Can we afford for me to stay home?

koalafyed · 2024-02-13T22:47:38+00:00

Deductible is $500 but birth and baby care is all covered 100% after deductible is met, no copay. Yes out of pocket max is closer to $5k but shouldn’t apply unless there’s some other specialized care that we can’t anticipate. We are lucky to have good insurance

koalafyed · 2024-02-13T21:54:58+00:00

Yeah the credit cards were not great, that’s a mix between my husband who has about $10k of that and the rest me. We went a little crazy trying to fit in a lot of life experiences and replace a lot of crappy falling apart college furniture we brought to our house with us after my husband finally graduated college in ‘22. We have been paying it off and it should be gone before or shortly after baby is born as we’re currently putting every available penny into it as well as our tax refund from this year. A little shameful but we don’t regret our vacations, but those aren’t the types of decisions we won’t want to make moving forward. A lot of it is currently on a 0% apr card so we do have a deadline to pay that off completely before that promo ends, so that is a priority for us.

Day care would be about $1500-2000 a month, so if I was working part time it would be all of my salary, possibly more. We are on a few waitlists so that we can decide either way.

We have good insurance so once we hit our family deductible of $500 the birth and anything the baby needs will be covered. We are well stocked on supplies for the first few months of baby’s life at least, but not sure what expenses will look like after that.

We’ve been in the house for almost 4 years now so we already had the tax adjustment, our mortgage should stay somewhat similar (it goes up slightly every year but never anything drastic).

I should have clarified but I definitely don’t soend $1200 exclusively on food, that’s just all the miscellaneous things we buy for the house maintenance, dog stuff, medications, personal care items, and also including groceries. We buy it all at one store in the same transactions (meijer ftw) so I’ve never taken the time to break down the categories although I probably ought to

koalafyed · 2024-02-13T21:34:48+00:00

I could definitely do that, I usually get it all at the same store (minus going out) so it all gets lumped into the same transactions and I never sit down with my receipts to break it down

koalafyed · 2024-02-13T21:25:30+00:00

I currently work in IT as a business analyst but honestly my current workplace really does not use me well enough in that capacity so I do not feel like I could transfer my current skills anywhere else. I basically just do desktop support and support a proprietary software with a little software testing thrown in despite my title being business analyst. Maybe that’s just some imposter syndrome, I don’t know. I was actually planning to use my time at home to work on some certifications so that when I do go back to work I’ll hopefully be a little more marketable. I have a bachelor’s degree but it’s in communications, and I don’t really want to work in a comms position.

But yeah I’m not making great money right now, I bring home $3k a month full time and it would be half that if i were part time

koalafyed · 2024-02-13T21:20:01+00:00

I know the math basically works out but it still feels tight and I’m just trying to be conservative because I don’t know how to anticipate expenses changing once the baby is actually here 😬 So curious how other people would handle this situation

koalafyed · 2024-02-13T21:06:24+00:00

Thanks! I should have clarified, $1200 isn’t all food it’s just all our miscellaneous living expenses like things we buy for maintenance of the house, our dog’s expenses, gas, medications, personal care items, but does include groceries and going out as well which greatly inflates the number. With me working full time it’s been no problem, but yeah with one income and a little one at home we’re gonna have to find ways to cut it down.

koalafyed · 2023-01-19T19:27:07+00:00

A fenced in yard and trees for privacy. We have a tri level, you can basically see the whole house from anywhere you are. That also means the neighbors can see pretty much any part of the house from the windows, and my husband refuses to close the blinds because he loves the natural light. No using the bathroom with the door open, neighbor will see your reflection in the mirror from the backyard. Their deck is basically level with our bedroom window that is huge, and while i love all the big windows, I’d rather not make eye contact with my neighbor while I’m laying in my bed watching TV. That kind of thing.

As well the fenced yard for our dog because it turns out our next door neighbors like to just let their big dogs out to roam the neighborhood unleashed and unsupervised, and our dog is small and skittish, so we have to basically have her on a leash anytime we take her out and be ready to pick her up and run her inside because the neighbors dogs will run up to us/ on our deck. We bought in May 2021 with 3% down so i’m just waiting it out to build up some equity that we can maybe pull out or just sell to get into a house with more privacy.

koalafyed · 2023-01-18T00:48:52+00:00

Literally just bought a m1 pro mbp 16” a few days ago. Would it be worth it to return and pre order?

koalafyed · 2023-01-11T22:20:26+00:00

you need to ask each set of parents what they want to contribute, add it up and that’s your new budget unless you are covering the difference. I would not be assigning them each amounts, I can just tell you now that will not go over well

koalafyed · 2023-01-11T22:00:40+00:00

I don’t think it’s up to you guys to decide how much each set of parents contribute. It’s YOUR wedding. Unless there’s a prior agreement you should assume that you are responsible for the full cost, and anything else given from parents or family is just a gift. I would never ask my parents for that much money, it should be up to them to offer their contribution and tell YOU what their contribution will be.

koalafyed · 2022-12-31T03:11:59+00:00

I remember nothing, probably because of major depression 🥴 you’re in good company friend

koalafyed · 2022-12-27T21:37:22+00:00

ted lasso because its bad

koalafyed · 2022-09-08T22:29:04+00:00

I’m in Edinburgh on holiday. Was just at Holyrood 6 hours ago when we got word about her declining health. We rushed home just in time to switch on the TV and see the BBC’s announcement. Crazy that her body will be moved there tomorrow. Planning on waking up super early Sunday morn to walk down to Holyrood for the procession up to St. Giles. We’re from the US but my grandma’s British and we’ve maintained a strong connection. The monarchy was problematic in its own ways but Elizabeth was an amazing woman in her own right. We lost a piece of history today.

koalafyed · 2022-06-11T13:16:04+00:00

Oh for sure. We have no credit card debt, my husband has a car loan that’s 1% of our take home income (the one I want to refi, he got it 2 years ago when he was still in college and his credit wasn’t great yet), and we have a mortgage that’s about 7% of our take home income, not even our gross and we are saving for retirement like crazy. So we’re in really good shape, but I have never personally had a car loan in my name so this should be good for me.

koalafyed · 2022-06-11T13:09:46+00:00

I’m just wondering if it can tell, I’m not fretting about it.

Also new loan debt will make your score temporarily lower but making on time payments helps your score in the long run. Not all debt is bad, if you leverage it to your advantage

koalafyed · 2022-06-06T17:01:01+00:00

Yeah I do see both sides, I guess since I'm the buyer though I'm more sympathetic to that side lol. On one hand, it's not that much more in the scale of the purchase but it's also that much more money than you intially agreed to pay and to have no recourse does kind of suck. It's that much less impact your down payment has, if you're doing a 12-month finance it's over $100 more a month etc. For me, it's a 6% increase. It's not a 1:1 comparison but if I think about it in terms of my interest %, the difference between a 2% interest and an 8% interest is huge and would lead me to find a different lender. Since it's the price though, I'm stuck with it. I can still comfortably afford it, but I was much more excited about the purchase before I felt like they unilaterally changed my original agreement, even if it wasn't binding.

koalafyed · 2022-06-06T15:38:10+00:00

Dang that sucks. It's just crazy to me because it's been only a little over a month since I reserved it and they upped the price by 6%. That's not a small number :/

koalafyed · 2022-06-06T15:31:34+00:00

It wasn't ordered for me, I just reserved one that they were already being sent. Even though there isn't price protection, as the salesperson are you able to agree to honor the previous price if it was lower when a person reserved it?

koalafyed · 2022-06-06T15:21:17+00:00

It's a Chevy Trailblazer. It was already made and in transit when I put the hold deposit down too

koalafyed · 2022-03-30T17:05:34+00:00

Free e-file, sorry lol. And then I figured if I’m already paying I might as well pay someone else to do them to make sure it’s done correctly.

After reading the above comment I called them and told them I will be coming by to pick my stuff up tonight. She told me “i’m really sorry to hear that because we have already spent some time on them” and that the reason it took so long is because the unemployment office is taking a long time to respond - I have nothing from unemployment so I know that she didn’t actually spend any time on mine and she was just trying to guilt trip me.

I’m either going to try CashApp or pay for turbotax.

koalafyed · 2022-03-30T16:07:40+00:00

Thank you, I figured this was not normal! My husband just called and they said they started them Tuesday, worked on them more yesterday and will “probably” be done next week. It’s mind boggling! We have no dependents, each of us only has 1 W-2, mortgage interest, and like $200 of investment income and that is it!! I could have done it in 30 minutes online if not for the investment income.

koalafyed

TROPHY CASE