rictus58 Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 I said before that I don't have kids and that it is a choice we made for many reasons, one being the $$$ it frees up. So I'm wondering how many of the people here, before they had a child, sat down and did a budget to figure out if they actually should have a kid? I feel like that's the smart thing to do but don't know many people who actually did it. My wife and I did. Frankly, we're better off now than we were before kids. Taught us a lot financially. We used to waste a lot more money. I won't lie, a lot of out better off position came through help of family to defray childcare costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 I said before that I don't have kids and that it is a choice we made for many reasons, one being the $$$ it frees up. So I'm wondering how many of the people here, before they had a child, sat down and did a budget to figure out if they actually should have a kid? I feel like that's the smart thing to do but don't know many people who actually did it. Wife and I did this too. We had a kid 3 weeks ago, but we did the budget (with kid) 2 years ago when we bought our house. ****ing daycare is ridiculous, luckily it doesn't start for another 2 months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 15k in property taxes, Goon? Damn. Picture you rollin'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcsluggo Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Folks make lots of discretionary expenses that they cannot afford- including cars, commute, housing, kids, vacations, entertainment, vacations, eating out. Live based on what you earn, not on what your neighbors think is normal. Be weird like that. i think calling things like kids and commute extravagant discretionary expenses is kinda whack. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcsluggo Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Yah I just dropped 11k on a new hvac. Even the cheap quotes came in at $8k ...... shaddap! i have a dead furnace sitting at home right now.... with a shiny new thermocouple sitting on the floor in front of it, with a lone ray of sunshine illuminating it as THE hope for the future. what our thermocouple might look like...... . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaGoonie55 Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 15k in property taxes, Goon? Damn. Picture you rollin'. pssssht. I was looking at houses and was scoffing at 8K in King County (where seattle, Microsoft, bungie, boeing all are) No thanks. 15K? I don't have a 3.2M mansion bro - I'm slumming it up in a 2 BR duplex LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Evil Genius Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 pssssht. I was looking at houses and was scoffing at 8K in King County (where seattle, Microsoft, bungie, boeing all are) No thanks. 15K? I don't have a 3.2M mansion bro - I'm slumming it up in a 2 BR duplex LOL My bad. It was Riggo who said he had 15k in property taxes. Damn. I don't think I pay that in 4 years on a 300k house here in California. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SkinsHokieFan Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 More and more, staying in Raleigh is appealing to me. High end housing is about 40% lower (a 1M home in Falls Church can go for 600k down here) Lots of high tech companies showing up in the triangle with excellent pay. No traffic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcsluggo Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 yeah... 10 years ago our property tax was about $4k. then the house bubbled up ridiculously in value, and the tax bill rose. then the property market collapsed, and fairfax county tightened its sphincter and raised tax rates, and the tax bill raised. then the house regained its value to the pre-collapse days.... and viola!~ property tax bill is more than double what it was it is like trying to follow the pea under the walnut (and... i am honestly NOT somebody that grumbles about paying taxes in general, i think what we get from taxes are important, but it still hurts when the bill doubles! -- basically without any delta in services) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 More and more, staying in Raleigh is appealing to me. High end housing is about 40% lower (a 1M home in Falls Church can go for 600k down here) Lots of high tech companies showing up in the triangle with excellent pay. No traffic. There is 0 advantage to not living in the south nowadays. none. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vilandil Tasardur Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 And then, things like this certainly don't help. 1/5 millennial financially supporting a parent. Whew. Glad I'm not in this boat. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-5-of-millennials-financially-support-their-parents--says-new-survey-181750284.html A new study from TD Ameritrade finds that 22% of Americans are giving financial support to an aging parent or an adult child, and sometimes to both. On average, the cost is $12,000 per year, and that's on top of all the other costs of running a household. And it’s not a generational thing. “Not only are Baby Boomers helping their children,” says Matthew Sadowsky, director of retirement at TD Ameritrade, but what is surprising he says is that “Millennials and Gen Xers are financially supporting their parents and in some cases their adult children as well to a much a greater degree than [before].” So much for that "living in their parents' basement" narrative. “Roughly 20% of Millennials that we surveyed are providing financial support to their parents,” Sadowsky says. “It’s not just the case that Millennials are sitting home after college and parents are ready to get rid of them.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gamebreaker Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 I think it was me you were recalling, and I was specifically talking along the lines you are. I know quite a few people from college that are struggling because their degrees are meaningless. That's their bed to lie in. Like I said originally, I think my generation's biggest challenge is finding the jobs. Realistically, we can DEFINITELY live on 40-50k just fine (or if we can't, we're idiots). We just can't manage to land those jobs. For some, it's because the degrees are useless. But for many more, it's that there are many "adults" in their 30s that have 8-12 years of experience also looking for work, and often settling for those 40-50k jobs. I'm very blessed to not be in the traditional job market. Your post brings me back to a conversation I had with my IT Director. He was complaining about how difficult it is to find good employees. We presently need to hire around 2-3 more engineers, but everyone who applies is either grossly exaggerating their resume or their resume just doesn't meet the qualifications. There are very few college programs I've seen from schools in the DMV area that prepare students to work in my field. For the life of me, I don't understand how someone can get a degree in Information Technology and can barely explain what an IP address is. IMO, it's due to college students thinking their degree is enough and throughout their college years they didn't do any internships. They need that work experience to not get an edge, just to be in the conversation. There are two interns at my company who graduate next spring. They only make around 30k working part-time here, but it's a well-known fact my company is going to do whatever they can to retain them once they graduate. They'll be making anywhere between 70-90k. But in regards to affordability in the DMV area. I agree with the previous poster who said you make whatever you earn work. I have a wife, two kids with one more on the way, every time my wife or I get a raise or switch jobs and start earning more there always comes some new expense that eats into that disposable income. I accepted a promotion in May, almost immediately stuff in my house started breaking down. Had to replace the HVAC unit, Garage door repair, now I might have a crack in my foundation which is allowing water in the basement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 Yah I just dropped 11k on a new hvac. Even the cheap quotes came in at $8k Mine was about the same but I got this cool thermostat that I can control from my phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoony Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 Mine was about the same but I got this cool thermostat that I can control from my phone. Yah mine too it even has a Doppler radar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chipwhich Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 There is 0 advantage to not living in the south nowadays. none. I just need to pick my lake, buy a green egg, and a boat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Springfield Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 $11k that HVAC better give you a reach around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 $11k that HVAC better give you a reach around. Reach around? It's an HVAC not a stove. HVACs blow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 I said before that I don't have kids and that it is a choice we made for many reasons, one being the $$$ it frees up. So I'm wondering how many of the people here, before they had a child, sat down and did a budget to figure out if they actually should have a kid? I feel like that's the smart thing to do but don't know many people who actually did it. My wife and I waited until we were 30. Part of it was making sure we got the traveling in, part of it was making sure we could afford it. Now we wish we had done it earlier (my parents are old now, which sucks) but at the same time we recognize that we're in a significantly better position financially speaking than we were 5 years ago. Our lives will be much better/easier for it, our kid(s) will have more opportunities because of it (whether he/they take advantage of those opportunities is up to him/them, we'll see.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 Your post brings me back to a conversation I had with my IT Director. He was complaining about how difficult it is to find good employees. We presently need to hire around 2-3 more engineers, but everyone who applies is either grossly exaggerating their resume or their resume just doesn't meet the qualifications. There are very few college programs I've seen from schools in the DMV area that prepare students to work in my field. For the life of me, I don't understand how someone can get a degree in Information Technology and can barely explain what an IP address is. IMO, it's due to college students thinking their degree is enough and throughout their college years they didn't do any internships. They need that work experience to not get an edge, just to be in the conversation. You're not alone. Our company is going through the exact same thing. a good 2/3, maybe even 3/4, of the people walking around with CS/IT degrees are terrible at their job. I blame it on a few things... one that some people are good at passing classes but suck at real life implementation of the knowledge. two - people are lazy. three - the universities realized long ago that computer science was incredibly hard and they were losing out on a lot of students because they were failing out of the first programming class they had to take. they've done a lot to 'fix' this - they've changed the languages, they've changed the grading, they've pushed people through the program because... well, they make more money. it's incredibly frustrating looking for good people. we found 3 programmers last summer that are awesome. we can't figure out how we did it... pure luck i suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vilandil Tasardur Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 You're not alone. Our company is going through the exact same thing. a good 2/3, maybe even 3/4, of the people walking around with CS/IT degrees are terrible at their job. I blame it on a few things... one that some people are good at passing classes but suck at real life implementation of the knowledge. two - people are lazy. three - the universities realized long ago that computer science was incredibly hard and they were losing out on a lot of students because they were failing out of the first programming class they had to take. they've done a lot to 'fix' this - they've changed the languages, they've changed the grading, they've pushed people through the program because... well, they make more money. it's incredibly frustrating looking for good people. we found 3 programmers last summer that are awesome. we can't figure out how we did it... pure luck i suppose. This is absolutely, completely true. It's rampant in more than just IT too. Like I said, I was a biology major, and I was very close to one of my professors who taught the upper level anatomy courses. He would tell me that, ten years ago, the introductory Biology 1 and 2 (so your first year of biology) were specifically designed to weed out 60% of a given class of freshmen. These were people who desperately insisted they were "pre-med" but would never scrape more than a C in advanced science classes and therefore have no shot. This professor told me that in the last five years they'd totally redone things to keep more students moving on through the program, and thus graduating. Great for business. Terrible for all the kids that graduate with a 2.2 GPA in biology, will never make it to graduate school, and don't know what the hell to do with a bio BS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 This seems relevant to the current discussion. Tech companies like hiring liberal arts degrees: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/07/29/liberal-arts-degree-tech/ Also notably relevant to me. I would have failed miserably at a STEM degree, but here I am working as an Account Exec at an IT security startup. Just food for thought with the ever changing job market. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tshile Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 This is absolutely, completely true. It's rampant in more than just IT too. Like I said, I was a biology major, and I was very close to one of my professors who taught the upper level anatomy courses. He would tell me that, ten years ago, the introductory Biology 1 and 2 (so your first year of biology) were specifically designed to weed out 60% of a given class of freshmen. These were people who desperately insisted they were "pre-med" but would never scrape more than a C in advanced science classes and therefore have no shot. This professor told me that in the last five years they'd totally redone things to keep more students moving on through the program, and thus graduating. Great for business. Terrible for all the kids that graduate with a 2.2 GPA in biology, will never make it to graduate school, and don't know what the hell to do with a bio BS. Heh. I had to take a basic EE course as part of my major, for breadth purposes, and we had this professor from Poland. From what I could tell, he was an incredibly smart guy. Anyways, he got on a rant one time during class comparing the US higher education system to that of Poland (and more generally - the rest of the world.) Essentially he said... our system is easy and designed to just get people to pass through, and most of us wouldn't be able to hack it in the Poland university system. The crap he has to pass is completely unacceptable in his mind, but he has employers... In Poland 2/3 of us would just be kicked out of the program. His students over there could pass our classes in their sleep. Also, over 'there' their engineering programs are 5 years, not 4, because they realize how hard it is and in order to have people meet their higher standards they have to take an extra year to get through the program. I don't know how accurate all of it was, I'm sure some of it was exaggerated, but I think the core of what he was saying is likely true. It's not the only time I've heard that perspective. This stuff is going to come back to bite us in the ass one day.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PokerPacker Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 In regards to Engineering programs being 5 years versus 4, well at least at George Mason, most engineering students take at least 5 years. They've got some classes that could be a full semester unto themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PleaseBlitz Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 This seems relevant to the current discussion. Tech companies like hiring liberal arts degrees: http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/07/29/liberal-arts-degree-tech/ Also notably relevant to me. I would have failed miserably at a STEM degree, but here I am working as an Account Exec at an IT security startup. Just food for thought with the ever changing job market. Some companies need TRAINED people, some just need SMART people. Or, more accurately, companies have certain roles that can only be filled by people that have gone to school and been trained to fill that role; other roles can be done well by anyone so long as they are smart, creative and motivated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGoodBits Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 Some companies need TRAINED people, some just need SMART people. Or, more accurately, companies have certain roles that can only be filled by people that have gone to school and been trained to fill that role; other roles can be done well by anyone so long as they are smart, creative and motivated. Oh absolutely. I should note that I would suck at my job if not for the support of my incredible engineering team. I was just posting that since the common trend on ES is the idea that liberal arts degrees are worthless. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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