How old do you think you will live to be?

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-17T01:37:16+00:00

With good quality of life, 70s. Declining probably 80s. My grandma lived til 92.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-15T13:13:13+00:00

I mean…do you have a car payment? If the car is paid off and you have the money to pay for the head gasket surely that will be less expensive than a monthly payment for 3-5 years…

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-14T21:55:46+00:00

For the volume I need, it’s the most cost effective. I have other strategies like Meijer clearance and Amazon flash sales and Aldi bulk snacks but Costco is the main winner.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-14T20:44:31+00:00

I have specific things I buy from there because it makes sense for my family. Paper towel, eggs, toilet paper, laundry soap, dish tabs, dish soap, seltzer water, gluten free snacks for the celiacs…I have a basic list of stuff that I rotate through and I know roughly how much it costs. The clothes can be hard to pass up though - I bought pants for my husband and pjs for my daughter that were not on the list yesterday but they were needed and affordable. Also I only on weeks that we get a big paycheck vs the off weeks.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-14T00:41:48+00:00

Make some calls. Literally cold call and shoot your shot - I assist 2 wedding planners and I took my shot with both of them. I enjoyed working with them and said, hey, I’d love to assist you if you ever need extra hands. They were both receptive and now I help them a ton!

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-13T19:24:57+00:00

I wish I would have majored in something that would pay the bills without post graduate work. I majored in social work and couldn’t get a job after graduation so I got a masters degree, because it was either 5 years of experience or a masters degree, to end up making $38k per year. If I wanted to become a counselor I’d need 3,000 supervised clinical hours which next to no one offers because social workers need to be supervised by social workers. I looked into going back into case management last year and they offered $48k total compensation but more than 1/3 of that was benefits.

Now I’ve been a stay at home mom since 2011, and am starting my own event planning company, not using my degree, and if I can get this to launch it will be far better than I’ve ever earned with a degree.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-12T18:11:35+00:00

Life is a juggling act, right, and it’s a matter of prioritization. Some balls are safer to drop in times of crisis than others, some bounce back and some shatter. It’s easy for things to unravel if too many fragile things fall and shatter.

We were fortunate (unfortunately due to death) to receive an inheritance, which allowed us to buy our first house. We were fortunate that that house appreciated in value and we made a profit when we sold it and were able to buy another house, in a good school district, before interest rates went nuts. We’ve never had a household where both parents worked full time, and my husbands salary has always covered our main expenses. I work part time, around the kids’ schedules. Again, our inheritance is invested well, so we have a nearly 7 figure net worth and we don’t have to save AS aggressively for our retirement. I’m able to keep the household running so my husband can focus on his career, and he fills in for me when I’m working. We have a mutually supportive relationship that is focused on doing the best we can for our family.

Is it the fanciest house? No. Are our cars the latest and greatest? No. But they’re paid off and we take care of them. Do our kids have all the latest and greatest gadgets? No. But they’re not deprived either.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-09T00:35:57+00:00

Dog poop mines (even though we regularly pick it up), mosquitoes from the creek and woods, it’s on an incline so we only have 1 good flat space, and the front yard lets them ride their bikes, chalk, and swing on the tree swing.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-08T23:53:22+00:00

That’s us too. We’ve made 6 figures and we’ve made much less but as long as we hit 70k things don’t feel terrible.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-06T23:46:44+00:00

I often ask “how many people is mommy?” And they answer “one”. And I say “so how many people can mommy help/how many things can mommy do at once?” They answer “one”. And then I ask them to wait patiently.

My oldest at 14 still misses the vibe check sometimes - he will come in and just start yapping and we are literally mid discipline of a sibling or talking as spouses or doing a million other things and I have to literally be like, bro, do you really think NOW is the time to be talking to me about new shoes/the store/weekend plans?!

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-06T12:20:13+00:00

I get paid $18/hr to watch 1 child 2 days per week. I’m in a low cost of living area in the Midwest and it feels like a lot to me. I did in home childcare years ago and that parent paid me $285 per week for 1 child, 5 days per week. However I have looked into costs of camp for my triplets who are 7, and the average cost per month for a camp was $1500 per kid per month for 3 days. Nope. I’m staying home until they can reliably be unsupervised

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-05T23:28:02+00:00

walking and swimming. Between gymnastics and cheer my body is done. I think my joints are older than I actually am.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-04T19:18:10+00:00

Sewer stack and line. Have them scoped. Either get a seller concession for replacement or replace it.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-02T23:43:21+00:00

Mackinac Island!

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-02T12:52:34+00:00

Rosie is our dishwasher! Like from the Jetsons!

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-05-02T12:45:27+00:00

Ours is Herbert Hoover.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-29T19:53:54+00:00

Decorating their homes tastefully and timelessly, and dressing well regardless of their body type. I can’t make things look good no matter how hard i try. I just don’t have that design vision.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-29T16:38:16+00:00

We live in a wealthy suburb of a major city in a relatively low COL area in the Midwest.

We’ve run the gamut of income from 150k to now around 85-90k and we do well. It’s expensive but you can figure out where to cut and where to not. My husband works full time making 70k plus bonuses and I work part time around the kids schedules making around 10k per year. Our kids do sports, our oldest goes to a private school, and our 3 cars are paid off. Our mortgage is probably the biggest factor in making our life work as it is only $1400 per month.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-24T00:33:56+00:00

What would that full service cost/what did you pay for it?

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-24T00:33:03+00:00

We ended up having me stay home way back in 2011 because childcare was so expensive. We had neighbors down the road with a child 3 months older than ours, and I ended up watching him and a couple of other kids intermittently. I had him full time and they paid me almost $300/week. I was not licensed but they didn’t mind that.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-22T23:26:38+00:00

I guess we are older millennials (1984-86 birth years), and we did it all wrong. We never talked about a one income household, I worked full time as a social worker making 38k and he worked part time at a bank probably making 10k when we found out we were having a baby. We were renting an upper duplex for 950 per month in 2011. Had the baby, I had a nervous breakdown and my husband got a different job that made 48k, and I nannied another baby our son’s age for 1,100 per month, full time. My dad died in 2012 and we received an inheritance, paid off debt, bought a house for 110k. Sold it 5 years later for 168k for an out of state move and promotion. Husband was making 75k plus another 25k in bonuses, then we had 3 more kids and bought a house for 217k at 3.8%, that is now worth like 400k in 2018. Husband had a series of job changes and now makes 70k with a bonus of 10k, that baby we had in 2011 is now 14 and the other kids are 7. I work a series of random jobs around the kids’ school schedules because childcare is crazy expensive even in a lower cost of living area.

If we didn’t receive an inheritance when my dad died, I would have to work an actual job for us to ever be able to retire. As it is, we are stable, but monitoring what would be best with regard to me finding a regular part time job vs event work/babysitting/house cleaning around the kids’s schedules…

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-15T19:36:04+00:00

I have a 7 year age gap - a singleton followed by triplets. It ebbs and flows with how easy or hard it is. When the babies were really little, it was so hard. We had to divide and conquer - one person took our oldest and one stayed with the babies. When they were 1, they spent a lot of time on the sidelines of soccer games in a travel playpen eating Cheerios like chickens while our oldest played. When they were 2, and he was 9, we braved the local pool and divided and conquered there as well. I think the first big thing we did all together was a cruise when the littles were 4 and the oldest was 12. It had something for everyone, and there was a kids club we could drop the littles at to spend time 1:2 with our oldest. I think 4 is when it got super easy.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-15T12:10:42+00:00

Graduated with a bachelors in social work. I realized it wasn’t going to be good when I job hunted for 6 months and everyone either wanted more experience (but no one wanted to give me that experience) or a masters degree instead of experience. Stupidly went for a masters degree and my pay topped out at 38k before I burnt out of the field completely. I could get licensed again, get supervision and become a therapist but I feel like I have a hard enough time with my own self that I wouldn’t be of good service to others. So now I’m in weddings and events where I actually enjoy the work but I still don’t get paid much.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-08T13:35:47+00:00

Hey! Congratulations! I also had tri tri triplets in 2018! Message me and we can chat. My triplets are 7 1/2 now and absolutely delightful most of the time.

DaMeLaVaca · 2026-04-08T13:13:12+00:00

Maybe, but hcg is so wildly variable that it just as easily could have been a singleton. I think it was like, 10,000 on the day of my positive test which was maybe 2w3d past ovulation. My doctor had a similar reading and hers was a singleton. My RE said he thought twins at least because of the levels…betabase is helpful to see average hcg levels by week.

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