The Money Mustache Community
Around the Internet => Antimustachian Wall of Shame and Comedy => Topic started by: DrJohn on August 23, 2014, 09:31:45 AM
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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-its-so-difficult-to-raise-kids-and-save-for-retirement-2014-08-22 (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-its-so-difficult-to-raise-kids-and-save-for-retirement-2014-08-22)
"My youngest daughter was born 21 years ago this week. At the time, I called an economist named Mark Lino from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who told me to expect to spend as much as $300,000 to get her to age 18; toss in college costs, and it was well past $500,000 to get her to adulthood.
Quote:
As a result, after she was born my lifetime financial priorities were reorganized. They became:
Live in a home with at least one more bathroom by the time my girls were teenagers
Pay for my girls’ college educations
Pay for their weddings
Collapse, after all that, into retirement with some measure of financial security"
Really...
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I agree that the article is, indeed ridiculous in some ways. However, the fundamental tension between having/raising kids and funding retirement is totally valid. It's even a big problem for mustachians - just look at how many posts focus on balancing kids and saving. The weddings thing, though? Definitely shameful and comedic.
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It only HAS to cost that much if you're an idiot.
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Conflating what it costs with what you'll spend is a frequent journalist's error. It shows up in these child raising reports and especially in every article on food stamps and the SNAP challenge. It's common in every piece on housing, too
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I agree that the article is, indeed ridiculous in some ways. However, the fundamental tension between having/raising kids and funding retirement is totally valid. It's even a big problem for mustachians - just look at how many posts focus on balancing kids and saving. The weddings thing, though? Definitely shameful and comedic.
That is indeed true--having kids does make it harder to retire early. Well, unless they really bug you and you'd prefer to keep working! :P Between the larger home, the larger food budget, the larger car, and all the clothes/furniture/education/bikes/etc, kids cost a fair bit. They're definitely worth delaying retirement, though!
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Presumably someone from the USDA would know where to get some cheaper feed.
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Since when did it become a requirement to pay for a kid's private school university tuition in full? While my parents helped out where they could (probably $2-$3k a year for the 4 years), i certainly bore the load of my degrees. My parents did what they could, but it doesn't mean they OWED me my education.
And while it may have been tradition to pay for your daughter's wedding in the past, it is by no means a requirement. Plenty of couples pay for their own wedding. We were lucky in that my parents gave about 1/3 of the cost of our wedding, but again, we didn't expect anything from our parents.
I sympathize with the idea that as parents you want to at least help your children out as much as you can, but I don't think it makes you a bad parent if your kids need to take out some loans for school. If anything, knowing how much they would have to borrow may help them to focus realizing they need a good job when they get out of school and also to choose wisely on which school to attend based on financial aid, scholarships, in-state v out-of-state, etc.
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If you say, Raising a child CAN COST this much, I'll agree.
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What I find cool is you can automatically take 20% off their estimation, since that's the cost of child care.
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I do worry that as the age of childbearing increases, this will cause more problems for your average American idiot.
Previously you had kids at 20-25, so by the time you were panicking about retirement at age 45, the kids were out of the house.
Now, you spend all your money in your 20's, have kids in your later 30's to 40's (for many dads), and suddenly you are raising kids, taking care of your own elderly parents, and trying to save for retirement all at once with no time betweenretirement and KKidd moving out.
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I do worry that as the age of childbearing increases, this will cause more problems for your average American idiot.
Previously you had kids at 20-25, so by the time you were panicking about retirement at age 45, the kids were out of the house.
Now, you spend all your money in your 20's, have kids in your later 30's to 40's (for many dads), and suddenly you are raising kids, taking care of your own elderly parents, and trying to save for retirement all at once with no time betweenretirement and KKidd moving out.
Protracted Adolescence is not without consequences. It think it's going to be made more interesting because we are seeing a shortening of lifespans in some demographics due to obesity and diabetes. If you are marginally healthy and have your kid/s late, you reach the age where some serious illness and disability sets in before those kids finish high school.
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I wonder how much of this syndrome is related to people's refusal to accept aging.
Afterall, if their children are still financially dependent, then they can't be considered adults. And, if they can't be considered adults, then the parents can't be considered 'old'.
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I wonder how much of this syndrome is related to people's refusal to accept aging.
[total hypothesis with no data to back it up whatsoever]I think the bigger lever is the so-called "2 income household". I'm 29 and DW is 28, and we just had our first a couple months ago because we spent our early 20's finishing college and getting our careers established. While we "could afford" to have kids once we both graduated, we didn't want to so we could have time to get on our feet. A lot of our friends feel similarly, that it would be better to have a few years in a career before taking maternity/paternity leave.[/hypothesis]
Its an offshoot of the school of thought that everyone should go to college, get great educations, and be great contributors to the world. Right, wrong, or indifferent, I think having kids at a later age is a byproduct of this.
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Since when did it become a requirement to pay for a kid's private school university tuition in full? While my parents helped out where they could (probably $2-$3k a year for the 4 years), i certainly bore the load of my degrees. My parents did what they could, but it doesn't mean they OWED me my education.
And while it may have been tradition to pay for your daughter's wedding in the past, it is by no means a requirement. Plenty of couples pay for their own wedding. We were lucky in that my parents gave about 1/3 of the cost of our wedding, but again, we didn't expect anything from our parents.
I sympathize with the idea that as parents you want to at least help your children out as much as you can, but I don't think it makes you a bad parent if your kids need to take out some loans for school. If anything, knowing how much they would have to borrow may help them to focus realizing they need a good job when they get out of school and also to choose wisely on which school to attend based on financial aid, scholarships, in-state v out-of-state, etc.
agreed!!! I don't get this concept at all. my parents are fabulous and I love them to death. they helped me out in college by paying my cell phone bill and car insurance, and making minimum payments on some of my loans while I was in school. that was MORE THAN ENOUGH. I expect absolutely nothing from them for my wedding and if they offered, I would refuse. it's like, you're an adult, grow up and pay for your own shit. especially now that people are waiting longer to get married... if I can't pay for my own wedding when I'm 27 or 28, that is some sad shit.
I wonder how much of this syndrome is related to people's refusal to accept aging.
I do worry that as the age of childbearing increases, this will cause more problems for your average American idiot.
Previously you had kids at 20-25, so by the time you were panicking about retirement at age 45, the kids were out of the house.
Now, you spend all your money in your 20's, have kids in your later 30's to 40's (for many dads), and suddenly you are raising kids, taking care of your own elderly parents, and trying to save for retirement all at once with no time betweenretirement and KKidd moving out.
yeah, I do really worry about this too :/
[total hypothesis with no data to back it up whatsoever]I think the bigger lever is the so-called "2 income household". I'm 29 and DW is 28, and we just had our first a couple months ago because we spent our early 20's finishing college and getting our careers established. While we "could afford" to have kids once we both graduated, we didn't want to so we could have time to get on our feet. A lot of our friends feel similarly, that it would be better to have a few years in a career before taking maternity/paternity leave.[/hypothesis]
Its an offshoot of the school of thought that everyone should go to college, get great educations, and be great contributors to the world. Right, wrong, or indifferent, I think having kids at a later age is a byproduct of this.
yep, I definitely see this.