With our first child just turning two recently, my wife wants to start trying for another one. I'm not opposed to having another kid, but I don't see it working with our current debt to income ratio, especially when you factor in how much daycare costs are going to rise. Right now our kiddo goes to a family member for daycare and although we pay them, it's inconsistent and cheap enough that it only costs us between $200-400 a month, usually in the middle. My wife and I mutually agree that if we have a second child that we will have to switch to a regular daycare which will then end up costing us around $800 a month consistently.
This is what our budget looks like:
Income - 67k a year combined, pretax
Bills:
Mortgage: $1000
Electric: $100-225 - higher in the winter than summer
Gas: $20-70 - higher in the winter than summer
Water: $80 per quarter
Garbage: $15 a month
Car/student loan: $340 a month
Wife's student loans: $250 a month for two loans (not 100% sure)
Cable/Internet: $120 month
Car insurance: About $1800 a year.
Cell phones: $225 per month.
Health insurance: $350 per month - through work, pretax
Furniture: $90 per month
Obviously this doesn't factor in any food or gas, which we buy a lot of because we both commute 30 minutes one way to work.
I'm doing my best to rationalize this in my mind, but I can't see how adding another $400-500 a month for additional childcare expenses would be feasible for us. If anyone has any helpful advice I'm all ears.
Submitted January 24, 2017 at 10:23AM by bernardmoss http://ift.tt/2jNAJbR
