Hellobee Boards

I said 100k. I'm a sahm and my husband (and my at-home work) make a bit under there and it is fine for us & the area we live. I can imagine that in certain areas it wouldn't nearly be enough, but we live well within our means and don't spend much on extras but are comfortable and I'm able to stay home so I'm happy! I am very frugal in spending, and we have a lot of student loan debt we are paying on. If we were debt free, I can see us living even better (getting a 2nd car, having more discretionary spending etc). The debt is slowly whittling away, at least! Our biggest expenses are healthcare (almost $900 a month!), mortgage, and student loans.

@PurplePumps: (grr I just replied and mysteriously vanished)

But yeah, that was the cheapest we found. And it's less now that my son is 21 months. Crazy.

i said $100K because for the next 10 years, that would definitely be enough. but i live in a high cost of living area so realistically, that number would have to increase to at least $150K for DH and I to retire properly.

Right now, we make enough. Enough to pay bills, have fun, etc. When we have a kid it will definitely be tight so I voted 150K which would be ~50K more than now and would probably make us comfortable. I think one day we might get there, but probably not anytime soon.

@hellobeeboston: MA is crazy! I work part time and we pay a nanny $30k a year to watch our 2 kids just 3 days a week! Plus over $10k for preschool. I feel very fortunate to work part time, but the absurd thing is that $40k for a nanny and preschool(5 days for my older child) was the SAME price as putting my 2 kids in daycare 3 days a week ( going rate was least 125 a day per toddler). I won't even tell my parents this because it is unbelievable to me!

I hate to say it though, $100,000 in 10 years will likely not have the same buying power as it does today, so realistically, I don't think you can really say what you would need in 10 years. I think you can only really say what you would need today, in today's dollars.

@hellobeeboston: @PurplePumps: I'm in MA too. I agree with you guys, we would definitely need over 200k here in MA. We are paying over 27k for daycare (for an infant). And our daycare is one of the less expensive ones in our area. It kills me just thinking about it.

I think it's all relative to what type of life you want for your family and what the cost of living is. For instance, we live in a country with high social benefits, low cost of housing, but very high taxes, which equates to lower wages. If we moved to my hometown, wages would be much, much higher, but the cost of education, childcare, medical, dental care, housing is all higher, not to mention longer work days and shorter vacations, so it would somewhat even out.

I voted 50k - that would pay all of our bills, allow me to stay home (or put LO in daycare) and actually have a vacation every now and then. Of course, the more the merrier..but we could live our current lifestyle on 50k very, very easily.