’s amazing how cheap kids are if you don’t send them to fancy private schools and have one parent stay home.
My husband makes as much as I do. Having him stay at home will be leaving money on the table.
I live in a vhcol area and spend 8k monthly on average on 2 kids, not including the cost of a larger house. That includes food, restaurants, vacations, summer camps, sports, music, activities after school, clothes,...
Public school
Monthly per child: Private school or daycare for younger kids: $1000 Travelling: $500 Food: $200 Everything else: $200
am curious, where is this possible? day care for younger kids in hcol is about 3k to 3.5k per month. day nanny is atleast 4.5k a month.
Dunno, I’ve never seen under $1500/mo for daycare or preschool, even in mcol, at a professional place. Maybe it’s lcol or some independent in home type daycare
Not ready to FIRE if you and your spouse have separate finances
We got married very recently although we've been dating for some time. I feel like managing our money separately is easier since we already have things set up on autopilot, but of course our money is both of ours together as a household. I only separated in this post since I want to fund my FIRE myself. But of course we'll both see it as a shared resource for everything including buying a house, etc.
First ask yourself why do you want to have kids?
I've always wanted kids from a very young age and am very excited to be a mother and want to not work during their first years of life.
That's great to know. But just curious what's the reason? Since you will have to sacrifice a lot in career, time, energy etc
Budget extra 30k a year minimum, depends on daycare or nanny costs. If you're in CA all your money is community property anyway so instead of your share vs his share better to work together.
I agree that the money is ours but I like to feel like I've "earned" my freedom by investing diligently. I worked very hard to go to college, and I'm the first woman in my family to get a degree and work. I'm the one who didn't want to merge our finances so I can have full control and visibility of my assets. Even though I know we're a team and he'd support me in my goals, I don't want a power imbalance or feel like I'm just mooching off of him. He knows I want to be a SAHM and fully supports me and never expected me to save $X amount (if anything he's inspired by how I handle my finances), so this pressure is solely from me. If/when we drop to a single income household, he doesn't want to pull from any of my investments either to let it grow and instead live off of his income.
Unless OP has a prenup right?