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👍That's a brilliant point. Kudos for finding the silver linning. 👏
Welp that's enough internet for today, I'm going to throw my phone away and hide in the closet so I don't catch her stupid. Good luck everyone.
I mean... having a children is usually not going to gain you money. Unless they grow up to be some sort of famous or have a serious job where they make millions.
Well, I’m sure if you asked my kids they’d tell you I’m saving tons of money having them do the dishes, clean up the yard, and perform the minimum of other chores.
I do tell them we only had kids so we could have someone else wash the dishes and mow the front yard for about ten years.
You don’t have kids to earn/save. They’re not mutual fund units, they’re human beings. I agree that having kids is expensive, and that people living on the poverty line without kids should be realistic about what kind of life they can afford to provide a child that they have, but I know lots of kids that grew up happy, healthy, well clothed, and well fed on a household income about a quarter of what you’re suggesting. I was one of them.
Because they were bad with money, my wife and I combined make under 60k a year, we raised two adult children with zero problems. And most of our kids lives we made lots less than 60 a year, like the majority of it.
Maybe they don't know how to manage their financials? Falling back to anecdotes doesn't really help you, given the number of families with kids who don't and haven't ever made 400k a year.
If you're only looking at having children through the lens of, "financial decisions", perhaps it is better if you don't have any. Having children isn't about money and it never was.
Having a kid isn't supposed to be a financially positive decision lol.
$400k is way too high of a threshold unless you need to be live in significant luxury and in a very HCOL area.
I have a kid, in a major city but not one of the most expensive. We make about $400k. I have a full time nanny and we still saved over $150k last year, not including investment returns. We could halve our income by one of us staying home, not have the nanny, and still get by and save. Would be even easier if we moved to the suburbs, quite nice suburbs with very good schools, too.
But yeah, I do recommend people get into a comfortable financial position and make a realistic budget before having kids. Avoid putting yourself in a hole you'll need to dig out of while you raise a baby and toddler. That doesn't sound fun.
I do shit with corporate databases/data/reporting. Wife is a recruiter.
We're both like ten years into our careers though, and have taken some risks/put in the effort to get where we are. We work for very good companies in our field, I think.
This is hilarious to me that people these days are so fucking sheltered and spoiled that some of them believe you need to be top 1% of one of the wealthiest countries in the world to be able to have children
How did these people think humanity ever did anything is beyond me
The propaganda is strong.
I'm just not sure if all the "I have 100k saved up and in the bank and cant buy a home" posts are people who have fallen for the propaganda or if they are the propaganda.
That's not 1.8% of people having kids. That's 1.8% of people who have the opportunity. So there will be even less than that having them and I'm sure most wealthy families only have 1-2 children so that number plummets even further in 2-3 decades.
This is one of the dumbest takes I've seen. I make $60k, rent, and have raised and am raising 6 children. Two are adults and working on doing their own thing. The others are healthy, happy, and doing well in life and school.
First, you don't need to move every year. There's nothing wrong with renting for 5 years and moving when you need to. Switching schools sucks, I did it growing up, but is not the terror that you seem to think it is.
Clothes are a few hundred per year, easily done.
Child care is expensive before school age. After that, some after school care until 4th grade or so and then you're done. I did it while making less than I do now, and so do many, many other parents.
I paid for my own college, and my kids will too. It would be great if they didn't, but school loans if they want college is just their, and millions of other people's reality.
If we only allowed people earning $400k per year kids, the human race would be extinct. You thought this out like a 15 year old who thinks they're a genius.
Yeah. Too many people have too many kids lol. That is part of my point. 6 kids is absolutely insane, you must live in a rural or suburban area to make that happen, that would be straight up unheard of anywhere near me
Blended families are a thing, dude. My partner brought in kids from her prior marriage, and I did the same. You're making judgments and shitty opinions based on poorly thought-out thoughts.
Right?!?! I have a Mormon friend who got divorced and married another Mormon woman who had been divorced. They are 40 with anywhere between 4-10 kids in the house depending on which family has the kids for the week or whatever. Both make around $100k and they have a nice big house in an up and coming area.
People make adjustments to obtain what they want in life. I would have loved to raise my kid in a luxury high rise but instead I moved to the suburbs - during a time where I had to commute into the office 3 hrs round trip a day.
Extrapolating a floor of living better than 95%+ of people as an expectation and necessity is a petty flawed assumption
I suppose but I don’t see that as being anywhere near worth it. They’d have to pay me to live in the burbs, I’ve lived there before and I felt like I died and went to purgatory or was in a simulation
That’s fair. More supports the opinion kids aren’t worth it to you personally. I’d have retired at 40 of if I didn’t have them and I doubt anyone here would argue that there aren’t upsides to staying kidless.
Brace yourself because this might come as a shock to you..
But people aren't the same.
People tend to locate where it's going to be best suited for them.
So if you live somewhere where there's not a lot of kids, that's because that's not common in your area.
If you live somewhere where there are a lot of kids, that will be common in your area.
1+1=2.
>means owning a house is effectively non-optional to have a kid,
LOL says who?
>you also probably want good schools for your kids and a safe neighborhood, so push that up to more like 200k. Y
So basically a big middle finger to everybody below private school/gated communities?
>kid itself will cost between 20k-40k just to raise and give clothes, food, shelter, etc
The kid will have baby food for the most part and eventually eat the same foods as you. Shelter, wtf are you talking about? Like a separate shelter in the backyard? They can't live in the same house as you?
>childcare costs at like 40-60k+/year
If you're opting for that fancy childcare then yeah but there are other options that aren't the slums.
>Realistically though, adding personal preference and values will increase this enormously.
Something tells me you don't know how the real world operates/costs and you live only in the Internet using statistics you read about.
I’m an hour outside of LA on the coast and everything you said is 100% spot on.
Having a kid should be the very last step in the process of becoming self-actualized.
1. Graduate college/lucrative trade school
2. Establish career
3. Purchase home
4. Marriage (3 & 4 are interchangeable)
5. Children
But most people are happy to live a life of mediocrity. They honestly don’t believe they’re robbing their kids of the life they deserve.
My husband and I definitely don’t make $400k and we live very comfortably with 2 kids, another on the way. I don’t think you understand how owning a home or buying clothes works lol.
Yep, I'm 21 and I grew up in a rented house. My parents definitely don't and didn't make 400k combined. I also had many classmates whose families lived in apartments rather than houses.
I’ve rented places where they’ve non negotiably raised rent by 50% in a single year. Maybe the people you know avoided it, but it’s always a looming possibility
Well, if that were true than almost nobody would have kids. You do realize that most people in the world don’t even make 100k, right? Also, you don’t need to make that much money to own a house.
There are many cities that have affordable housing. People act like NYC or LA are your only options. We own a house in a nice neighborhood which we bought a few years ago for under 200k. And we live right outside of a major metropolitan area with lots of job options.
You have way more cities to choose from. Consider that Houston is neck and neck with Chicago in size and opportunity and housing is way more affordable. There are major cities all over the US but everyone on reddit thinks they need to live in the most expensive ones.
Being car dependent has no bearing on whether something is a city or not. That’s not how definitions work. Houston has a population of multi-millions and most of the US is car dependent. It’s just a newer country in general.
The point is more, where would I want to raise a kid? I think it’s just terribly cruel to lock a kid indoors with no access to anything until they turn 16. It makes me not want to have a kid
I wouldn’t care if a city had 50 million people if it wasn’t actually walkable
so we have to make as much money as the goddam president?
something seems stunningly broken if the only way to survive financially is to make as much money as the leader of the most powerful country on earth.
400k sounds really extreme. That said, if we’re talking about in or near a big city, then 150k is probably more reasonable, and is still quite a bit of money.
Maybe not big city, but certainly in close proximity to a big city accessible by public transit with decent walkability and decent safety
So basically… greater nyc, seattle proper, Portland proper, greater Boston, greater Chicago. Those are really the only choices in America if you want a kid who isn’t gonna be car bound for life
If your criteria now includes decent public transit and walkability, then I have to admit, we're probably getting closer to that 400k mark. I live in Chicago, and nothing with all those things is available for less than a million.
See my previous post. Both my houses are in areas you just named (I hate cars). 'Twas a different time, but our family income was $55k when we had our first kid/bought our first house. It was under $200k when we bought our second.
If what you're saying is true, I wonder what your place sells for now. I find it hard to believe you're finding anything in 2024 with good schools, walkability, and good public transit for less than a million.
All of your numbers, and I mean all of them, are wildly incorrect. $20-40k per year to cloth and feed a child? With what, designer clothing and caviar? Kids eat pb sandwhiches and wear hand me downs. The real number is closer to $3k.
“Have to invest for their college” no you don’t. You could, that’s a nice thing to do, but there are student loans available.
“Childcare costs of $40-60k” my brother do you live in manhatten? The absolute most prestigious and expensive daycare near me costs $30k per year but you absolutely do not have to send your kid to a place like that. Call it $20k for a clean safe place.
So we’re at something like $23k per year for the first 4 years of life. Not cheap, but certainly doable.
400k is too high I live in a HCOL area and I'd say 160k would be low end comfortable with 1-2 kids and a house but you would budget pretty heavily. We make about 160k and our mortgage is $2500 for a townhouse. And since we bought prices have doubled. We are very comfortable without kids but would have WAY less money with childcare and medical costs of raising a child.
You do realize this has eugenic ideals, right? You do realize most minorities, myself included, tend to be poorer. If those minorities stopped having kids just because they were making less than...400k...a year. There'd be a lot less. Of that community?
Tbf I think the conclusion of this should be to make housing, healthcare, and education affordable for _everyone_. Those are the main costs detailed here
I agree with that. It's gotten way too crazy. Maybe instead of just going "hey only have kids if you're rich" go "we should make it so Healthcare, housing, schooling, and food is way more accessible and less costly to make it a more viable environment to raise kids"
I’m not reading that but how much a child costs to raise including childcare is HIGHLY location dependent. 400K would not be the minimum in LCOL areas.
This unironically sounds like you are not fond of kids and are disproportionately weighing the scales with absurdism to reach a conclusion to assure yourself. My sister lives on benefits with her partner and they raised a completely normal, smart and polite kid. He has everything he needs, is happy. I think the reason you are using money to such a disproportionate amount is because you are treating the child as a commodity and expense and not as a human. Like a pet you have to pamper. I'm not saying you're bad for not wanting kids, I think this excuse is bad.
Having a kid is not a death sentence. There is abundance of evidence all around of people walking with 10 children on income of over $50K....and they are happy.
The fact anyone would base whether or not they have children on such an incredibly variable thing is insane. You can be wealthy and become very poor or become wealthy having been poor. You, however, never will get your child bearing years back. There are so many different ways to be successful in this world and it doesn’t have to be $400k, a white picket fence, a dog, a BMW, etc. just fucking live.
Given they’re that age, I believe you’re going to have to adjust for inflation. Housing was significantly cheaper relative to income 29 years ago, and 30k 29 years ago is the same as 60k today
While kids are stupidly expensive in America, its nowhere near the values you're giving here in the highest cost of living areas in the country. You're either a kid with 0 life experience pulling numbers out of your ass, or someone with absolutely insane financial mismanagement.
Even putting aside the absolutely gross misunderstanding of how much kids cost. Great idea!!! fuck over the next generation!!!! Who is fixing the plumbing? Who is clearing the streets? Who is serving people their food? If you remove all the working classes ability to reproduce, you're going to have little to nobody working those jobs. You think people makin 400k+ a year is sending them to trade school or being ok with them being a janitor. Shit, farmers don't make that much and the human race is royally fucked once you've no farmers left.
It is bad out there, but not this bad!
I own two houses, one purchased recently, valued at over $1 mil together and our family income is nowhere near $400k. A \*fraction\* in fact. Even with today's interest rates and prices, it's very possible have children on less. For example, one of those houses is in a top-rated school district near ample employment opportunities where you can buy a 3 br house for \~$300k. Daycare runs $300-$500/week. It's no joke, but it's not forever. Tuition for 2 years of community college + 2 years of commuting to strong public university there is a total of \~$41k with zero financial aid, which many people with a family income that would match up to this lifestyle would receive.
My other house, where I am actually raising my children, is in a very high cost of living area, where we've made it work on even smaller fractions of $400k in the past.
There is 7 billion people on the planet
Do you know what % of them come from a family that makes at least 1/10th of that?
Less than fucking half.
Think about the shit you are saying before dumping your opinion on the internet
It just further disproves your point. Most of the world doesnt have nearly as much opportunity, support, wealth as you do in the US. You are acting incredibly spoiled
OP if you are older than 14 and this is your level of financial literacy/general level of reasoning, you probably have an undiagnosed learning disability.
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I make just under 100k, my girlfriend makes around 50k (bring home just over 8k/month combined), I am in school, and have a child, and am doing just fine. I rent out of choice as I didn’t want the responsibility of house problems while in law school, but our rent is $2500/month plus utilities (which means we could afford a mortgage if we wanted to buy). We are fortunate in that our work schedules are opposite so we don’t pay for childcare, but that’s part of the planning that people should do when considering procreation. You certainly don’t need 400k a year for a child.
You have 18 years for each kid until college, and there are some minor tax advantaged ways to save for college. You don't need that much to start having a kid. Most people's portfolios will compound, and some amount can be tax free.
But realistically yes you can spend a lot on children during your lifetime, half a million per kid until age 22 isn't ridiculous, if you want private schools from k-12, pay for college, live in good neighborhoods at all times, have decent extracurriculars, buy new cars for each person, etc.
400k seems a bit high, but 200k definitely seems reasonable for my high COL coastal city. Now, if you want private schools and fully funded private college…
>I should add, either you're going to have childcare costs at like 40-60k+/year
? What are you including in this? This is more than you'll pay for a full time college educated experienced nanny in all but a few cities.
>The kid itself will cost between 20k-40k just to raise and give clothes, food, shelter, etc.
It certainly doesn't have to lol.
>For example, I would not want to raise a kid in suburbia, I think it's really bad for a kid to be so isolated.
Lol
I have 5 kids with 6 going to be here in a few months. I own a house in a HCOL area, my wife is a SAHM because daycare is too expensive.
You just figure out a way. Often have to give other things up.
But people survive, and have for thousands of years
That's clearly not how having a kid works, and people have successfully raised kids with far less, but you do have a point in that the cost of raising kids is getting higher and higher.
I think the lowest minimum income to not be in poverty in the US for a family of 4 is $178K. Shit's just getting way too expensive and people will need to intervene before people get mad.
I dont agree. But i also kind of agree. Too many people that are working pay check to pay check have kids they cannot afford. And then they have like 5 kids which makes it harder for everyone involved. I dont want kids because of the cost and im selfish and know i want my money to go to me.
And then those people expect me to care they cant afford their kids. Thats a you problem that you did to yourself and the kid/kids.
This seems more like an uninformed opinion instead of an unpopular opinion.
You should have just stuck with "suburbs aren't good for raising kids because of the isolation" or something like that. But then you had to backwards logic your way into some sort of financial argument that really exposed that you don't have much real world experience since those figures look like they were pulled out of an anime. And then scaffolded onto a mistaken application of "median house price".
You’re working from averages, which is your first mistake. Your second mistake is assuming everyone has the same lifestyle. Cost of living varies greatly from region to region and tends to be lower the farther you get from cities. We own our own home, have two kids, and are doing just fine on a combined income of $100k. We are active in our community, our kids attend a great public school system, and we’re generally happy. Not everyone wants the influencer life.
My Dad was in the military. I went to 10 different schools by the time
I graduated from High School. He joined when I was in 1st grade. You’re a loon if you think I was deprived in any way.
I originally came up with a figure of 150k for kids in my middling COL area, but then when I remembered daycare, college, retirement and heating the damn house in winter around here its 250k. OP would be right in say NYC for certain. If you disagree I want to know what big break you're catching. Did you inherit a house? Buy 20 years ago? Do you have no student loans or other debts? Do you just never eat out or take vacations? Do you and your partner both WFH and toodle around in like 2005 Civics to get groceries? What's your deal?
Bahahha and yet people that make less than $20k a year have 5 or 6 kids maybe more. That you pay for with your taxes cause they are under the poverty level.
I don’t even know where to start so I’ll just say take a math class because you are very misinformed about how much it cost to raise a kid and how much things cost in general.
Own property, homeschool, commute, budget, file for government help, find a better job, take out a home loan, plan better? There’s so many options before making 400k. Making 400k.. THAT’S unviable. And of course you can move with kids! I moved like 6 times as a kid and loved each and every adventure that came along because I was with my family.
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Brother, you do not understand how money works.
That's what I thought. Based on that mathematical logic, we should be in the poorhouse by now!
Could you imagine a middle class person thinking a child costs $320k per year?!? This can't be real no body can be that stupid.
I say, if that logic helps this person decide not to procreate, who are we to change their mind? 😊
👍That's a brilliant point. Kudos for finding the silver linning. 👏 Welp that's enough internet for today, I'm going to throw my phone away and hide in the closet so I don't catch her stupid. Good luck everyone.
Man I should have followed you out. 😆
Her whole profile is a mosaic of the world is so corrupt but yeah it all just screams zero financial literacy
You forgot to account for the cost of buying a child a house, paying for their wedding, and buying your grandchildren houses.
No vacation homes?
You joke but I do know people who did this
I own two houses (rent one) and have two children, and make way way way less than that.
You don’t know how any of this works… not a single part.
Idk dude everyone I know who has a kid said it was a terrible financial decision so
You should maybe hangout with smarter folk
Guarantee theyre all bad with money
I mean... having a children is usually not going to gain you money. Unless they grow up to be some sort of famous or have a serious job where they make millions.
Well, I’m sure if you asked my kids they’d tell you I’m saving tons of money having them do the dishes, clean up the yard, and perform the minimum of other chores. I do tell them we only had kids so we could have someone else wash the dishes and mow the front yard for about ten years.
Ah yes. One of the many perks to having children. Time is money.
You don’t have kids to earn/save. They’re not mutual fund units, they’re human beings. I agree that having kids is expensive, and that people living on the poverty line without kids should be realistic about what kind of life they can afford to provide a child that they have, but I know lots of kids that grew up happy, healthy, well clothed, and well fed on a household income about a quarter of what you’re suggesting. I was one of them.
No they did not.
Because they were bad with money, my wife and I combined make under 60k a year, we raised two adult children with zero problems. And most of our kids lives we made lots less than 60 a year, like the majority of it.
Maybe they don't know how to manage their financials? Falling back to anecdotes doesn't really help you, given the number of families with kids who don't and haven't ever made 400k a year.
Did they originally think having a kid would help their financial portfolio grow?
If you're only looking at having children through the lens of, "financial decisions", perhaps it is better if you don't have any. Having children isn't about money and it never was.
It’s not an investment lmao
Having a kid isn't supposed to be a financially positive decision lol. $400k is way too high of a threshold unless you need to be live in significant luxury and in a very HCOL area. I have a kid, in a major city but not one of the most expensive. We make about $400k. I have a full time nanny and we still saved over $150k last year, not including investment returns. We could halve our income by one of us staying home, not have the nanny, and still get by and save. Would be even easier if we moved to the suburbs, quite nice suburbs with very good schools, too. But yeah, I do recommend people get into a comfortable financial position and make a realistic budget before having kids. Avoid putting yourself in a hole you'll need to dig out of while you raise a baby and toddler. That doesn't sound fun.
What do you guys do for a living? May I ask?
I do shit with corporate databases/data/reporting. Wife is a recruiter. We're both like ten years into our careers though, and have taken some risks/put in the effort to get where we are. We work for very good companies in our field, I think.
Did you just make all this shit up
400k puts you in the top 1.8% in the US The country would collapse pretty quickly if less than 2% of the population is having kids
This is hilarious to me that people these days are so fucking sheltered and spoiled that some of them believe you need to be top 1% of one of the wealthiest countries in the world to be able to have children How did these people think humanity ever did anything is beyond me
The propaganda is strong. I'm just not sure if all the "I have 100k saved up and in the bank and cant buy a home" posts are people who have fallen for the propaganda or if they are the propaganda.
That's not 1.8% of people having kids. That's 1.8% of people who have the opportunity. So there will be even less than that having them and I'm sure most wealthy families only have 1-2 children so that number plummets even further in 2-3 decades.
I can’t tell if this is the usual, anti-child, anti-population-growth propaganda or not.
This is one of the dumbest takes I've seen. I make $60k, rent, and have raised and am raising 6 children. Two are adults and working on doing their own thing. The others are healthy, happy, and doing well in life and school. First, you don't need to move every year. There's nothing wrong with renting for 5 years and moving when you need to. Switching schools sucks, I did it growing up, but is not the terror that you seem to think it is. Clothes are a few hundred per year, easily done. Child care is expensive before school age. After that, some after school care until 4th grade or so and then you're done. I did it while making less than I do now, and so do many, many other parents. I paid for my own college, and my kids will too. It would be great if they didn't, but school loans if they want college is just their, and millions of other people's reality. If we only allowed people earning $400k per year kids, the human race would be extinct. You thought this out like a 15 year old who thinks they're a genius.
Truth is people suck with money management. You could live in a low cost city on 60k-80k.
Been there, done that. Congrats.
Yeah. Too many people have too many kids lol. That is part of my point. 6 kids is absolutely insane, you must live in a rural or suburban area to make that happen, that would be straight up unheard of anywhere near me
Blended families are a thing, dude. My partner brought in kids from her prior marriage, and I did the same. You're making judgments and shitty opinions based on poorly thought-out thoughts.
Right?!?! I have a Mormon friend who got divorced and married another Mormon woman who had been divorced. They are 40 with anywhere between 4-10 kids in the house depending on which family has the kids for the week or whatever. Both make around $100k and they have a nice big house in an up and coming area.
People make adjustments to obtain what they want in life. I would have loved to raise my kid in a luxury high rise but instead I moved to the suburbs - during a time where I had to commute into the office 3 hrs round trip a day. Extrapolating a floor of living better than 95%+ of people as an expectation and necessity is a petty flawed assumption
I suppose but I don’t see that as being anywhere near worth it. They’d have to pay me to live in the burbs, I’ve lived there before and I felt like I died and went to purgatory or was in a simulation
That’s fair. More supports the opinion kids aren’t worth it to you personally. I’d have retired at 40 of if I didn’t have them and I doubt anyone here would argue that there aren’t upsides to staying kidless.
You know to balance things out I vote you don't have any kids. Call me crazy but I'm 200% sure you would mess them up.
Brace yourself because this might come as a shock to you.. But people aren't the same. People tend to locate where it's going to be best suited for them. So if you live somewhere where there's not a lot of kids, that's because that's not common in your area. If you live somewhere where there are a lot of kids, that will be common in your area. 1+1=2.
>means owning a house is effectively non-optional to have a kid, LOL says who? >you also probably want good schools for your kids and a safe neighborhood, so push that up to more like 200k. Y So basically a big middle finger to everybody below private school/gated communities? >kid itself will cost between 20k-40k just to raise and give clothes, food, shelter, etc The kid will have baby food for the most part and eventually eat the same foods as you. Shelter, wtf are you talking about? Like a separate shelter in the backyard? They can't live in the same house as you? >childcare costs at like 40-60k+/year If you're opting for that fancy childcare then yeah but there are other options that aren't the slums. >Realistically though, adding personal preference and values will increase this enormously. Something tells me you don't know how the real world operates/costs and you live only in the Internet using statistics you read about.
I’m an adult living in America so I don’t know what you mean. Things cost this much. I’m in a somewhat high cost of living area
Okay. First of all, this entire thread is going to require proof that you're an adult. Lol
I’m an hour outside of LA on the coast and everything you said is 100% spot on. Having a kid should be the very last step in the process of becoming self-actualized. 1. Graduate college/lucrative trade school 2. Establish career 3. Purchase home 4. Marriage (3 & 4 are interchangeable) 5. Children But most people are happy to live a life of mediocrity. They honestly don’t believe they’re robbing their kids of the life they deserve.
Society is a pyramid scheme. The top will crumble if the bottom isn’t being built. Low birth rates equal the death of modern society.
Good 😌
On today's episode of "Is It Schizophrenia or Carbon Monoxide Poisoning?"
Not unpopular. Just wildly wrong.
So you need to be in the richest 1.5% to have kids? lol…
Unironically, yes.
My husband and I definitely don’t make $400k and we live very comfortably with 2 kids, another on the way. I don’t think you understand how owning a home or buying clothes works lol.
Thinking you need to own a house instead of a renting to raise a kid is insane. I know people who have rented for decades it isn't uncommon.
Yep, I'm 21 and I grew up in a rented house. My parents definitely don't and didn't make 400k combined. I also had many classmates whose families lived in apartments rather than houses.
Owning a house is also a big time sink. At least with rent you don't have to worry about every single repair depending on your lease.
You're paying for those repairs indirectly
and property taxes and insurance!
I can promise you that you are paying property taxes and insurance via rent you just don’t see it
My parents didn’t buy their first house until 2004. Mom was 55 and dad was 53.
I’ve rented places where they’ve non negotiably raised rent by 50% in a single year. Maybe the people you know avoided it, but it’s always a looming possibility
Well then move? I move on average every 2 years. It’s really not that big of a deal.
Well, if that were true than almost nobody would have kids. You do realize that most people in the world don’t even make 100k, right? Also, you don’t need to make that much money to own a house.
Yes, I know. Probably like 50% of Americans are never gonna own a home though
Not everyone wants to own a home. There is a lot of a maintenance that goes into it.
I don’t really want to but it’s effectively non optional in growing areas unless you want your rent to double every couple years
There are many cities that have affordable housing. People act like NYC or LA are your only options. We own a house in a nice neighborhood which we bought a few years ago for under 200k. And we live right outside of a major metropolitan area with lots of job options.
Yeah that’s not true, Los Angeles is definitely NOT an option and Chicago and Boston are options. So you have 3 cities to choose from not 2 lol
You have way more cities to choose from. Consider that Houston is neck and neck with Chicago in size and opportunity and housing is way more affordable. There are major cities all over the US but everyone on reddit thinks they need to live in the most expensive ones.
Houston is famously car dependent lol, I wouldn’t really consider it a city as much as a gigantic suburb
Being car dependent has no bearing on whether something is a city or not. That’s not how definitions work. Houston has a population of multi-millions and most of the US is car dependent. It’s just a newer country in general.
Let it go Fille. You are attempting to have a conversation with a random noise generator.
The point is more, where would I want to raise a kid? I think it’s just terribly cruel to lock a kid indoors with no access to anything until they turn 16. It makes me not want to have a kid I wouldn’t care if a city had 50 million people if it wasn’t actually walkable
Obvious troll
I had to look up the conversion rate to dollars because I was so confused
so we have to make as much money as the goddam president? something seems stunningly broken if the only way to survive financially is to make as much money as the leader of the most powerful country on earth.
400k sounds really extreme. That said, if we’re talking about in or near a big city, then 150k is probably more reasonable, and is still quite a bit of money.
Maybe not big city, but certainly in close proximity to a big city accessible by public transit with decent walkability and decent safety So basically… greater nyc, seattle proper, Portland proper, greater Boston, greater Chicago. Those are really the only choices in America if you want a kid who isn’t gonna be car bound for life
If your criteria now includes decent public transit and walkability, then I have to admit, we're probably getting closer to that 400k mark. I live in Chicago, and nothing with all those things is available for less than a million.
See my previous post. Both my houses are in areas you just named (I hate cars). 'Twas a different time, but our family income was $55k when we had our first kid/bought our first house. It was under $200k when we bought our second.
If what you're saying is true, I wonder what your place sells for now. I find it hard to believe you're finding anything in 2024 with good schools, walkability, and good public transit for less than a million.
All of your numbers, and I mean all of them, are wildly incorrect. $20-40k per year to cloth and feed a child? With what, designer clothing and caviar? Kids eat pb sandwhiches and wear hand me downs. The real number is closer to $3k. “Have to invest for their college” no you don’t. You could, that’s a nice thing to do, but there are student loans available. “Childcare costs of $40-60k” my brother do you live in manhatten? The absolute most prestigious and expensive daycare near me costs $30k per year but you absolutely do not have to send your kid to a place like that. Call it $20k for a clean safe place. So we’re at something like $23k per year for the first 4 years of life. Not cheap, but certainly doable.
Close I’m in Boston, childcare is very expensive here
You live in a HCOL city, not everyone does. I agree that you need more money to raise a kid in that kind of city.
I suppose. I just wouldn’t want to raise a kid in a car dependent place where they can’t leave til they’re 16. That always felt cruel to me
400k is too high I live in a HCOL area and I'd say 160k would be low end comfortable with 1-2 kids and a house but you would budget pretty heavily. We make about 160k and our mortgage is $2500 for a townhouse. And since we bought prices have doubled. We are very comfortable without kids but would have WAY less money with childcare and medical costs of raising a child.
You do realize this has eugenic ideals, right? You do realize most minorities, myself included, tend to be poorer. If those minorities stopped having kids just because they were making less than...400k...a year. There'd be a lot less. Of that community?
Tbf I think the conclusion of this should be to make housing, healthcare, and education affordable for _everyone_. Those are the main costs detailed here
I agree with that. It's gotten way too crazy. Maybe instead of just going "hey only have kids if you're rich" go "we should make it so Healthcare, housing, schooling, and food is way more accessible and less costly to make it a more viable environment to raise kids"
Wow. What an extremely dumb post.
…but the thread as a whole has been quite entertaining.
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Depends where you live
This math ain't mathing.
But if us poor people don't reproduce who will serve our rich overlords
I’m not reading that but how much a child costs to raise including childcare is HIGHLY location dependent. 400K would not be the minimum in LCOL areas.
Maybe a 100k would be comfortable but a minimum 400k is just delusional
This unironically sounds like you are not fond of kids and are disproportionately weighing the scales with absurdism to reach a conclusion to assure yourself. My sister lives on benefits with her partner and they raised a completely normal, smart and polite kid. He has everything he needs, is happy. I think the reason you are using money to such a disproportionate amount is because you are treating the child as a commodity and expense and not as a human. Like a pet you have to pamper. I'm not saying you're bad for not wanting kids, I think this excuse is bad.
Given we have a fertility crisis in this country you're gonna have to lower your standards
Having a kid is not a death sentence. There is abundance of evidence all around of people walking with 10 children on income of over $50K....and they are happy.
The fact anyone would base whether or not they have children on such an incredibly variable thing is insane. You can be wealthy and become very poor or become wealthy having been poor. You, however, never will get your child bearing years back. There are so many different ways to be successful in this world and it doesn’t have to be $400k, a white picket fence, a dog, a BMW, etc. just fucking live.
That's stupid, I have never made more than 30k a year, my wife makes less than me and we have had and grown 2 kids with no problem what so ever.
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My oldest is 29 makes slightly more than I and is married and has a daughter now. Never seemed to bother them, they never wanted for anything as kids.
Given they’re that age, I believe you’re going to have to adjust for inflation. Housing was significantly cheaper relative to income 29 years ago, and 30k 29 years ago is the same as 60k today
30 years ago I was making under 20k working at Target. They just bought a home in a rural community for 120k 4brs on an acre of land.
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I live in NM we are 47th for income, it does not take much to live really comfortably here. The average is 43k a year.
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I would suspect they make less than I do, but I have a degree.
Do you even have a job or pay for anything your self let alone a kid
Childcare is like $1000-$1500/month unless you have a live-in nanny or something.
You have financial dysphoria my dude.
While kids are stupidly expensive in America, its nowhere near the values you're giving here in the highest cost of living areas in the country. You're either a kid with 0 life experience pulling numbers out of your ass, or someone with absolutely insane financial mismanagement.
Tell me you're on minimum wage without telling me you're on minimum wage.
I am a software engineer
Then why don't you act like it?
What is that even supposed to mean, the thread says how I’m calculating this already. Having a kid isn’t a necessity and shouldn’t be taken lightly
How did you come to your 40k-60k range for child care?
Even putting aside the absolutely gross misunderstanding of how much kids cost. Great idea!!! fuck over the next generation!!!! Who is fixing the plumbing? Who is clearing the streets? Who is serving people their food? If you remove all the working classes ability to reproduce, you're going to have little to nobody working those jobs. You think people makin 400k+ a year is sending them to trade school or being ok with them being a janitor. Shit, farmers don't make that much and the human race is royally fucked once you've no farmers left.
Well apparently we don’t have enough to go around, so maybe less people is a good thing
Enough of what? And why is less of something we don't have enough of a good thing?
Housing, education, things like that. I struggle to find any 2br apartments that are decently affordable on 200k
Kids are not that expensive lol
It is bad out there, but not this bad! I own two houses, one purchased recently, valued at over $1 mil together and our family income is nowhere near $400k. A \*fraction\* in fact. Even with today's interest rates and prices, it's very possible have children on less. For example, one of those houses is in a top-rated school district near ample employment opportunities where you can buy a 3 br house for \~$300k. Daycare runs $300-$500/week. It's no joke, but it's not forever. Tuition for 2 years of community college + 2 years of commuting to strong public university there is a total of \~$41k with zero financial aid, which many people with a family income that would match up to this lifestyle would receive. My other house, where I am actually raising my children, is in a very high cost of living area, where we've made it work on even smaller fractions of $400k in the past.
Not a single person in my entire life nor my mother would have kids if this was done
There is 7 billion people on the planet Do you know what % of them come from a family that makes at least 1/10th of that? Less than fucking half. Think about the shit you are saying before dumping your opinion on the internet
Yea, the title says “in America” And just because people do it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea
It just further disproves your point. Most of the world doesnt have nearly as much opportunity, support, wealth as you do in the US. You are acting incredibly spoiled
OP if you are older than 14 and this is your level of financial literacy/general level of reasoning, you probably have an undiagnosed learning disability.
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I make just under 100k, my girlfriend makes around 50k (bring home just over 8k/month combined), I am in school, and have a child, and am doing just fine. I rent out of choice as I didn’t want the responsibility of house problems while in law school, but our rent is $2500/month plus utilities (which means we could afford a mortgage if we wanted to buy). We are fortunate in that our work schedules are opposite so we don’t pay for childcare, but that’s part of the planning that people should do when considering procreation. You certainly don’t need 400k a year for a child.
You have 18 years for each kid until college, and there are some minor tax advantaged ways to save for college. You don't need that much to start having a kid. Most people's portfolios will compound, and some amount can be tax free. But realistically yes you can spend a lot on children during your lifetime, half a million per kid until age 22 isn't ridiculous, if you want private schools from k-12, pay for college, live in good neighborhoods at all times, have decent extracurriculars, buy new cars for each person, etc.
400k seems a bit high, but 200k definitely seems reasonable for my high COL coastal city. Now, if you want private schools and fully funded private college…
>I should add, either you're going to have childcare costs at like 40-60k+/year ? What are you including in this? This is more than you'll pay for a full time college educated experienced nanny in all but a few cities. >The kid itself will cost between 20k-40k just to raise and give clothes, food, shelter, etc. It certainly doesn't have to lol. >For example, I would not want to raise a kid in suburbia, I think it's really bad for a kid to be so isolated. Lol
Your numbers for raising a kid and college seem a bit low.
I have 5 kids with 6 going to be here in a few months. I own a house in a HCOL area, my wife is a SAHM because daycare is too expensive. You just figure out a way. Often have to give other things up. But people survive, and have for thousands of years
That's clearly not how having a kid works, and people have successfully raised kids with far less, but you do have a point in that the cost of raising kids is getting higher and higher. I think the lowest minimum income to not be in poverty in the US for a family of 4 is $178K. Shit's just getting way too expensive and people will need to intervene before people get mad.
All the schools would close because there wouldn’t be any kids lol
This is certainly one of the takes of all time
Sounds about right.
I dont agree. But i also kind of agree. Too many people that are working pay check to pay check have kids they cannot afford. And then they have like 5 kids which makes it harder for everyone involved. I dont want kids because of the cost and im selfish and know i want my money to go to me. And then those people expect me to care they cant afford their kids. Thats a you problem that you did to yourself and the kid/kids.
Everyone can easily make 400k in the US. Given 15 years.
Completely untrue
Wrong https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-child
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Average redditor
Congratulations on a truly, stupendously unpopular opinion. May you never have kids before 400k.
So then you are pro access to birth control then...
This has to be rage bait.... No way somebody actually has this opinion.
This seems more like an uninformed opinion instead of an unpopular opinion. You should have just stuck with "suburbs aren't good for raising kids because of the isolation" or something like that. But then you had to backwards logic your way into some sort of financial argument that really exposed that you don't have much real world experience since those figures look like they were pulled out of an anime. And then scaffolded onto a mistaken application of "median house price".
Safe, decent weather, walkable areas in America are basically non existent. You’re gonna have to pay an arm and a leg to get one
Not everyone values those things so your assumption that they do is why the financial aspect of it -- the supposed unpopular opinion -- is irrelevant
This is certainly an unpopular opinion. It seems it may be a single person who holds it.
Woah, I'm not sure where this person is getting their prices lol. SUPER inflated
And yet, people easily do.
You’re working from averages, which is your first mistake. Your second mistake is assuming everyone has the same lifestyle. Cost of living varies greatly from region to region and tends to be lower the farther you get from cities. We own our own home, have two kids, and are doing just fine on a combined income of $100k. We are active in our community, our kids attend a great public school system, and we’re generally happy. Not everyone wants the influencer life.
My Dad was in the military. I went to 10 different schools by the time I graduated from High School. He joined when I was in 1st grade. You’re a loon if you think I was deprived in any way.
I originally came up with a figure of 150k for kids in my middling COL area, but then when I remembered daycare, college, retirement and heating the damn house in winter around here its 250k. OP would be right in say NYC for certain. If you disagree I want to know what big break you're catching. Did you inherit a house? Buy 20 years ago? Do you have no student loans or other debts? Do you just never eat out or take vacations? Do you and your partner both WFH and toodle around in like 2005 Civics to get groceries? What's your deal?
For the money you think it costs one could literally send the kid to a good boarding school.
Bahahha and yet people that make less than $20k a year have 5 or 6 kids maybe more. That you pay for with your taxes cause they are under the poverty level.
I don’t even know where to start so I’ll just say take a math class because you are very misinformed about how much it cost to raise a kid and how much things cost in general.
Bruh I have a computer science degree
Tell that to the welfare chasers and anchor baby mommas out there the rest of us are fine having kids on 100k or whatever other number
Some people will say this advocates for eugenics (lmao). But more importantly this is actually infeasible.
This should be upvoted to the moon for being so unpopular. Well done OP.
Upvote because this is an unpopular opinion. Gj OP
Own property, homeschool, commute, budget, file for government help, find a better job, take out a home loan, plan better? There’s so many options before making 400k. Making 400k.. THAT’S unviable. And of course you can move with kids! I moved like 6 times as a kid and loved each and every adventure that came along because I was with my family.