Healthy Balance | Imamother

amother

Poinsettia ↓

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 9:43 am

amother Iris wrote:

I don’t get the line about tuition. I work full time and pay $700 a month for babysitting for my baby. Tuition is around the same amount where I live (Lakewood). I started paying tuition as soon as my maternity leave ended, it’s just to a babysitter instead of the school for now.

Why would I be more able to save now than when I switch to paying $7-800 to a school?

Yeah I was thinking this as well

amother

Almond

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 10:46 am

I've seen people do it all three ways.

Some spend and get there anyway because they end up making a lot of income.

Some spend and never get to purchase a house.

Some go hard, basically save all their income and live extreme, eat at family, second hand everything, etc and buy a house very quickly (a few years).

And some go in between, which in this case you could argue that has zero pros. It drags out the can't afford to enjoy life. Most people go in between.

Its a very personal decision and has to work for your family whatever you decide.

amother

↑ Poinsettia ↓

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 11:20 am

Op you can buy past season frum style footies for $20, sometimes less

We are married 5 years and have low paying jobs. We have been slowly saving up. We are not pinching pennies because my husband is extremely into enjoying life here and now, not only saving for the future.
We buy groceries in Walmart, aldi and only chicken/meat in frum stores
We have wic which is really really helpful, it covers eggs, cereal, cheese, milk, yogurt, bread...
We rarely buy clothes for ourselves, and I shop in target or past season for our 2 kids...
We eat out for birthdays only
We don't go on vacations, visiting family costs as it is...gas, tolls, taking off work

I would say to find a balance. You like frum style footies? Buy a few for $20 vs buying the $50 ones

amother

↑ OP ↓

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 12:07 pm

amother Poinsettia wrote:

I don’t buy for $50. It’s 25-30

amother

↑ Blushpink

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 12:36 pm

amother Iris wrote:

I don’t get how anyone that isn’t earning an unusually large income is affording a house. Feels pointless to save. I’ll never be able to afford a monthly mortgage for a house unless I manage to save several hundred grand for the down payment and I’m not going to be able to do that either.

Not everyone lives in the same area where a down payment would be several hundred grand. Houses vary drastically in cost.

amother

↑ Tangerine

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 12:52 pm

Trademark wrote:

This site leans towards the penny pinching side, sometimes to the extreme.

If you can afford it, there is no reason that you always have to spend the minimum possible.

And spending the absolute minimum costs a lot of time and energy, so there is a tradeoff.

If she’s saving for a house and doesn’t have anyone gifting her money, she might need to think about penny pinching.

amother

↑ Oak

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 1:11 pm

Trademark wrote:

OP is not wiring so her time isn’t ‘billable’ Not to mention the ‘if you can afford it’ argument doesn’t jive for someone who is saying she is actively trying to save. More money on booties mean less in her savings. It’s not a matter of having it but rather is spending it in line with her goals

amother

↑ OP

Wed, Aug 28 2024, 3:59 pm

amother Iris wrote:

The reason I left work was mainly because of babysitting. I’d have been paying over 1k a month which is another tuition. Why should I work so many hours to pay tuition if I don’t have to? Rather work on finding a way to make the amount I’d come out with (or much more) while working way less hours

amother

Hyssop

Wed, Sep 04 2024, 8:35 pm

OP - we are in our late 20's early 30's and started thinking about buying a house in the same stage you are now -- when we just had a first baby and wanted to do it in the next 3-5 years. We officially closed on our house right before my oldest started pre-1a so the timing was the same. What worked for me is working backwards - I looked on Zillow for houses in the area we wanted to buy and figured at the time that I would want an $800k house so I knew I would ideally want to have $160-200k saved up. We already had wedding money but I didn't want to touch that so I essentially started from 0. I realized that we needed to save $30-50k a year to reach our goal so we made that our first priority and then anything left over is what we spent.

We both were in masters programs when I had my first and when we graduated we had saved about $15k. We then both started working full time, making 6-figures each and were able to save about $50k-$60k a year for the next 4 years and ended up having about $180k for the house. Unfortunately we were ready to buy right when prices went crazy and we got less for our money then we anticipated, but I love my house and I'm happy we sacrificed going on vacations/living in a nicer apartment so we could ultimately have a nicer house.

I'm also super picky about my kids clothes so I spent money there, but I don't really care for fancy vacations so we saved money in that way. We drove older/cheaper cars and lived in a cheap (and frankly kind of gross) apartment even though we were making $250k+. Every time I would get irritated about it, I would literally look at pictures of what I wanted to have in my dream kitchen to remind myself why we were sacrificing. In the end, it was worth it.

basically, start with the amount you want saved, and divide by the number of years you want to buy a house in and that's how much you need to save a year -- it'll give you a clear goal to work towards. It may seem like a crazy amount of money but hopefully you'll be able to increase your income to meet your goal.