Another one weighing in on the Waldorf preschool/daycare. It would be a ludicrous expense if one parent didn't work but that's not the case here - it's high quality child care. My youngest daughter went to a Montessori preschool day care that provided a great early education and was actually in line with lesser quality day care options in my town. Agreed the Waldorf is a big expense, but it's just for another year and your child will transition well to public school with good skills.
It's brave to lay out income and expenses to this group, feedback and face punches are freely given here. Ya ask for opinions, ya get them. The OP has done a great job listening to all that's been offered, even while being pretty beaten up. Kudos to you, OP.
I also work in a "lifestyle" type of industry providing goods and services that no one actually needs but in my case, I own the business. It's something I enjoy doing (working with indoor tropical plants). My buy-in (of an existing business) was not crazy expensive and I've built the business and employ two part time people who don't make huge salaries, but I do my best and they enjoy their work. I'd hesitate opening any sort of enterprise that is open to the public, especially a coffee shop where people will camp out all day with a $2 coffee just to hog up the free wifi. Artisanal coffee is most definitely a "thing", while it seems crazy to many of us to spend huge amounts for tea, wine or as in the case of the OP's dreams, coffee, some people will spend for the very best.
Since others have covered, and the OP has started to work on, expenses, I'll chime in with what seems to be the general consensus that more income definitely would benefit this household to manage debt, the ongoing day-to-day and the wish to become FI. OP, you live in Seattle. Home to Microsoft, Amazon, and second home to Facebook, Google, et al. Not going to bring Starbucks into the conversation for obvious reasons :) . The big tech companies have mega food service opportunities for their employees. Coffee must be a huge part of the experience. Would there be a way you could market yourself to one of those firms for an in-house position? You could do something you liked for people who would appreciate your efforts. You'd earn a decent - not huge - salary, but have benefits, a 401k, stock options and the like. With your wife's current job, and the bumped up salary from a more corporate position, you'd be in far better shape. And you wouldn't need to give up your other dream of hand selected, green or roasted beans. I really liked PP's sharing of the friend who does small batch in his garage and markets to farmer's markets, and you could even sell on the internet or B2B. Just my thoughts, hope some of it's helpful.
What you do have going for you is youth, a seemingly solid marriage, a sweet baby girl and the ability to work hard and follow your dreams. I wish you and your family all the best. I think you'll go far.
Thank you! You know, I have thought about something similar to what you're thinking in the way of working at one of the corporations here. I have all the equipment to do a catering setup, and could do something like that...
I see a ton of people attacking the OP for the kindergarten costs.
As someone who had kids in Kindergarten and before/after school care in the Seattle area about a decade ago, I can say their Private Kindergarten costs are probably about inline with the costs for full-day kindergarten + before or after school care if the prices followed inflation growth. Besides, it was further clarified that they can't easily end the contract at this point either.
OP -
I earn quite a bit of money together with my wife (over $200K), and I don't want to try to buy a house in Seattle even though I love the city.
Some great suggestions on cutting expenses were already given.
Have you thought about moving out of Seattle one day? Might be easier to eventually open up your own coffee shop in a nice bedroom community in a lower cost part of Snohomish or Pierce vs trying to do the same in Seattle/King. While you have the housing subsidized, it is still pretty expensive as a percentage of your income (more than a third of your pre-tax).
Thanks so much for your support!
Yes, we actually really love Tacoma. We hope to be able to move back there if we find that our future business would do well there. Time will tell.
My god we are a passionate crowd aren't we?
Mr OP, kudos for being here. We tend to be harsh because many have already gone through years of painstakingly reorganising their lives and now have it all on autopilot. Many forget that you are essentially on Day 1 of this journey, still in the "oh-my-god-we-might-be-in-a-fucking-deep-hole-what-the-fuck-do-I-do-before-I-curl-up-in-a-ball-and-die" phase
Pick one thing a week or fortnight to try and change, embed the habit and then move on to the next item. You won't succeed trying to do everything at once.
Come back to this thread in 3 months and give us a happy update.
Thank you! That's a great idea about picking one thing per week.
A couple things from 2 pages of the thread;
1) Starbucks will not fail anytime in the near future (sorry). Their coffee is crap and their fancy drinks aren't anything coffee related but they appealed to the mass market in a genius way... And that's ok. The thing that makes the smaller coffee shops successful is that they can provide a different experience and better coffee than a brand with millions of stores. Starbucks isn't your competition, all the other hipster coffee shops are.
2) What are you learning about the process at your current job? I ask out of genuine coffee curiosity as a home roaster/caffeine aficionado myself.
3) Just to relate this somewhat back to money: I'm all for finding a job that is low stress and you love but you cannot argue the importance of having money either. Sometimes taking a low paying low stress job can actually create more stress outside of work because you have no money. Plus one to the 20 other people that side pick up a side gig.
1) What I love about this industry is that so many folks are willing to help out, even though it means competition. The industry is currently in a position where the general consensus is "the more, the merrier".
2) At my current position, where I've been for a year, I've learned mostly about customer service and the more hands-on techniques that I could not learn by myself at home. I already knew a lot about coffee before, and I'm only learning more every day! When I move to my new employer in October, I will start to learn even more about customer service, leadership, and I'll work closely with the director, so I'll learn about management and supply/demand. I also roasted at home for about a year.
3) Roger that! I've realized this as well.
Welcome to the forums! Luckily it is advertised as a place where facepunching is abundant. You are on an early retirement forum, so your goals might be different - but there's room for all kinds here.
Yikes, that's quite a stream of bad luck with the house and car accident!
Obviously some posters don't understand Waldorf education. It is practically the opposite of Montessori and has a bit of a cult like following, kinda like a religion - so hard to change people's mind on it. My kids were involved in it (and we loved it) but we felt our (limited) funds were better saved for their post - rather than pre - school education.
Here's some suggestions:
Can you and your wife work opposite shifts to offset daycare costs? Coffee shops are open all hours aren't they?
Do you have room to take in a roommate? Perhaps one that will do daycare in exchange for reduced rent possibly?
Can one of you take in other kids while caring for your own kid?
Can you take care of other pets as a side gig?
To get different results - you need to do something different!
I somewhat agree with what you say about Waldorf, but at the same time I disagree. Many have called it cult-like and religion-esque. I've also heard stories of bullying from parents and what-not. Maybe that happens more in the upper grades. If we made the money, we would most likely keep her in Waldorf.
We do work opposite shifts, and it will get even more synchronous when I start working at the same employer as her in October. :) Coffee shops are not open all hours. Both of our shops are open 6-6.
We have actually thought about the roommate deal! Many local students would be open to it, I'm sure. And we live only two blocks from one of the best community colleges in the state, a block from another one, and three blocks from Cornish. :) We even have a comfy pull-out sofa bed (memory foam mattress). But, taking someone in is a
huge life decision.
We can hardly take care of our dog! Hah. She's so poorly-behaved around other dogs, it's sad. :( One of the things we're working on, actually.
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We had that discussion last night. We considered dropping Amazon Prime, so we looked through our orders, and its cost is offset by the convenience, so we feel it is necessary. Living a car-free life has its challenges, one of which being shopping. Without Prime, we would have to order at least $49 worth of items at a time, and much of what we get is not on Subscribe-and-Save for decent prices.
This morning, I found an alternative to Adobe CC (which provides Photoshop and Lightroom). I only use Lightroom. Turns out, Apple's new Photos app does everything that I use Lightroom for! And it's actually faster! Bye-bye Adobe CC! :) What I am losing from having an Adobe CC account is their free portfolio service. But since I'm not looking to expand my equipment, I'm also not looking to develop a portfolio. I do this for fun, and post to flickr and Instagram, both of which are free.
EDIT: I forgot that I paid for the full one-year subscription. So I am going to cancel the renewal (May 2017), and will either continue to use Lightroom, or I'll just transition over to Photos. If I full-out cancel my subscription, I will be charged 50% ($44) of my remaining plan price. There is also the option to continue using the plan, but receive 60 days free (pushing the renewal date to July 2017). I selected this option, as it's safest. I will not budget for any renewal, however.
Waldorf is hard. I called the school district yesterday and they don't even have our daughter on file even though I sent the registration paperwork on January 10th... So I have to resubmit everything. >.< It's looking like we will continue her through this next year of Waldorf.
Thanks again to everyone! :)