1. OP has spouse and at least 2 kids, so 4 people vs 1. Perhaps 4x more costs.
It think this is the biggest miss-calculation, I see on this site and it has multiple issues:
a) The cost base is actually more like 6x (so 50% higher) with 2 children for a wide variety of reasons. Obviously, some of these choices are discretionary but this is more the direction you're talking.
b) The emergency fund not only has to be bigger in absolute terms because of the above but also needs to cover a far longer duration (depending on the volatility of employment). E.g. I now run two years of net cash as I work in a volatile industry which could see a significant employment gap if I were cut.
If you go back to the original point I was highlighting that for most people I know, the expenditure line is materially higher as a family than as a singleton/couple in their late 20s. e.g the assumption in the example of the budget for a family of four is 2x the cost of a couple. This is an assumption I see on this site a lot and in my personal opinion is incorrect.
If I look at our costs from when we were in our late 20s as a couple vs today, they have more than doubled.
I'm looking at this though the lens of a male, with a wife who has transitioned to the role of homemaker (with no family near by)
I would be interested to hear from other parents as to how their expenditure patterns have changed from their pre-kids days to having 2+ children +5 years old. e.g not with a single newborn who essentially have their pre-kid lifestyle and home set up but have a baby in their room (which we did for the first 2 years).
Not sure what is happening here with the quotes
If your expenses more than double when you add kids, you're doing it wrong (TIC). Housing should not more than double. Transportation should not more than double. Food should not more than double. Looking at the expectations, poverty lines do not double from 1 to 2 or 2 to 4. USDA monthly food charts actually show a reduction in each person's additional cost as you add more. There are new line items that would not exist without children, but they for sure are not large enough to more than double pre-kid costs.
Edit: You also have to consider the tax savings with kids. I didn't take it into consideration when saying the above, but compare tax liability with and without kids and reduce their costs by the difference
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I suppose it all depends what your base is pre-kids.
An example would be, at the end of the day if you rent a room and live in a shared house (4 rooms) in an undesirable part of town (which is fine since you're out 16-18 hours a day) in order to keep rent low and maximise your saving rate through your 20s - say at $500/month, it's really not difficult to imagine a scenario where you ultimately move to a generally safer part of the city, with better public schools, and get something more than a single room.
Running some super simple math:
Pre-kid rent: $6,000pa.
Pre kid Utilities (shared house) = $400pm /4 = $100pm = $1,200pa
Post kid:Buy House: $250k
Mortgage interest = $625/month = $7,500pa
Mortgage capital (non-optional savings) = $560pm / $6,700pa
Total mortgage = $14,200pa
Property tax (1-2%) = $2,500-5,000pa
Maintenance (~1%) = $2,500pa.
Property tax/maintenance costs = $5,000-7,500
Utilities = $400pm = $4,800pa
So just using the above:
Pre kid = $7,200pa
Post Kid = $24,000 - 26,500pa or $12,000 - 13,250pa if you say 50:50 split between parents.
So best case you could argue that there is a 66% increase in housing costs, but it could be significantly more should the household go to a single income (again by choice). Through that lens, the costs go from $7,200pa pre-kids to a scenario of $26,500pa. You can decide how you want to treat the mortgage capital.
You can obviously nuance the costs with taxes, property price structures etc. but equally on the other side would be furniture costs for a full house etc. (I literally spent $500 on furniture total aged 20 to 30).
You talk about transport costs not doubling, but if you go from having close to zero costs through walking or cycling pre-kids anything other than taking those options is an additional line item or cost. There are obviously examples where people have two kids and no cars... but I'd suggest that's the exception rather than the rule (even among the MMM community) and so you're realistically in for $2-3k per year on there when you take into account car cost ($500-1,000pa), Maintenance ($400), Insurance ($1,000) and fuel ($600). Then add in kids car seats etc. is it safe? What is the opportunity cost in your life if its not reliable?
Again, there are some who will live with no car - your call but I would say the bar to owning a car with kids moves lower.
The key metric of comparison to a degree, and as highlighted above is what is your pre-kid baseline and how does that inflate (or not) post kids? Obviously if the person was renting a $3,000pm apartment downtown with their partner pre-kids then they'll probably be able to find something for a similar cost albeit in a different location. If you had a car (of some sort) pre kids then any differential will be negligible.
There was a poster higher up the thread who talked about our ability to only think one or two bands outside of our situation. And I think that this is a fantastic point. Certainly one I'm sure I'm guilty of. I don't reference poverty line charts as tbh (rightly/or wrongly) they're not a benchmark I want to measure against - that's my choice.
It's also worth noting and contextualizing all of the above in that the buffer and savings rate needs to be taken into account and again returns to that point of "operating bands". if when you take all of the above into account and it moves your savings rate from 70% to 60% then its more debatable than if if it takes your savings rate from 40% to 10%.