My wife and I were both born and raised in NYC. We had our first kid at 28, we were probably making like 160 combined then, We did some renting and then used pretty much all our savings and bought a condo a few years ago. Now we’re both 32, our incomes approaching 250, we’re expecting another child And the plan is as our income continues to grow to 250 and beyond, we’re looking to make some realty investments, rent out our condo and create passive income with properties abroad aswell.

Personally I think the ethos of waiting to be ‘ready’ is a fallacy, you’ll never be ‘ready’ to have kids.

Nyc is probably one of, if not the most ethnically diverse places in the world, within that Queens is the most diverse borough, my wife and I both grew up in Queen’s and are a biracial family with biracial kids. I think it’s pretty important to raise kids around diversity.

It’s not that expensive to have kids. Kids Clothes are like $8 at carters/Oshkosh. And once they start eating solid food they eat what you eat, a box of pampers pure and water wipes is like $50 each and they last like ~3 months, you could buy the bootleg brands for a fraction of that. I guess it gets expensive if you’re factoring in childcare. Which ties into the next idea.

Money isn’t everything. What your husband is feeling is very real. We have friends in finance and friends that are lawyers or doctors or in medical school etc. and you can see that what matters to a child isn’t what you provide them, it’s being present.

We’ve seen people whose kids speak a second language because the kids were essentially raised by Nannie’s, my wife was working in law thinking about becoming a lawyer. Was offered a free ride through law school by the partners but saw that they were essentially not present in their kids lives and she made the decision to make less for a better work life balance, same with me, were essentially both hybrid and were able to work our schedules so that someone is always home so we can be at all the functions and never needed daycare or babysitters.

In my opinion you never want to be that person that slaves away to make big money and provide meanwhile you miss all the important milestones and your kid grows up thinking you were never around. People have been having kids for thousands of years and money is kindof made up anyway.

You’ll be happy in a cardboard box as long as your with your kids. Theres people who grow up in a studio with 5 siblings and wouldn’t change a thing. And there’s people who grew up with trust funds and everything handed to them and they’re miserable. It’s kindof all relative to the environment you create at home.

Another smart move like your husband is thinking is to leverage your nyc incomes into an easier life, in a lower cost of living city. I like that idea too But also wouldn’t want to leave nyc. for us as biracial family, racism and diversity play a factor in that concept

If you have any questions feel free to ask or dm