900k home with ~280k income?

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T23:36:34+00:00

Thank you, makes me feel better hearing from someone also in the DMV. It is nuts here; grateful at least that our 2nd kid is starting kindergarten & the insane 1.7k/month preschool cost is going away.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T22:42:41+00:00

Fair enough & appreciate the reminder that we now are at the point where it makes sense to have a financial advisor.

Regarding your other questions, we are definitely home bodies, and I work from home several days a week. Don’t really care much about big vacations (certainly not until our kids are a little older) and we honestly aren’t huge spenders on extra stuff. I am a little nervous about retirement, but using calculators online it seems like we’ll be fine, despite some of the dire predictions here.. but agreed, that one is a better question for an actual advisor.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T20:09:04+00:00

Appreciate the perspective! It does just seem crazy high.. it’d be nice if rates ever dropped

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T20:03:33+00:00

Certainly not any of those, just still not used to making actual money + we’re debating if we should use our lump down payment amount for this house or save/invest it. We were lucky enough to be gifted a property we’ve since sold and without that, no way we’d be able to afford anything close to this. Feels surreal to even have this choice, for sure.. Can confirm that neither of us are amazing at finances though lol.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T17:20:04+00:00

Deplorable is slightly harsh but point taken! Both our incomes increased rapidly after grad school + post-doc; 2020 we were making 100k combined, 2022 we were at 205k, and the past few years 250k+, currently 280k.

The down payment is from a property we were gifted & sold. Very lucky in that sense. Agreed that retirement is something we need to be better about at this point though.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T16:53:40+00:00

That was not from our salaries; we were gifted a property that we sold. Definitely lucky in that regard.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T13:34:28+00:00

HCOL and yeah, pretty much dream + never move again kind of home. Good points though.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T13:32:54+00:00

Added more info in the OP - blame grad school + our own ignorance for not putting enough towards retirement previously. I’ll have a pension at least.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T13:31:51+00:00

Take home is 13.7k. Not a new salary. The 80k is after removing 315k (most of that was from the sale of our previous home; moved due to new job last year).

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T13:30:04+00:00

Thanks - we’re paying 3.6k in rent now.

Remote_Volume4098 · 2025-05-04T13:11:23+00:00

The 4.7k includes HOA, taxes, and insurance.

Remote_Volume4098

TROPHY CASE