Author Topic: When can we afford the luxury of children?  (Read 32470 times)

Mgmny

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Re: When can we afford the luxury of children?
« Reply #150 on: July 08, 2018, 08:03:44 PM »
Sorry to dig up an old topic, but to update the thread:

We're pregnant with our first child due November 30th! Our finances seem to be in order, and we are working through the 1 or 2 salary thing now. Thank's everyone for the insight and help!

We were super fortunate and got pregnant the first month we started trying, so luckily that did not become an issue for us as a lot of posters warned.

Congrats!  A couple questions -
1. Did you travel at all to Bali or Marrakesh before conceiving?  If not, I'd go ASAP while your wife is just in her second trimester.
2. Did you end up pretending that you were living on one income?

One thing I was going to suggest (thinking that this was a newer thread than it was) was to save like crazy and retire by the time you're wife is 30.  Plenty of time to save to get a good 4% SWR at your salary range and then you have two SAHP.  I guess it's too late for that!  This would have required a higher savings rate also

1. Yes! We went to Morocco last fall. It was awesome! We're tentatively planning to go to Italy in September, my wife will be 27-29 weeks, so we'll see if we end up cancelling or not.

2. We did not, but mostly because it was too much of a headache to sort out because she carried our insurance, and we bumped her 401k to the max. In hindsight, we probably should have tried harder to make it work, but now I changed jobs to an "employee" job that has benefits, no more contracting, so it's easier for us to estimate what her pay vs mine looks like.


As for your last comment, my wife is still only 23 (24 next week!), So we still have 6 years until she's 30. Right now, my best guess would be FIRE in 12-14 years, but sooner if she keeps working.

Our NW is $270k now, and we save about $5750 a month plus another $1k or so a month in employer 401k match. Our salary has dropped to $157k with my new full time role. If my wife quits working, our savings will probably drop to 2800 a month.

chrisgermany

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Re: When can we afford the luxury of children?
« Reply #151 on: July 08, 2018, 10:31:13 PM »
There was so much house talk before.
Please tell us what you did.
My guess or recommendation: stay put and wait till there is an obvious need to move.

COEE

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Re: When can we afford the luxury of children?
« Reply #152 on: July 09, 2018, 06:05:30 AM »
As for your last comment, my wife is still only 23 (24 next week!), So we still have 6 years until she's 30. Right now, my best guess would be FIRE in 12-14 years, but sooner if she keeps working.

Our NW is $270k now, and we save about $5750 a month plus another $1k or so a month in employer 401k match. Our salary has dropped to $157k with my new full time role. If my wife quits working, our savings will probably drop to 2800 a month.

I'm glad you made it to Morocco, it's a really interesting country.  I've been there as well.  Just completely different than any other place in the world.  Can you move your Italy trip forward to avoid potentially missing the opportunity to take this one last trip as DINKs?

I think you missed my point on saving a crap ton and having kids at 30.  30 is a perfectly fertile age for a woman to start conceiving a baby or two.  Then you could have both retired and both been stay at home parents.  That's water under the bridge a this point, but throwing that out there for anyone else reading.

I did some quick math - and even if you don't get a promotion or raise and you're able to save 2800/mo of your income then you should be FI around 42 or so.  So I'm getting 15 years.  About what you're calculating.  Mine is likely a little longer because I took the assumption that you'd also need a paid for house to retire early.  You're a smart guy - you can figure out how to bring these numbers in if you want, and what will push the timeline further out as well.

Bottom line is that 42 is way earlier than most, if you're happy with your savings rate/job/etc then I wouldn't change much either.  You got control of things 5 years before I did, and it shows. 

Mgmny

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Re: When can we afford the luxury of children?
« Reply #153 on: July 09, 2018, 07:59:44 AM »
There was so much house talk before.
Please tell us what you did.
My guess or recommendation: stay put and wait till there is an obvious need to move.

There is still house-talk between us, but no concrete plans. We've done a lot of updating at our current place, and right now I think we're going to stick it out here until 2021/2022 when we have our 2nd child and there is more of a "need."

We've reduced that "budget" to under $400k - ESPECIALLY if my wife becomes a SAHM sooner than later. We'll see where our parents end up. We're hoping our baby will drive her parents closer west to us, and her sister is a dating a man who lives even further west than us, so if both of their children and grandchildren end up an hour+ west of them, maybe they will move?

My brother and his wife are due 1 month after us with their first, and they live two hours north of us, so my parents have talked about moving to a more central location in the next few years as well.

So, it's all a crap shoot and everything is up in the air.

Mgmny

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Re: When can we afford the luxury of children?
« Reply #154 on: July 09, 2018, 08:27:35 AM »
As for your last comment, my wife is still only 23 (24 next week!), So we still have 6 years until she's 30. Right now, my best guess would be FIRE in 12-14 years, but sooner if she keeps working.

Our NW is $270k now, and we save about $5750 a month plus another $1k or so a month in employer 401k match. Our salary has dropped to $157k with my new full time role. If my wife quits working, our savings will probably drop to 2800 a month.

I'm glad you made it to Morocco, it's a really interesting country.  I've been there as well.  Just completely different than any other place in the world.  Can you move your Italy trip forward to avoid potentially missing the opportunity to take this one last trip as DINKs?

I think you missed my point on saving a crap ton and having kids at 30.  30 is a perfectly fertile age for a woman to start conceiving a baby or two.  Then you could have both retired and both been stay at home parents.  That's water under the bridge a this point, but throwing that out there for anyone else reading.

I did some quick math - and even if you don't get a promotion or raise and you're able to save 2800/mo of your income then you should be FI around 42 or so.  So I'm getting 15 years.  About what you're calculating.  Mine is likely a little longer because I took the assumption that you'd also need a paid for house to retire early.  You're a smart guy - you can figure out how to bring these numbers in if you want, and what will push the timeline further out as well.

Bottom line is that 42 is way earlier than most, if you're happy with your savings rate/job/etc then I wouldn't change much either.  You got control of things 5 years before I did, and it shows.

1. Morocco: SUPER awesome experience. Exactly what we were looking for!
1a. Italy: Unfortunately, no. We travel hacked it, so we used Delta miles, and moving the flights cost more miles than we have, so we are pretty much stuck either going the week we have now or cancelling and paying $300 to refund the points.

2. I tried to convince my wife about the waiting to get pregnant thing so we could be FIRE'd before hand, and she wasn't having it - her maternal drive took over, I guess. Haha. It probably didn't help that 50% of the responses on this thread scared us about infertility and told us to get moving NOW! But we're excited, and everything will work out! As you said, that ship has sailed!

3. Our savings once my wife quites: 1550 (401k) + 1,000 (Roth IRAs) + 500 (HSA) + ~500 (employer match) + ?? (529) + ?? extra house payment > $3550+ per month. I'm not 100% sure if I should count HSA towards number, because we will likely use some or all of it towards children, so that can probably be scratched. 529 probably shouldn't count towards our NW either. I try to be as conservative as possible with my planning, and I usually use a 6% return as my calculation, even though I'm 95% stocks - I would rather over estimate FIRE than underestimate. I know there's an argument about wasting time to be made about that, but it will makes me feel better. If my wife becomes SAHM, we'll be down to my $90k salary, so $36/90 = 40% savings, which isn't terrible.  Not mustachian, but not terrible either.

Thanks so much for the positive feedback COEE!! Really appreciate it!!