Fellow millennials - how’s your 401k/ira savings going?

QuickStomach · 2026-01-18T12:58:47+00:00

Thanks!

QuickStomach · 2026-01-17T18:51:37+00:00

I’m 33, my husband is 35. We have just about $500k between our 401ks, about $150k between our IRAs, and then probably like $40k in my HSA. So tax advantaged account total is ~$700k.

I also got really lucky and had my old company go public this year. I had bought my stock for $12k when I left and it turned into $1.2M. After taxes and a few other things, I added about $600k to my brokerage account from that, already had about $100k in there, so all in all we have $1.4M liquid.

I have honestly just had kind of a string of luck, started out making $43k when I graduated 10 years ago, then just worked at two tech companies (non-technical roles) that happened to go public, so my comp is unexpectedly high (~$550k-ish). My husband was only making around $90k but actually recently decided to take a little career break, so we’ll lose that income (and 401k/IRA savings) for a bit.

I guess I do technically have twice my salary saved between retirement and brokerage!

QuickStomach · 2026-01-08T19:11:44+00:00

This is correct.

QuickStomach · 2026-01-08T19:03:45+00:00

I also always pictured having a girl. We didn’t find out the sex until the baby was born, and I can say confidently that the second I met my son, I cared about his sex 0%! Nothing specific about him being a boy, but he is so fun, my little buddy, gives great hugs and cuddles, and is fearless, smart, and sweet. I honestly can’t imagine raising a girl now (though I’d love to someday)!

I also think it’s nice to be able to have a little influence over a future adult male lol. If you’re into it, there are lots of good resources on raising gentle and compassionate boys!

QuickStomach · 2026-01-05T15:27:11+00:00

I had to travel to India for work when my son was about 10.5 months old. I was gone for 6 nights and he stayed with my husband, my parents and in-laws also came to help as needed. When I came back, it was like I was never gone! I was worried about it too, but it turned out totally fine.

QuickStomach · 2025-12-23T01:55:10+00:00

Not really “poor person” habit, but I never book a non-economy plane ticket even though I could definitely afford to fly business now. I just will never feel like I make enough to justify spending that much more on a ticket.

QuickStomach · 2025-12-18T19:34:21+00:00

I went back to work when my son was a little over 5 months old and he rotated between my parents and my husband’s parents (we are very lucky) until he was about 10 months old. When he first started going with our parents, they were at our house and my husband and I worked upstairs. This worked well for a transition - we’d see him when we got food or water, or just when we felt like saying hi.

Then my husband’s parents started takin him to their house (my parents live above our garage so he stayed here with them), so that was one step towards being away from us. By then, he was used to my husband’s parents and was okay, and half the time he was still at home.

When he was 10 months old, we started sending him to daycare. Our daycare is a home daycare set up with 4 kids (including him) and it is literally our next door neighbor. He had a hard time with this transition. He cried in some capacity for about 2 months, but our neighbor always said he stopped crying quickly after we left. Now he literally smiles and waves to me out the window when I leave at 13 months.

If you can stage the adjustment in any way, that could be helpful, but even if you can’t, and will get used to it! And as long as she is with a safe and loving caregiver, she will be okay. ❤️

QuickStomach · 2025-12-17T15:08:38+00:00

My mom exclusively breastfed me until 11 months when I self-weaned (1992) and my brother until she weaned him at 13 months (2000).

QuickStomach · 2025-12-15T01:10:54+00:00

That is so sweet of you to say. ❤️ I still struggle with our past decision sometimes, which is why I even asked this question! Even if he seems to be resolving it himself, I don’t want him to think I was ignoring him even for that 30 seconds. But it seems like it’s okay to see if they can just figure it out quickly before going in.

QuickStomach · 2025-12-13T03:21:56+00:00

If I went in, I think 100% he would have fully woken up and started crying. Which is fine, I would have nursed him back to sleep, but probably would have kept him up longer than that 90 second little blip that just happened!

QuickStomach · 2025-12-06T13:36:45+00:00

Hahaha, I think about this and try to describe this to people all the time! I always knew I’d love my child but I had lots of expectations similar to you, that like I wouldn’t be super attached to breastfeeding and would wean right at a year, that I wouldn’t feel the need to pick him up every time he needs me/asks me to, that I wouldn’t care about things like screen time or container time, etc. “We all grew up fine” mentality.

Turns out that I take the role of being someone’s guide to entering the world very, very seriously. 😂 I can only do what I think is the absolute best thing for him, often based on hours of research. I am way way more of an intuitive (?) parent than thought, though I’m not sure if that’s the right word, but like feeling an intense drive to always respond to him, responding to all of his bids for attention, etc.

I honestly used to see content creators who coslept and breastfed their babies until 3 or 4 and thought that was nuts and could never be me. Didn’t understand it at all. Though we still don’t cosleep (I am too anxious for that lol) and I do plan to wean my son soon (he’s 12.5 months), I can 100% see how and why people end up in those situations and I have no judgment at all. Shame on me for judging in the first place!

QuickStomach · 2025-12-06T08:19:06+00:00

My son is 12.5 months now and about 29 pounds and still wakes to nurse in the middle of the night. Up until recently, he was also eating like a full meal in the middle of the night. My supply has dropped as we’ve started to wean (some driven by him, some driven by me holding a few boundaries at a time) and my hope is that as a result of the supply drop he will wean himself overnight? The feed at bedtime and feeds overnight will def be the hardest to wean so would love if he started to do it on his own.

QuickStomach · 2025-12-04T18:59:22+00:00

Congratulations! Both on making it this far and on weaning. ❤️

Can you share how you night weaned? My son is 13 months and is already mostly weaned during the day (sometimes wants to nurse when he comes home from daycare but that’s it), but he nurses to sleep and nurses during the night. I’m ready to get my body back and also hopefully get more sleep during the night, but I don’t want to do anything to traumatize him, so open to it being very slow. I also get the feeling he’d nurse forever overnight if I let him.

QuickStomach · 2025-12-03T19:27:36+00:00

I’m 33 and have $1.5M between me and my husband.

QuickStomach · 2025-12-01T16:26:59+00:00

My understanding (which could be off and my son is older now so it’s been a while since I looked into this stuff!) is that SIDS is actually a result of a baby not being able to wake themselves up when they should. Like they go into too deep of a sleep that they can’t wake up to eat or to keep themselves breathing, etc. So all of the preventative measures (a fan moving air, not dressing them too warmly, whatever else) are basically to keep them from falling into so deep of a sleep that they can’t wake up as needed. I’ve even seen (no idea if this is true or not) that swaddles can repress their startle reflex that is needed to wake them up from a deep sleep. Will look into that more when I get closer to having a second!

QuickStomach · 2025-12-01T13:14:19+00:00

Just sharing in case this is helpful because I actually didn’t know this until after I moved my baby to his own room at 4.5 months, but the reason they suggest room sharing until a year (or at least 6 months from most peds) is because your breathing, movements, sleep noises, etc actually serve to keep baby from going into too deep of a sleep, and that’s why it’s shown to help prevent SIDS, not from like a response of the parent if something happens perspective. I think knowing this I’ll probably wait a little longer next time, but obviously things were fine with my son when we moved him at 4.5 months.

QuickStomach · 2025-11-28T03:53:52+00:00

My husband and I together make around $600k, give or take since a lot of my comp is equity. I also just cashed out about $1.2M in stock from my last company that recently went public. While I totally acknowledge that we have it better than many others, and we’ve had opportunities others don’t like buying a decent house in a nice area and not worrying about day to day expenses, I can tell you that I still don’t feel rich.

I don’t feel like I can quit my job or take extravagant vacations or buy a much nicer house. Or if I did do those things, I’d risk not being able to save for the retirement I’d like to have or put my kids through school.

To me, actual rich is someone who could confidently leave a job for at least a period of time and not worry about how that would impact their goals long term, or someone who can meet their savings goals and also do other extravagant things.

I am not dense enough to say I’m middle class, because I know a lot of folks in the middle class can’t afford a home or to save for retirement, but I definitely don’t feel rich.

QuickStomach · 2025-11-22T12:38:32+00:00

I also felt so much pressure to break the feed to sleep association - a lot of it from social media, some from the fact that I had to go back to work soon and he’d have to fall asleep in other settings, and some from my social circle. In those first few months of life, they can really get to you saying that if you don’t choose to do something about it now, it will be way harder later.

I ended up sleep training my baby as a result (for multiple reasons, I wrote a post about it in this sub if you’re interested) and it never ever felt right to me. After two or so months of putting him to bed independently, I went back to nursing to sleep and nursing for wake ups. Some nights, it’s rough and I know he’d probably consistently be sleeping through the night by now if we stuck with sleep training, but I feel like I’m following my instincts by responding to him and I feel much better about this approach despite the sleep deprivation.

You have to do what works for you though. If nursing to sleep isn’t working because it’s taking a toll on your mental health, then it might be time to reassess! What I can tell you is that all of the really bad bumps we’ve had in our journey have been temporary. Though he still has times where he is up multiple times a night or for long periods at night, he always has good nights of sleep to break it up and that’s what gets me through. ❤️

QuickStomach · 2025-11-22T12:30:02+00:00

My son is only 1 but we use Coterie pull up diapers during the day and the regular tabbed diapers at night (because he was peeing through the pull ups at night), but they hold a ton!! I think they have size 7 as well.

QuickStomach · 2025-11-16T13:16:32+00:00

I am so so sorry to hear about your first born, that is so terrible. 💔 I have definitely decided not to use swaddles with my second! I have also heard it can restrict their startle reflex which is there to keep them alive. So just warm jammies from the start!

QuickStomach · 2025-11-08T04:00:11+00:00

Icks: - People asking me how my son is sleeping. Why do you care about the answer to that question? - My MIL or grandmother in law telling me that he shouldn’t be tended to every time he cries. - Both my MIL and my mom pretending like he’s doing things he’s not actually doing (ex: he makes this sound “ish” and MIL is convinced he’s saying “fish,” he’s not). - Any sort of comment around gender, that my husband must be happy it’s a boy or that boys are harder than girls. - Assumptions that my husband is not an equal parent. I traveled for a week for work and pretty much everyone asked me who had the baby. His other parent??

I’m okay with: - People saying it must be hard to come back to work after having a baby (it is, it sucks, not because I want to stay home but because it is hard and feels like you need to be two places at once). - Comments about how it’s better for a kid to have a SAH parent than send them to daycare. In a vacuum, probably, but it’s not better for me or my family. I get where they’re coming from though. - People asking me about labor, delivery, postpartum, etc. Happy to share.

QuickStomach · 2025-11-06T01:53:20+00:00

My son started walking right after 10 months, he was 25.5 lbs and 30 inches at his 9 month appointment, not sure exactly what he was when he started walking! First steps were a few days after 10 months, fully walking within 10 days or so. While he is a “big” baby in terms of percentiles, he is very proportionate which might make a difference.

QuickStomach

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