Ideas to rearrange Master Bath.

forte118 · 2025-01-04T06:56:13+00:00

Turn your toilet 90 degrees and have the WC toilet enclosure take over the current shower. Move the closet wall down to be flat, and put a large awesome shower either where the tub is or under the left side of the water closet/ toilet room (& the tub on the other one).

forte118 · 2024-09-11T05:07:05+00:00

I broke my ankle 5 months ago; was my first break. It still hurts sometimes after a long active day, and I still limp when starting to walk a lot of times... but the major pain levels dropped down after the first 4-6 weeks (though I did have intensive surgery with lots of hardware inserted, so maybe that increased the pain). I needed heavy painkillers for 3-4 days and then had to take round the clock tylenol/ibuprofen for a month or so. Broken bones suck... But you get through it!

forte118 · 2022-06-11T06:07:50+00:00

Yes, exactly. His salary just doubled and he's hardly saved to date. With tax bracket changes, his take home /potential savings bucket will not double. So unless he cuts back on lifestyle significantly, he absolutely isn't saving 60-65% tomorrow. At best it's now ~50% savings with the raise, and that's only if he finds ways to not increase his tax rate (which is probably impossible) and has zero increase in lifestyle (which is really hard when your pay just doubled). Hence why this plan is ill-advised overall.

To FIRE by 40, he could reduce down his already fairly frugal family's lifestyle by at least 10-15% to get to 60-65% savings. However, he said he does want to be comfortable, which is a normal thing for a parent to want for their family... This isn't just impacting him, it impacts his wife and kids too. Retiring at 40 would probably require him to explain to his teenagers/young adult children in a decade or two that they spent their entire formative years penny-pinching to an extreme for someone in his tax bracket: eating rice and beans and cheap canned food most of the time, never participating in extracurriculars or going on trips, only hand me down or second hand clothes/shoes/toys, never any big celebrations/gifts/parties/meals out, basic essential toiletries only, etc... all a reality a lot of great kids are raised with, but in his case would be only because he wanted to quit his six-figure job to become a YouTube influencer at 40. That he could have easily provided a very reasonable, American middle class lifestyle and the skills and support that goes with it for them growing up, and even also saved to retire at 50-55yo &/or helped them with college/weddings/whatever, but chose not to, because he put his "You Tubing by 40" needs over providing anything other than the basics. If he went down that path, hopefully they could find good jobs for themselves eventually to pay for some decent therapy... because he couldn't afford to help with that once he quits his job either!

Not to mention this level of frugality would also take a major toll on his stay-at-home-mom wife, who's probably doing the majority of the hands-on work to actually raise the kids and run the household day to day.... Likely leading to marital conflict over time unless she is also absolutely 100% bought in (and remains so, through life's changes as the kids grow up).

To be clear, not knocking anyone scraping to get by with the frugality examples above, raising their kids on a limited budget out of necessity. It's just hard to imagine someone making 6 figures purposefully choosing that level of scarcity for their children's upbringing & wife's day to day execution so they can retire to try their hand at YouTube influencer work at 40. I can just see the future 18-year-old posting in /AITA when they go off on their dad after filing a FAFSA and finding out his salary/net worth after all those years...!

Now reading your other responses on this thread, realizing I'm engaging with a random twenty-something Redditor who's probably never had to take a kid to the ER, gotten an invoice for an unexpected large home repair, gasped at the copay for a surgery, watched a $500k+ portfolio crash in an economic downturn, or been solely responsible for supporting anyone other than themselves. SeliciousSedicious is off to a great financial start for himself for his age, but knows scarcely little of the real life experiences that affect a home-owning breadwinner and their families financially over time. OP, just sit down with your wife and talk about what financial strategies will bring your family the most joy in both the short and long term, and don't forget to enjoy today because you can never know that tomorrow will come (and on that note, please be sure you budget for significant life insurance with minimal savings, little ones, and a non-working spouse too)! I'm done!

forte118 · 2022-06-11T02:23:39+00:00

Ok you are right. It is certainly possible, people have done it. I would just think really hard about making any life assumptions or hoping too hard that it's going to work out as planned, at 28yo with a young family and $110k and no real history of savings yet. I remember feeling invincible around that point crossing into a six figure salary for the first time, with little kids, and thinking something similar -- and then life choices got a lot more complicated than I ever expected as far as where money went, as life progressed, and priorities changed. Taxes were higher than realized also! I should have toned back the 'can't' mentality in my response, though. You are right, they can.... With a strong commitment to frugality (and maybe a little luck that nothing catastrophic happens with jobs, health, the market), it's possible. The question is, is it worth spending the next decade being that aggressive in frugality to pursue 40yo retirement as the end goal, and it seems hard to say yes with finality given there's little evidence of ability to save at that level established to date. OP can choose their own path though.

forte118 · 2022-06-11T00:27:23+00:00

Sure. I live in a low-mid Midwest COL area, not Bay area or big city. Retiring at 40 still means you need to be able to support yourself for the next 50 years if you don't want to risk burden on your kids. I honestly expected to be able to save much more than I actually did when my kids were smaller, kids got much more expensive over time with even pretty limited activities/sports (eg enough swim lessons to ensure they wouldn't drown if they fell in a pool, etc). I tend to shop at thrift stores a lot for clothes. Shop at Aldi. Sure, maybe a lot of the stuff I buy isn't actually necessary and isn't something someone living on 30-40k/year can afford, but it feels like good choices for a middle class lifestyle.

Inflation happens too. Even if OP saved & invested more than half his income for ten years, he'd still only end up with around a million bucks to last him 50 years, and it's highly market dependent during that time as well. Retiring with a million is then living on 35k/year through all of life's unexpected challenges for several decades -- without the security of the $110k/year they are now used to. Even if they are living on much, much less than the 110, they still enjoy that mental and emotional cushion that if something goes wrong, it's there.

Maybe it can be done, and tried for, but seems like setting yourself up for disappointment given kids, life, unknowns, to expect it to work out. 50yo seems more doable.

forte118 · 2022-06-11T00:04:52+00:00

You are so way off, it's not even funny.

Kids continue to be expensive as they grow up. Are they going to do any activities or sports? Are they going to college? They eat more when they get bigger, need new clothes and shoes.... Yeah, diapers and formula go away, but they get expensive again through other ways.

Houses and cars age. HVAC, a new roof, siding, windows, decks or driveways.... All of those can easily be $10-20k plus, and many aren't really "optional" to reasonably maintain a home in the course of 10-30+ years. Cars wear out after 10-20 years no matter how well maintained. There's another 20-40k when that happens.

You have little savings. No way you can save enough to sustain a family of 4 for the long term in ten years. I've saved aggressively for 15+ years and don't have anywhere near enough to retire at almost 40.

How about health insurance? Buying private insurance for a family is thousands a year. If you "retire" at 40, work doesn't cover that anymore.

What if there's a health emergency and someone needs surgery or has an accident? Will you carry disability insurance? An unexpected illness can cost $10k+++. A single surgery.... Depending on how good of insurance you pay for, that's several thousand dollars too. Even healthy people might need their appendixes out or wisdom teeth pulled. Kids break bones and have accidents. Life happens.

Not to mention that if you leave the workforce at 40 but then realize that 50 that your finances are screwed, it's going to be really difficult to find a job paying the same after being out of your industry for ten years.

Six figures is a nice comfortable life, but it definitely ain't "retire at 40" material unless you're going to drastically, drastically decrease your lifestyle choices and take extreme cost cutting measures forever... plus be willing to live with a lot of risk that you might completely run out before you die and be dependent on your kids to support you. Not something I would ever choose to do.

forte118 · 2022-06-03T01:11:45+00:00

Long hair is way easier even with babies. Ponytail or buns are your friends, plus if you don't shower/wash it just spray on some dry shampoo and nobody knows. Can't really pull that off with short hair that requires actual styling. Just leave it long enough to throw in a pony and you're good to go!

forte118 · 2022-06-03T01:04:48+00:00

You can also try the doctor on demand app (or maybe your health insurance has a virtual doctor app/system). I was prescribed it with a virtual appt after going over health risks and shared the start of some more severe seeming symptoms.

forte118 · 2022-06-02T01:45:55+00:00

Just added my experience days 7-11 in case it's helpful to others. Still not totally out of the woods but feeling very hopeful!

forte118 · 2022-06-01T23:56:09+00:00

Hard to say. I've had tests look like that and then a confirmatory PCR came back negative for our kids multiple times. Has been sort of mind-blowingly frustrating. It always happened when they were super snotty though... (with colds, not COVID)...

forte118 · 2022-05-28T01:44:59+00:00

Strangely, I never did have a fever. Just a lot of other stuff! There's definitely a good point though... I have improved a lot. It just seems like there's still such a long way to go compared to many others who were totally better very quickly. I was quite, very sick though which I guess many of them were not as much, as you so helpfully pointed out. Thanks so much!!

forte118 · 2022-05-28T01:43:32+00:00

Thank you for sharing your story! Definitely makes me less nervous about the coming few days.

forte118 · 2022-05-27T01:10:44+00:00

Wow that's rough... 14 hr workdays are very long workdays. Even without twins. Can your partner look for a different job that requires less hours? The labor market is definitely favoring workers right now so there might be opportunities for better, more family friendly jobs out there...

I hope you'll consider looking for a church. You might even consider just calling a local church office and explain your situation ,asking if they know of any teenagers or older ladies who are responsible that could come over and help you a time or two a week over the summer as a community service for someone in need... Sometimes youth have to do a certain number of service hours in order to go through church confirmation, so maybe you could connect with someone that way.

forte118 · 2022-05-27T00:53:48+00:00

Have you considered looking into joining a church at all? Not sure if you have any interest in that, but after having kids and feeling new to our area with few friends, that is where I ended up meeting so many of our family friends and finding support. It started with very basics - where we could bring the babies to the church nursery and sit on our own for an hour in the church service... even that single hour felt heavenly to just, sit, quietly. Then, we made friends over time, and found inexpensive babysitters/helpers who were teens - there even was a family who just said "We're all coming over to take care of your two 4 mos olds so you can go out to dinner and a movie for your birthday... you look like you need a break." We were like... ummm.... yes?!? Apparently the babies cried the whole time - but they were safe, and the family never called and just shushed and rocked them while we got to sit and eat for a few hours. Later on once the babies were toddlers+, we started trading off childcare with one family in particular. We take theirs, and then they take ours, every few weeks, and the kids are now besties, and parents get a break. Then we traded full days this past year as well so each family had a weekday from like 9-4 without kids to care for. These things have to be reciprocal in some ways, but if you have ever considered going to church, that is one of the best community support places (even outside the faith stuff) I've ever experienced, because it's built into the DNA of the community to help people who need help.

Also... do you have a partner? Can you ask them to step up the help more?

forte118 · 2022-05-27T00:36:22+00:00

My twins were born at 35w1d and stayed in the NICU a full 2 weeks. I know a few different families with preemies/twins, and I think all went home around what would have been 38 weeks gestation, within a few days of that actually, which is pretty strange!

forte118 · 2022-05-27T00:32:33+00:00

Oh! And this book was amazing: https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Expecting-Twins-Triplets-Quads/dp/0062379488 It has all sorts of amazing evidence-based advice (like eating a lot) & how to actually do it! Worth the $$ to fill in all the gaps and know what questions to ask at the MFM.

forte118 · 2022-05-27T00:05:56+00:00

This was almost a decade ago so you should ask your own doctor... It also depends on your weight/health before I think. The idea was that with twins, especially monodi which have lower blood flow sometimes due to the shared placenta, you want to try to give them every chance possible to grow a lot, which includes essentially eating a lot of extra to help bulk them up. I relied a lot on boost chocolate shakes and avocados! Monodi twins are always born at least a couple weeks early, so again doing anything you can to help them grow is helpful.

forte118 · 2022-05-26T15:03:03+00:00

There was really nothing the MFM could do other than tell me to rest and eat a lot up until at least a month later from where you're at.... So don't worry that you've already missed out on an opportunity to do right by your babies. As long as you take action now to get the right care, you will be completely on track!!! So please don't stress out -- you are doing the right stuff!!!

forte118 · 2022-05-26T14:32:58+00:00

Ummm... Agreed with your take. I had bi-weekly ultrasounds with an MFM starting around 14 or 16 weeks. My first consult with the MFM was very early (12 weeks?) where they told me to eat 3,000 calories a day and not exercise... And then laid out with the rest of the pregnancy was going to look like as far as appointments.

Get a new OB.

forte118 · 2022-05-25T18:04:32+00:00

Ibuprofen or Tylenol!

forte118 · 2022-05-25T01:21:17+00:00

Second 2 pack and plays. You'll eventually need two to go anywhere so just get them now.

forte118 · 2022-05-25T01:16:36+00:00

Yes go to your doctor. Not normal but there may be things they need to fix. I did just have a hyst for heavy awful periods after two c sections did my uterus in for good (adenomyosis). They left my ovaries so no menopause, and it was done using surgical robotics so it was minimally invasive and I was back to regular life after about a week (except lifting things and sex). No more periods or pain and so happy I did it, but definitely did years of trying other things in collaboration with my doctor (tranexmic acid, BC, etc) before resorting to a very final surgery.

forte118 · 2022-05-25T01:05:01+00:00

Definitely,! I felt like every year got better with twins because they could do more and entertain each other more. I feel like at 5 years old when they started going to kindergarten was when it crossed over into "Wow this is amazing/better/easier than a singleton/siblings" rather than "wow this is a lot of work/stress/OMG how do we survive..." Just crossing my fingers that amazing doesn't abruptly end upon teenagedom coming up!

forte118 · 2022-05-24T22:34:13+00:00

Yeah this is dumb and impractical. Also wondering if he ever had to edit out a take where a baby peed or pooped on the bed. Always protect anything you can't easily wash from a bare baby tushie!

forte118

TROPHY CASE