My husband and I visited friends yesterday evening for a home-cooked dinner and catch up. We arrived and noticed that they have completely re-done their kitchen and ground level hardwood flooring since we last visited - I would estimate about $40k renovation cost.
Over dinner, they proceed to share that they are having trouble making ends meet (on their $220k/year household income) and that they cannot pay their LOC and CC bills.
Their two children are now three years old and they paid $70k for them via surrogacy (plus additional costs - probably total $100k), then proceeded to sell their two-bedroom condo and purchase a larger home so that each child could have their own bedroom (clearly necessary at age 2?) in one of the hottest real-estate markets in Canada.
Of course, they also want their kids to attend religious summer school and religious day school in the next few years.
So, they are now considering a move to the USA (we live in Canada) so that one of them can make more money to fund these choices. Which is fine, except all of that extra income is clearly going to be hoovered up into lifestyle inflation.
After leaving, we could not stop talking about the financial entitlement that sometimes comes with having children - and the want to give them "everything", which is completely unrealistic.