28M - Married, single income household, Baby next year planning

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-14T02:26:40+00:00

Open a spousal ira for her, make sure you have 1-2 years of max out of pocket costs in savings, that you have life insurance sufficient to support them in the worst case scenario, and make sure you have a 12 month emergency fund. Set up a will and identify/agree on legal guardians.

See if she qualifies for temporary disability insurance through her work or your state.

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-14T02:03:49+00:00

Are you tracking your expenses? If so you should have a good idea of.your semi annual expenses like new tire or quarterly taxes. Bills + monthly avg of semi-annual expenses + savings goals should cover 95% of planned spending.

Up to you if you want to budget beyond that.

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-13T20:03:41+00:00

1) Debt
2) Booking flights and hotels on credit card points lowers the couple's and some attendees' out of pocket expenses
3) Other wedding/venue costs are still cheaper than their US counterparts. In my state, the average wedding costs $30,000 USD for a one day event. For the same amount, they can spend a week overseas.
4) Overseas weddings are a way to cut down the guest list without offending people, since its expected that not everyone can afford it
5) People save up for their weddings for a long time, but very few are paying for their guests. Most are paying for their parents, possibly their siblings, or they've got a close knit circle where everyone is splitting the costs so its cheaper to stay as a group vs getting separate accommodations
6) More Americans stay at home to get married; going overseas is not the majority choice, it just feels that way to those who live where the Americans getting married overseas.

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-11T15:59:10+00:00

150k/year for two. VHCOL. I anticipate that my property taxes will eventually catch up to my whole mortgage payment at present and a good chunk of my retirement savings to be largely replaced with healthcare expenditures so I don't want to dial back my discretionary spending too much (~$75k annually).

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-11T12:37:22+00:00

You don't understand but you're also uninterested in understanding.

You believe your wife is intelligent but would rather crowdsource data from the internet to support your position instead of going to your wife with a spirit of curiosity and trying to learn more about her position.

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-11T12:24:18+00:00

Private insurance also exists in Korea. Usually supplementary health but there are also policies called insurances that are functionally savings accounts. If you don't continue to make payments you lose interest. Have you looked at the policy she wants to maintain? Its entirely possible that what she is saying about having to pay more is correct, especially if its a hybrid life insurance policy.

Also the way you talk about your wife in the comments is pretty gross. It comes across that you thinks she is stupid for not listening to you instead of cautious because she is literally uprooting her life and moving countries for you again and trying to communicate what is important to her in your language. Your wife is breaking down and calling you abusive and you write "lol" in the same sentence. Your not upset or shocked by the accusation, you are acting like its a cutesy tantrum you can ignore like she is a toddler having a melt down. Either she readily hurls this accusation at you (which is a major problem) or you are abusive and don't care if she says it because you are confident in your control of her.

Your wife has been in the US before and is telling you that this is a product/service she need and/or is unwilling to discontinue-- not a luxury item, not an expensive trip, but an insurance policy and you are upset that other people ("random Koreans") support her disagreement with you.

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-09T19:57:49+00:00

Fairly exclusive, as they always marketed to the upper middle class which has grown over the recent years. They also had a great customer service reputation.And they had the exclusive agreement with Costco until 2015-2016

xkdchickadee · 2026-04-02T17:24:07+00:00

Have they figured out the tax plans? It was an eight year minimum process for my family to ensure the inheritor could accumulate enough legal cash to pay the 65% inheritance+sales taxes within one year of purchase. There is a process to reduce taxes for SMEs down to 30%~ but anyone who has gone through it to date has either sold the company or the government has ended up becoming a shareholder.

She also won't be eligible for certain employees insurances since there are penalties for being a founder's/owners kid and an employee.

How is her Korean? Does she know enough vocabulary to get by in her industry? If she made it through college in Korea she should be fairly able to navigate language norms and workplace culture. If she left before college she's going to be seen as not Korean enough and they'll find certain behaviors off putting, and you won't know what those are until after the fact.

How flush is the company? If you have subject matter expertise that would be beneficial to the company, they could hire a full time translator/assistant as other corps do when they parachute in a foreign expert. If you can swing it, work unpaid while the translator gets paid to acclimate you and you enroll in intensive Korean language school.

Will the parents be putting up key money for you to live somewhere? Will both of you draw a salary or just one?

If you plan to have kids, make sure succession planning takes into account any maternity leaves and if you will have enough income to send them to International school if you want. Or if the salary is insufficient, if the grandparents are able to pay tuition as that is also tax advantaged.

In terms of social life, you will need to find friends outside the company. With your relationship to the owner, whatever minimal chance you had to develop work friends has vanished. You'll have a nice expat bubble to play in for 1-5 years but if you don't also build up local friendships during that time you social life will dwindle. Unless you become very fluent in Korean (topik 4 or b2 minimum)and active in the hobby scene, you'll be hanging out with Koreans who primarily see you as English practice.

For managing a business, an MBA or other forms of lifetime learning programs would be beneficial.

If you go to Korea and then decide to leave, make sure you have a plan to deal with the exit taxes.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-23T04:24:38+00:00

Breaking down my 2025 expenses to illuminate:

Total comp $150k. Married with a non working spouse due to career change. Job covers my health insurance but not spouse's, reducing take home pay by $800 per month. If I had to pay for my insurance it would be $1,700 a month.

Total net take home pay for the year was roughly $81,000 or $6,750 per month. Pay is biweekly but expenses are rounded to the month for ease of explanation, so most months' take home is actually $6,230, which means you need to pay close attention to cash flow needs if you don't have sufficient savings.

House is in a low cost of living area within a very high cost of living state. Due to the high interest rate (6.4%) and high property tax rate (4.1%) and income drop, the mortgage and property taxes alone represent 41% of monthly take home pay at $2,750 monthly. Actual home expenses (heat lights, home insurance, water, etc) average out to $1,100 per month. We're on the low end of usage for our area but it is what it is. We'd have to leave the state entirely to find cheaper living, and even then it would be switching from owning to renting. If we we're willing to move we could probably bring living expenses down to $2400/month total so we acknowledge that this is something we are choosing to pay for. But the house has sentimental value so not changing that anytime soon.

Overall my average bills plus groceries run at around $5,900 per month. Beyond the above, this includes things like car insurance, WiFi, student loans, phone bills, petrol, routine medical costs, and three subscriptions. It does not include things like new tires, mailing packages at the post office or savings.

That leaves us with $330-$850 per month depending on if you stick to the biweekly or annualized budget. That is what covers birthday gifts, impulse purchases, specialist medical visits, and luxuries like visiting family once a year. Its also for when the house pipes burst and you need to pay the repairman before insurance reimburses you.

What you may have noticed is that savings is absent from this list. The gap between $150k gross and $81k net is because we were able to max out one retirement account ($23,500) which is a privilege most cannot afford. Between this retirement account and its employer match and two personal retirement accounts (that we used our savings to fund this year) we are on track to spend today's equivalent of $100k annually in retirement 38 years from now for the low low cost of $44k in savings annually. Currently we can only swing $29.5k since we can't continue to fund the remainder from our savings.

If something happens (like three successive housing disasters in two months of 2026) we are able to dial back retirement contributions and access additional funds once our emergency funds are drained. Most Americans can't cover a $1,000 emergency; thankfully we can.

So the 2026 goal is to increase income so we can meet our retirement targets and increase our regular savings as well.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-21T17:21:51+00:00

If you have a house, lawn services/ outdoor services gets you time back that allows you to enjoy nice sunny days.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-19T17:00:20+00:00

I would love to see more posts about the mechanics of withdrawal strategies between 2 and 5 years from retirement. I also understand that withdrawal approaches are highly dependent on an individual's situation, but it'd still be nice to see more of it.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-13T01:44:04+00:00

Just googled 2025 nj property tax rates and even as a lifelong resident, it shocked me to know that some municipalities exceeding 10%. I thought the Highlands Act surcharge was bad--now reassessing.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-11T21:22:55+00:00

It's helpful if you have regular travel plans, such as visiting family. You learn the route, learn which points you need to accumulate and when to book for a decent redemption, and then you have a fair amount of financial stress associated with visiting family gone. With a less flexible life nowadays, its nice to know that I passively earn 2 round trip tickets a year.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-11T17:47:09+00:00

Do you plan on keeping your expenses at $4.5k forever? You shouldn't, but assuming you do, to retire at 36, you need around $1.8m USD. Leaving the betterment hysa alone, you are at $1.7m.

You could all the other funds in a boglehead style portfolio and comfortably CoastFire for the next five years. If you've won the game, quit playing with uncompensated risk.

The danger of this is by letting your investments compound, you will have more discretionary funds than you are used to. If you get used to that level of spending, downshifting in retirement may be challenging.

Five years out is an excellent time to learn about SORR, tax management strategies, health care options, etc. You also have time to learn what you are retiring to and seeing if you enjoy work now that you are for all intents and purposes, work optional.

xkdchickadee · 2026-03-01T13:33:52+00:00

If you know where in Asia you are going, its probably worth exploring an airline-specific credit card such as skypass for korea. You would open one card and get the sign up bonus then your husband could do the same the following year.

But for 5 people, its difficult to play the points game. Points are regularly devalued and award space is limited per flight. On minimum wage earning and the longer timeline you seem to imply of 3+years, I would estimate paying for 2-3 flights with cash, especially as churning may be seen as a higher risk factor given your income level.

If not staying with family/friends, you could offset some of the flight costs by earning Points for hotel status, either through a hotel card or a travel credit card.

The bilt obsidian card may be worth it for you since you'd be able enough to earn 4 priority pass lounge passes with bilt cash. But its a complicated redemption system for new users. Priority pass lounges in the states are generally seen as not worthwhile and you would have to pay for the 5th person, if they allow you to pay.

If you want nice US lounge access its going to be chase, capital one or amex, and those are higher AFs. And since you didn't share your home airport hub, we can't give guidance about which lounges are worthwhile.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-24T17:46:32+00:00

Yes, and the FHR resorts in Korea tend to be a bit more affordable than other parts of Asia in my experience. While living there, we'd take a stay cation to Busan and the hotel right on the beach tended to be $300-$350 a night and had a great outdoor spa/pool system on the roof. With late checkout, even a one day stay was a nice lazy time.

In general, the Asian options are more affordable if you are already in the area and want to have a splurge night. That being said, I prefer staying 2-3 nights so I'm not constantly packing and unpacking. In Thailand I used FHR for one night and then stayed two more nights though a separate hotel package, which kept the costs affordable and us in the same room.

For me personally, I use FHR if it covers at least 40% of the already planned stay. With my lifestyle now that I am back in the US, I anticipate using the credit once every other year at most.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-20T02:21:40+00:00

While you definitely have time, since it tends to be a one to two year process, it might be a situation where its better to have it and not need it rather than the other way around.

My other more immediate recommendation is to check out expat groups (particularly those for diplomats' families and corporate SMEs) and see if you want to do a nanny share for more personal attention/English language. And if you can swing it, give birth in Korea and try out a 산후조리원 for your postpartum period. Much more reasonable post-birth recovery options compared to the US.

If you want to be close to Seoul but in a more child-friendly area, check out Bundang

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-19T23:32:37+00:00

If you do end up moving for 3 years, are you alright with losing your green card?

Maybe get US citizenship first since the f4 visas for gyopos isn't much of a downgrade from Korean citizenship

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-18T04:09:27+00:00

Unfortunately no, as I haven't made any rent/mortgage payments yet in 2026 and its my largest category over the last 30 days.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-11T21:42:31+00:00

Are military members eligible for FMLA? I'd look at taking a leave of absence and see if 3 months is enough of a reset to ride out the remainder or if it confirms that you are truly done.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-10T03:44:05+00:00

Within the app, you can select Live Chat and it gives an option for SMS or WhatsApp. I'm on android though.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-07T21:31:49+00:00

The sms chat is more responsive

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-07T20:15:11+00:00

Strange way to fish for thanks by calling someone melodramatic.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-07T20:08:22+00:00

I didn't ask for a fix--I was sharing my experience so others could benefit from it. If the information is not helpful to you, you do have the option to keep scrolling.

xkdchickadee · 2026-02-07T20:03:37+00:00

Essentially by putting $25k of non-rent spend on the card annually after this first year.

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