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@brittbrat While more expensive target date funds do tend to underperform, Vanguard is not one of them. Your portfolio is very high-risk/ high-reward. It might serve some people well, especially when tech stocks are doing well like they did in 2021 and 2023, but it’s not what I would recommend...

@sophiaaihpos It’s good to have both. You don’t want your emergency fund or car/house savings in the stock market. VFFVX is essentially a single fund that invests in stocks and bonds from all over the world. Because we are still over 30 years from 2055, it is heavily weighted towards stocks...

@sophiaaihpos This is a great fund to put your retirement savings in. Vanguard is the gold standard for target date funds. If you want to keep it simple, you could go 100% in that fund and it will serve you well. Just don’t leave retirement savings in cash/money markets which is a common mistake.

@chris0699 Yes, the same study was shared and discussed on this sub a week ago: Salary Needed to Live Comfortably – 2024 Study : r/MiddleClassFinance (reddit.com) The general consensus was that most families can live comfortably on a lot less than twice the living wage from the MIT study. I...

@maryatheseeker It looks like y'all are doing great! Only thing I saw that seemed a little high is your phone budget. With so many unlimited plans out there for $20-30/month, spending $120 for two adults seems unnecessary. Look into prepaid plans offered by US Mobile, Mint, Visible, etc and you...

@m21820 This is the correct way of thinking, but the exact ideal ratio will be impossible to predict without knowing what the tax brackets will look like in your retirement years and what your total desired retirement income is. But assuming they're about the same as they are now, your taxable...

@aletheiapraise There are too many variables to give a number that will be worth anything. Age makes a big difference. Medical costs are largely unknown before you’ve even conceived (could be perfectly health or could have serious chronic conditions). And income is also strongly correlated as...

@a83 Fair point about the mortgage, but if one of you loses your job and aren't able to find a new one quickly, the first expense you're going to drop is the daycare. And if you've actually been saving 20% of a $230k household income, it's going to take a long time before you truly can't afford...

@rachelisunique That’s exactly what they did for this “study.” They took MIT’s numbers and multiplied by 2.

@zombimansimp We're also in Kansas City and have a 4 year old and 1 year old and very similar income. You're about $100 over us in Shopping/Clothes/Baby/Home, $150 over us in Utilities/Phone/Internet, and $100 over us in gas/car insurance but the rest is almost identical. Maybe the first step...

@zombimansimp Yeah, we were in a similar boat a couple years ago. Going from a healthy margin DINK budget to a tight budget due to kids is a hard adjustment. After 1.5 years of daycare my wife decided she’d rather stay at home full time. Our savings rate still isn’t where I’d like it to be, but...

@eliasjohn lol, maybe they managed to get such a high number because the MIT study is simultaneously assuming you need to be paying for both daycare and cars for your two kids at the same time.

@prd94 Glad to hear I'm not the only one who found it odd that transportation expenses were higher than housing. I don't think that's ever been close to being true for me. My housing costs are about 3x my transportation costs right now.