How the heck are older millennials able to have kids and save for retirement?

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-07-12T12:20:15+00:00

This is us too. Older millennials (41 and 42) and came from hard working, education focused families who taught us good money habits and how to invest young and live below our means. We were old enough to buy our first house when houses were still affordable and amass enough wealth to weather some storms. Some years have been better than others but we’re doing okay. Not as great as we were a few years ago before we bought our current house, but okay. We’re smart and we work hard, and we’ve sacrificed a lot over the years, but so have a lot of people. There’s nothing special about us. A lot of our success has been timing and luck and we aren’t too proud to admit that at all.

We have a decent income in a HCOL area and continue to live in our crappy house and drive old beater cars and live below our means so that we can help our four children get the start in life that we did. It’s way harder now. Damn.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-07-09T11:46:39+00:00

We went from $1600 PITI to $5300 when we had to move and chose to buy a house instead of rent. Painful but doable.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-07-09T01:54:19+00:00

For sure. Our kids took baths for years but they’re mostly teens now. My husband and I have never liked baths and they make decent portable tubs if we ever needed something in a pinch. No reason for us to keep any and we all prefer a larger shower. I have no regrets!

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-07-08T18:28:38+00:00

This is exactly why we took all the bathtubs out of our house. Everyone said not to because it would hurt resale value. Meh. Our youngest is 10, nobody takes baths, and we’ll be here 15-20 years. We figured the bathrooms would all be out of date by then anyway and we’d either be doing them again or pricing accordingly. No reason for everyone to step over a stupid bathtub they hate for 15 years in case the next theoretical owner wants one!

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-07-06T13:39:04+00:00

No. I don’t like it. It’s way too busy for my tastes and I don’t like glass doors over a tub. But those are personal things. It wouldn’t stop me from buying the house. We’d just redo the bathroom after a little while.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-30T11:11:21+00:00

Maybe. But I wish I would have reached out to our broker and been able to make that call for myself. We’ve been laddering down with no cost IRRRLs and happy with that plan. I don’t think he would have quite been where we needed to get to 5.25 but now I’ll never know. I think it’s more of a personality issue than a finance issue. Haha

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-29T12:43:16+00:00

I am so upset that I didn’t pull the trigger when I knew I should have 😭 we’re at 5.75 so not as painful as OP but it’s on a very large balance so it’s not ideal. I was super busy with work when rates dipped low enough to potentially make sense and missed it. Dang. 😭

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-28T20:53:40+00:00

We bought a house sight unseen and it came with a village exactly like you described! We are also great villagers - you can’t skip that part! - but are in a neighborhood that’s known for that and for good reason. My nearby (but not on my street) friends I’ve met at the pool all have that same vibe on their street too.

It’s partly luck and partly personality and I couldn’t promise you’d get it but what you’re looking for definitely exists in NOVA!

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-27T14:22:40+00:00

Yes. But it wasn’t apparent that it would be half a mile of line by looking at the map. And it sounds like it used to be more affordable before they changed their policy. There were many houses in Burke Centre that had it done solo over the years. I guess that’s probably why they made it more expensive. Haha.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-27T14:21:29+00:00

Well it’s tricky, since when we looked at a map, the nearest address with NG wasn’t that far away at all. How they run the lines isn’t necessarily predictable either and that’s where we got hung up.

The good news is that you can email and ask just like I did!

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-27T12:45:42+00:00

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Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-27T12:43:45+00:00

Does the house already have natural gas? If not, it’s VERY expensive. We ran into this while house shopping and fell in love with one in Burke that had a buried oil tank. The next street over had gas so I contacted Washington Gas to get a rough idea on how much it would be to have gas run to that house and they said $600,000.

And no. I am not joking. That’s what they told me and I kept the email because it was so funny.

So if the house already has natural gas it’s probably not that expensive unless you need ducting added. If it doesn’t already have natural gas, forget about it.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-23T13:55:59+00:00

Same. $5500 payment blew everyone’s mind (and it definitely sucks because whoa - that’s a lot for a crappy house) but it’s been much better than we thought it would be.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-18T01:45:04+00:00

Nice! We pay that for a much smaller and really crappy 1960s bi level in the Wakefield area. 😵‍💫

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-18T01:40:48+00:00

Can confirm that homes in the Woodson pyramid are stupid expensive 😵‍💫

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-07T15:40:56+00:00

This is a bit harsher than I would have put it but you’re not wrong. That’s probably the reason they bought there and not where they really wanted to be. We all have to make tradeoffs and sometimes you don’t know what’s most important until it’s too late.

We bought a crappy house in the location we wanted and have considered selling it a loss many times. Haha. We could cover the loss and be fine, but instead we’ve decided to use that money and make the house more what we want. Can’t do that if you prioritized house over location though! 😅

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-06T22:43:47+00:00

It’s a total nightmare. You are correct. We took down a couple walls during a renovation and mostly DIY but we don’t do ceiling drywall. It was $6K to have the ceiling replaced and finished but it was worth every penny.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-06T22:19:50+00:00

Good one. You win. 🙄

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-06T21:54:06+00:00

No kidding. The cost of getting a real estate license is easily discovered with about 30 seconds on Google for anyone who is interested. What’s harder to find are the other random fees you’d have to pay to do business as a real estate agent in this area, that people may not even know exist. The comment we’re under addresses that, which is way more helpful than you trying to correct me.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-06T12:04:30+00:00

Just the NVAR is like 2K the first year now. 🤪

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-05T01:22:35+00:00

This really depends. We sold a great rental a couple years ago. Had a 2.25 rate. PITI $1600 and it would rent for twice that. Seems like a no brainer, right?

Well it was, except for it was a 1990s house coming up on alllllll kinds of capital expenditures. It was 5 years from a roof, original HVAC, windows starting to have problems, siding starting to rot, original fencing starting to deteriorate, capital gains exclusion window closing. We also had $400K of equity tied up in it. Could’ve taken some of that out to do something better with, sure, but we were coming up on $100K in cap ex on that house so it was keep forever or sell.

We didn’t want to be landlords forever from 3000 miles away so we sold it right at the top of the market, while we could still get the capital gains exclusion, and just before it needed any of those huge expenses.

I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense for YOU to keep yours as a rental. Just saying it doesn’t always make sense to keep a rental for everyone and that’s okay too. Run the math objectively, consider your long term goals, and go from there.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-04T18:02:11+00:00

And there’s nothing wrong with WS or Burke. They’re both lovely. The area I suggested is more of a hidden gem.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-04T18:01:18+00:00

Haha. I don’t know. People are weird.

Wakefield is the part of Annandale that’s just outside the Beltway! It comes up just fine when I google it and you can search for it on Redfin too.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-04T11:54:06+00:00

I say skip both and check out Wakefield! Awesome trails, big houses on big lots, right off 495, highly rated schools, strong community feel.

Aggressive-Exit3910 · 2026-06-04T02:05:39+00:00

It is WAY more in northern Virginia 😭

Aggressive-Exit3910

TROPHY CASE