Author Topic: How do you maintain motivation in the face of having a kid?  (Read 13567 times)

ChpBstrd

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Re: How do you maintain motivation in the face of having a kid?
« Reply #50 on: August 16, 2017, 08:20:39 PM »
Have you considered moving to a place with lower-cost daycare?

I pay $137/week or about $7300/year after the annual 'registration fee' for my 3 y/o. At 1.5 my daughter had a best friend and at 2 my daughter knew the alphabet, so I'm satisfied.

I stressed about finances a lot until I realized that it's still possible to save gobs of dollars post-kid. I spend maybe $12k/year grand total, and most of that is optional crap DW buys off Amazon when she gets bored. We have a 529 account that we ask people to donate to for birthdays instead of buying gifts - it's up to $11k and our house is still full of gifted toys. Our savings rate is about 50% and we FIRE in about 6 years. So far this year, our NW is up $100k!!! We could hit a 70% savings rate and shave two years off our FIRE date by simply moving out of our ridiculously big 3/2, 2700sf house and into a 2/1 like you have, especially if it was a "fixer upper" that we could just pay cash for, fix up ourselves, and be done with mortgages. Such options are available all day every day in my deep South metro area of 1.5 million people.

Build some lifestyle simulations: Open a spreadsheet, pick a dozen smaller metro areas, find a probably-acceptable midrange daycare, find your income on salary.com, find an example house to buy on zillow.com, and crunch the numbers. A simple move for the next 5-6 years could put you back on your original FIRE date despite the kid.

Oh, and BTW, it does change you. Now I want FIRE so that I can spend more quality time with the kid someday, lead the PTA, whatever!

okits

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Re: How do you maintain motivation in the face of having a kid?
« Reply #51 on: August 16, 2017, 09:01:29 PM »
caracarn - I think this board authorizes all valid, polite criticism (though I guess for some that doesn't make sense), but it tends towards a gusto against virtually any argument about limits to one's ability. You're right that this sentiment can develop into a somewhat fantasized view of the possible, but on the flip side, if a thing is possible, it often takes that attitude to figure out how it's possible. If you think of the board motto as "How?" it may not bug you so much. Your answer may be that you don't want to do quite as much as some people do (cloth diapers, etc).

I am in agreement and I do not mind criticism.  In the case I was talking about it was one individual, that even other people in the thread began to push back on being overly harsh.  It did become a  bit of a pissing contest because I just thought if I could explain it a tiny bit better than what they were pushing back against that eventually they'd get to understand, but it never happened.   Certainly all our choices as individuals that can be further optimized are the result of not wanting to do as much as some people do.  It just seems to be hard to find a multi-child perspective from a lot of the forum members that I've seen, so that was why I asked my question.

You've seen this thread?  (It's older, with comments from 2014-2016, but quite a few details given by some families.)

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mini-money-mustaches/larger-family-forum-how-are-you-doing-it-3-kids/

caracarn

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Re: How do you maintain motivation in the face of having a kid?
« Reply #52 on: August 17, 2017, 05:51:16 AM »
caracarn - I think this board authorizes all valid, polite criticism (though I guess for some that doesn't make sense), but it tends towards a gusto against virtually any argument about limits to one's ability. You're right that this sentiment can develop into a somewhat fantasized view of the possible, but on the flip side, if a thing is possible, it often takes that attitude to figure out how it's possible. If you think of the board motto as "How?" it may not bug you so much. Your answer may be that you don't want to do quite as much as some people do (cloth diapers, etc).

I am in agreement and I do not mind criticism.  In the case I was talking about it was one individual, that even other people in the thread began to push back on being overly harsh.  It did become a  bit of a pissing contest because I just thought if I could explain it a tiny bit better than what they were pushing back against that eventually they'd get to understand, but it never happened.   Certainly all our choices as individuals that can be further optimized are the result of not wanting to do as much as some people do.  It just seems to be hard to find a multi-child perspective from a lot of the forum members that I've seen, so that was why I asked my question.

You've seen this thread?  (It's older, with comments from 2014-2016, but quite a few details given by some families.)

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/mini-money-mustaches/larger-family-forum-how-are-you-doing-it-3-kids/
No, I have not.  Thanks for the link!