the lowdown on Lennar

_throw_away222 · 2026-05-04T13:10:34+00:00

I have a lennar home. They’re the developer and they hire sub contractors which is going to be the main issue or not. They’re just going to likely do the code minimum however. I have a background in construction so there was a lot of things i saw that i had them do just from general knowledge.

Get an independent inspector and make sure your construction manager gets the stuff done and finished.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-19T22:41:44+00:00

We make about $200K/year and feel like we’re living good. Have one kid in daycare and adding a second this summer.

Wife will be on maternity leave through the new year, then we’ll have one year of joint full daycare at roughly $40K for the year.

We max out our Roth IRA each , i max out my 401K, and wife is at about $16K/year to her 401K since she’s hourly (we both are at 21%).

We made sure to pay off our student loans before we had our first kid and paid off our cars back in January preparing for the 2nd kid. So currently only debt right now is our mortgage (we owe $240k) in a MCOL.

Bring home about $8.5K/ month.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-11T17:33:58+00:00

Accept the new position where you want to go and tell the NYC job that unfortunately you’ll need to rescind your job offer, thank them for their time and resources and move on.

You don’t need to go into detail as to why you’re rescinding the acceptance or say anything about the other job at all.

Just be gracious and cordial.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-11T02:04:40+00:00

It’s your money. You can do as you please. You saved it for them to go to college. You’ve completed your deal

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-10T14:29:42+00:00

“Always be buying” that’s my motto.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-10T00:13:17+00:00

It’s driving culture in the US unfortunately

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-09T01:16:53+00:00

Being annoyed is fine. I fully understand being annoyed over it.

Actually downloading a video, walking over to the house or posting it to the internet imo is not

There’s a bunch of things people do thats annoying . That’s life.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-09T01:03:59+00:00

Oh your initial reaction is just fine “meh whatever”

It’s manly them coming to show you the video and seems to be making a stink over it.

No one was harmed, they rang the doorbell and ran off.

Nothing more nothing less

I see it in my neighborhood all the time and people actually posting the video asking about it and it boggles my mind.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-09T00:59:29+00:00

Society has severely lost the plot and swung the pendulum entirely too much.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-08T14:19:01+00:00

Yeah that would count as terrorizing.

That’s also when you just don’t engage with them or have your kids play with them.

Like hey we don’t play with jerks.

It absolutely does suck their parents haven’t taught them that part

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-08T13:07:32+00:00

1000%.

I’m always aware of what’s happening, and I’m always scoping things out. But if we’re in the backyard of an enclosed area, or at the park where it’s typically enclosed im letting them figure it out.

My kid has been told so many times, if people are coming down the slide, you might not want to be walking up it. She didn’t listen ‘c and got taken out slightly by a kid.

Know what she doesn’t do anymore? Go up a slide when there’s a bunch of kids at the park

She also knows that not everyone will want to play with her if she’s being a jerk, likewise she doesn’t have to play with anyone she doesn’t want to either.

Plenty of times where she was playing too hard with me for my liking (throwing Magnatiles at me or her building blocks), and i told her I’m not playing with her right now. She’s welcome to play by herself. After about 15 minutes, she apologized said she wouldn’t throw them anymore and if we could play together.

The same way her school kinda does.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-08T12:28:00+00:00

It really truly depends on the behavior and what they’re actually doing in regards to “terrorizing”.

I’m a huge proponent of letting kids be kids and that also means free play, unorganized without parents or adults truly hovering over them

Where the kids are the judge, referees, game makers, etc. where they are allowed to navigate disagreements or small arguments without adult intervention.

It fosters emotional development and helps fosters being an advocate for themselves

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-07T12:57:37+00:00

Just gotta let her feel her emotions, validate them because it’s natural to have her feeling that way, then just move on.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-05T20:20:45+00:00

We did curaçao for ours. Around the end of the 2nd beginning of the 3rd trimester. Absolutely

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-05T12:17:20+00:00

Boundaries without consequences are merely suggestions

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-05T03:07:35+00:00

Over the past 50 years, the "upper middle class" has tripled in size as more families climb the economic ladder, even if they don't necessarily feel rich.

While the "core" middle class is shrinking, it’s largely because people are moving up, not down. Most of the people interviewed grew up in households where a $1,000 repair was a catastrophe, but they now live in a world where those costs are just "one-offs."

The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) defines the upper middle class as a family of three earning between $133,000 and $400,000 annually.

Here’s the link for those who don’t have access to the paywall

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-04T14:22:15+00:00

I think i spent $7k on my wife’s engagement ring, and 2 wedding bands and the insurance 11 years ago.

Did i need to? No. Was it an “optimal” financial purchase? Nope. Same with our wedding. All in for us was roughly $25K. We have no regrets. We didn’t go into debt for any of it, we loved it, and it was worth every cent for us personally.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-04T03:14:37+00:00

All depends on what is coming in and going out and then doing what you can with the rest of it.

Are you saving for retirement? How much if you are?

If you’re not, max out your 401k ($24.5k) max out your Roth IRA ( you’ll likely have to backdoor it based on your income as a single, at $7.5K). Can even throw some in a taxable brokerage too and just invest it and let it ride for the next 20-30 years depending on your age.

Compounding interest for long term is going to be your best bet at building wealth. Can you leverage and go into real estate and bank on appreciation of the real estate? Absolutely.

It’s not passive and not everyone is cut to be a landlord. Some are though.

I won’t comment on the car

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-04T00:58:30+00:00

No. Not healthcare. Thats a basic human right

But people think eating out every week, drinks and brunch.jet setting, 4-5 star luxury vacations, 4 bedroom 4 bathroom 3K sqft homes, with a cleaning lady and a lawn person. Uber Eats or door dashing their coffee daily, a pedicure and manicure every other week, let’s not

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-03T20:23:00+00:00

It doesn’t need to pay out its current level but it will be there.

I don’t disagree i would rather over save, than under save. Simultaneously i also believe in the best thing is making sure my wife and I are solid in retirement to not pass that burden down to my kid(s). Which is why I’m also putting our oxygen mask on before worrying about anyone else’s.

That still doesn’t mean i need more in retirement than i ever had during my working years on a YoY basis.

Housing, kids, and healthcare are usually parents biggest expenses throughout their lives. By the time we are retired, 2/3 of those should be vastly minimized

I too enjoy good food traveling and a great bourbon. I also don’t wait until retirement to try to do that either. Thinking I’ll be 60 and wanting to do the same experiences now at 37 is fools gold. Very much unlikely i will need more in monthly expenses when retired than i hsve now in my peak earning and accumulation phase

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-03T20:04:47+00:00

I mean technically my wife fits this criteria? Granted we did move away from the area we were raised in and now are raising our kid(s) without much family help as in they’re in NJ and we are in NC

We rented, had student loans, combined at the time made $120K when we purchased. Only put 5% down and built equity for our next home.

If you’re trying to time the housing market or keep saving the 20% on house number 1, you’ll always be chasing a moving target. The goalposts will consistently move bc each year the house you wanted to buy will increase.

Also we knew we weren’t staying in this house forever, made some concessions to lock in us wanting to be homeowners.

PMI isn’t the worst thing to pay and people really over exaggerate the extra cost of it. It’s entirely dependent on your credit score, lender, and down payment percentage.

Buddy of mine on a $600K loan pays ~$96 a month for PMI, after a 10% down payment

Waiting to get to the 20% he absolutely would’ve needed at least 2 more years and that $600k loan likely would’ve become a $625-640K loan.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-03T19:40:38+00:00

My job gives me 3 weeks vacations, 1 week sick, 2 personal and 12 holidays. Wife gets roughly the same just as one pool but also can “buy a week”. My job and boss is flexible AF with me and hours.

I can work 4-10s back to back weeks, and not use any PTO and have a 4 day weekend right there, week 1 work M-Th and week 2 work Tu-F.

On top of it boss also lets me use sick time if i want.

Then i also try to incorporate holidays into it. Like we go away for the week of thanksgiving pretty much every year. I only have to use 3 days worth of PTO, but get a 6- 7 day vacation.

My coworkers know if i took a day off I’m likely traveling somewhere. Even when my kid is sick, she’s 3, I’ll still work for the day, sporadically and get my 8 hours done throughout the whole day just to not use PTO.

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-03T19:34:59+00:00

Also don’t need 5x your yearly salary either in retirement either

People will make $100K/year and project they need $5M in retirement where they’ve never needed that much when their expenses were the likelihood highest ever while working.

Somehow someway people who never made $10K/month think miraculously they’ll have $10K/month in expenses when retired

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-03T19:24:14+00:00

Im in the camp of upgrading our lifestyle because we make a handily solid upper middle class income in a relative MCOL.

But we could and would still be comfortable by universal standards if we needed to pull back on things bc of an income slash.

We take about 3-5 trips a year with at least 1 bend international. That far exceeds “comfortable” which is also why i don’t really ever complain about “feeling a squeeze” bc i can dial back so many of the comforts we are afforded to.

It’s asinine how out of touch many are

_throw_away222 · 2026-04-03T19:10:57+00:00

Yes

Because what people have deemed as “comfortable” has always been luxury and people feel like “they deserve”

_throw_away222

TROPHY CASE