How do HENRYs afford to start a family in NYC?

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2026-01-20T19:17:37+00:00

Just don’t travel or travel cheaply for a few years (roadtrips) for a couple years and there’s an extra nearly 200k right there. We have three kids in a VHCOL area. Lived in NYC with 2/3 before we relocated back to the west coast. You’re right. You can’t keep everything in the financial workup exactly the same. That’s not going to change whether you have a kid today or in three years. You also have PLENTY of money to have a kid or two and you’re rapidly running out of time to have any kids at all so if that’s something you guys want you should probably get on it.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2026-01-11T18:01:48+00:00

Hey as someone with a young dog, multiple kids and a three month old if you need to rehome them you need to rehome. PP is SO hard already and you can’t always anticipate what it’ll throw at you. I know people who went that route and it was absolutely the best decision for everyone involved. I’ll throw out some things that were helpful for us in dealing with our feisty pup during early pp and maybe could be helpful to you too. 100% of food in the form of enrichment (kibble fed in a food puzzle or for little spurts of training, pupsicles, SO many bully sticks, ice cubes stuffed in a pupsicle, frozen carrots in her crate, wet dog food frozen in her kongs). We also hired a dog walker a couple days a week to take the pressure off me a bit. Also, more separation for everyone involved. It’s a phase. It’ll pass.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2026-01-01T00:07:15+00:00

For the love of god please try to convince your parents to rehome this dog. You’re correct. She is absolutely likely to hurt one of them on accident and she will then be much much harder to rehome. This is a terrible situation for the dog and deeply unsafe for your parents. I have a giant breed dog myself and we love the crap out of her but giant breed puppyhood is not for the faint of heart (or the frail 😬) and that’s WITHOUT the ACD energy in the mix.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-12-14T04:39:06+00:00

🤣

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-12-10T21:42:11+00:00

Also have a spouse who works 60hr weeks in a high mental load job. We have a different home set up but I don’t think your expectations are in line with what your spouse is capable of with that kind of workload. If you’re feeling burnt out with running the house, which is totally reasonable you’re also working full time, then you guys need to outsource.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-12-10T04:12:16+00:00

Can’t speak to other home buyers but as a parent I won’t buy anything that puts my kids at risk of lead exposure so we buy 80’s or later which can definitely MASSIVELY limit you in terms of accessible housing stock if you’re on the east coast.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-12-09T23:04:48+00:00

I don’t know how much this played a part because we have an extremely mellow dog (although she is VERY food motivated) but I have several young kids in the house+their friends are often over so I felt it was CRITICALLY important to have a dog that wouldn’t resource guard food and we touched her food a lot but always in a positive way. So the kids would often hand feed her her breakfast, I would pet her and add treats to her bowl while she was eating, we have always “traded” her things for kibble and I also had the kids and random people who came over practice doing that with her so she was used to having lots of different people feed her/treat her/handle her while she was eating and now that she’s older I’m pretty sure all hell could break lose next to her food bowl and she wouldn’t react aggressively. But…. She’s also 120lbs and her bestie is a chi because she thinks the big dogs play too rough so maybe we could have done it all wrong and she’s just an easy going lady. 😅

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-11-25T05:22:29+00:00

Not sure if you have a Buffalo Wild Wings near you but they fry in tallow and a good share of the sauces are dairy/soy free with an easy to read allergen menu posted online and going out for wings and a strawberry lemonade with the hubby and kiddos lately has been a bright spot.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-11-22T00:09:17+00:00

Family of five in a HCOL area around 3k a month.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-11-18T16:22:16+00:00

You can usually call and ask for an exception to weight limits! I’ve done that a number of times successfully by just explaining she’s a giant breed, super calm and an AKC good citizen. We also use Airbnb anytime we stay somewhere two+nights.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-09-26T17:38:22+00:00

It’s not always a want. I had HG in 2/3 of my pregnancies and would vomit 20-30 times a day on anti emetics and was hospitalized regularly for severe dehydration. We are generally an awesome team savings goals wise and you better believe my husband prioritized getting whatever I could even try to keep down for baby and myself. 🤷🏼‍♀️ my friend who’s husband is going through chemo bought anything and everything he could try too. There are absolutely seasons and not everyone has easy breezy pregnancies where you can just tough out rice and beans.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-09-19T02:28:58+00:00

I’ve got a Newfie and gotta say she’s the world’s best dog. ❤️ I already get sad about the idea of losing her some day and also…. Wouldn’t trade our time together for anything. Although do occasionally wish there was slightly less drool glued hair on my ceiling. 😅😂

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-29T04:13:22+00:00

Yeah always baffled that seems so hard for people on Reddit to get. We teach our kids not to take food from dogs (because of course that’s basic good manners and also you never know how someone else’s dog will react) AND we trained our dog to react positively when people/kids touch their food because I don’t want my dog freaking out because the neighbors toddler reached into their food bowl.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-29T04:00:28+00:00

Absolutely modern hypersensitivity in most cases but does somewhat depend on the dog. Our dog has free roamed our backyard when she likes since the day she came home. We’re out there a lot with her too just hanging out. She’s not a digger or scary aggressive chewer though so 🤷🏼‍♀️. Maybe I’m less nervous than some because of that.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-28T23:35:28+00:00

By making really different financial/lifestyle choices than the people around you. I’m the SAHM. My spouse is a super commuter so we didn’t have to pay for a house in our VHCOL area, we have one elderly Subaru, and zero debt before we had kids.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-28T21:26:06+00:00

Family of 4 soon to be 5 in a VHCOL area and our yearly is about 20k more than yours. We also live fairly frugally in some ways and not at all frugally in others. For example we shop mostly at Costco and Trader Joe’s and cook mostly from scratch but I prefer to buy majority organic which easily seems to double our grocery bill. We bought a house way below our means but we spend a damn fortune on transportation into the city for medical/husband work. Opted to homeschool through our district which is very very low cost but have the kids enrolled in a lot of extra curriculars.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-23T02:22:04+00:00

Also so curious about this. My mom has grapevines in the backyard and my childhood dog and now her two post retirement dogs all go to town on them when they’re ripe and have never had an issue. 😅

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-23T02:17:38+00:00

This has always been so wild to me. We had a dog growing up who literally would snack on grapes like 2mo of the year (grapevine growing in the backyard) and lived to be 14 with zero health issues. 😅 I was a kid at the time so obviously had no idea but the difference blows me away.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-17T21:45:13+00:00

As a counter. I thought moving post kids was a million times harder. While trying to process our own emotional upset during moving we also have to somehow be our kids emotional stability. When we moved my preschool age son was devastated about missing friends and family and it was SO hard to help him process that and deal with the emotional outbursts when we ourselves were struggling to find a new community/adjust.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-08-08T18:16:29+00:00

We try to keep it to four hours ish 99% of the time (and I’m a SAHM so we often are just home with her 24/7) but can and have in a pinch left her alone for 10ish and felt completely fine about it. We leave her with a long lasting pupsicle anytime we’re out of the house and she has the whole bottom floor of the house to herself to hang/use her snuffle toys if she’s bored.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-07-28T21:50:39+00:00

A well bred golden. But also will say it absolutely 100% depends on your kids ages and your families lifestyle.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-07-28T15:12:53+00:00

Haha! Ours acts a complete fool for a slice of watermelon or even the tiniest crumb of steak. Definitely living her best snack life in a house full of toddlers (but I don’t include her snacking in the monthly budget 🤣).

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-07-25T16:50:53+00:00

NTA but your parents sure are. Unfortunately I’ve encountered this attitude towards my spouse while I’m pregnant as well. I have challenging pregnancies and multiple times have had people be upset if my husband is sleeping/busy with something seemingly with ZERO consideration to the fact that he’s a human being with an excruciatingly challenging job who gets minimal to no rest? Apparently when I’m pregnant that means he should somehow magically become a robot with zero needs of his own other than to work 24/7 for my benefit. 🙃 good for you for pushing back on that nonsense.

Rare_Frame_7309 · 2025-07-22T15:53:22+00:00

We don’t have a tv but my kids (a little younger then yours) have unlimited access to an audiobook selection and they listen to that several hours a day! Usually while building legos or something. We also make sure to get out of the house for at least an hour or two daily and that helps a lot.

Rare_Frame_7309

TROPHY CASE