So here's a brief description of my situation: I'm currently married with a toddler - husband's in another state getting his doctorate, so my son and I are living with my parents who are helping with the childcare. He gets a stipend to pay for housing/expenses, so all of my income is being used to pay our bills and maintain our entire household.
My income: $93,000
Monthly take-home:
$4600 (this is after ~1000/month pre-tax into 401k, including employer matching - Currently 401k balance, ~$48,000)
Expenses:
$615 Preschool (3 half days a week...this isn't "necessary" per se, but otherwise, my son gets no exposure to other kids)
$1500 Helping parents with mortgage (sad to say my parents lived a very ANTImustachian life...retired now, but hardly getting enough social security to live on their own - about $700 combined)
$1000 Monthly expenses (family phones, cable, groceries, gas, husband's monthly travel back home, my train ticket for my commute which is partly subsidized)
$600 Student loan (currently in deferment since my husband is a student, so I'm adding this to my car payments right now)
$900 + (whatever I can make from my 2nd freelance job) Honda CRV (I know, I know, this is supposed to be the first thing to go, but it's the one car we have between my family and my parents, and since I'm so close to paying it off and it requires so little maintenance, I don't think it'd be financially wise to sell it and spend most of that money on buying an older car...My goal is to pay it off by April, then start in on my student loans)
So my short-term (~2 yr) goal is to pay off my car and student loan... I have a few questions I'm hoping to get some advice on....
1) Is there anything I can improve? I know the car and cable are "excesses" but the car's almost paid off, and with two older parents in the same house, I can't get rid of the cable without causing family arguments/tension. We fight enough as it is.
2) Because my parents aren't financially capable of living on their own, at some point, if we buy a house of our own, we'll have to find one big enough for them to live with us, or give them a monthly stipend to help them live alone. I'm not sure which is better. Neither is ideal financially for us (nor emotionally), but I can't just leave them to fend for themselves. Staying with them in their current house would be difficult and/or inefficient, because a) it'd be very crowded for 5 (maybe more if we have another kid) people once my husband finishes his degree and returns home permanently and b) it's so old and outdated that it'd take way too much time and money to fix up - money i'm not willing to put into a house with very little equity since they've refinanced so many times (again, indicative of their antimustachian ways). Even if we sell it, we'd lose money on it at this point. It'd probably have to be a short sale.
3) With my 2 year plan to pay off my debt first, we wouldn't be able to save up for a down payment for our own house until at least after that. Plus, I'd like to wait until my husband finds a job first before we commit to buying. But I'd also like to move to a better school district before my son starts kindergarten next year, so I'm torn between just staying with my parents and paying down the debt faster, or renting in a better school district (while giving my parents some money to support themselves) and trying to save up whatever we can for a down payment. Sometime early next summer, I may have an opportunity to get a promotion, which would put me about $700/month more after taxes, which would help too.
I'd like to retire by 50 (15 more working years) with no debt, at least $300-400k in 401k, have a good chunk of our house paid off, if not completely paid off, and be able to live off my husband's single income until i'm eligible to receive my pension, social security, and 401k payouts. I know my husband wants to work til as long as he can in academia which is fine for him, but I'd like to have the freedom/luxury to retire by 50 even though I actually do like my job.
I'd just like to get some advice to see if I'm doing this right. I feel like I'm doing the best I can under these specific circumstances, but living with parents in their house (even though I'm pretty much paying for their mortgage at this point), it's hard to be totally mustachian. The emotional aspect of having this parental "baggage" (I know it sounds terrible saying it like this) is also substantial. I'm constantly trying to think of how we can work it out so that we're all financially sound and as emotionally satisfied as we can be as a family.