Many of these decisions are not possible for a stepparent to do, or a couple recovering from a divorce/debt.
In the OP situation, it was someone with more money (but presumably no kids he was supporting) marrying into a family. Do you really expect him to say on day one “Hey, you have these 3 kids and you/we should be putting away money for college immediately. Oh, and we should all live in my very small house because it is our starter home. And I should sell my car that I could easily afford when I was single but that money should go to college.”
That’s just not realistic.
Should they not have gotten married? Probably that would have been the best financial decision for college for her kids. Should they get divorced? May not work at this late hour.
I defer to the crowd. Clearly I am wrong (and an outlier-- I prefer my own cooking. Cheaper, less salt, able to control calories and fat).
But if any of the families on CC are here wondering how folks are full pay for multiple kids at college, it starts by NOT succumbing to the “must eat out three times a week” and “everyone goes to Disney” mentality.
You can only spend a dime once- and then it’s gone. I learned that in Brownies back in the early 1960’s and it has served me well.
I’m with you, even on Friday nights when I don’t want to cook I’ll put out some cheese and crackers. Another reason we rarely went out to eat was because of the kids’ activities when they were younger, it was rare for everyone to be free, and since eating out was considered a treat, we’d only do it if everyone was around (so usually birthdays). When my husband goes to the office he brings lunch (he will never pay for coffee either). My mom grew up poor, my dad went away to boarding school, they were very smart with their money, never had a credit card balance, drove older cars, saved for retirement, our annual vacation was driving to Florida where my grandparents wintered. We never ate out. I have several rather wealthy family members, but you wouldn’t know it by their day to day spending.
Of course. Taking on parental responsibility doesn’t mean taking it away from the parent you’re marrying - that would make no sense. It just means you share that responsibility; it’s not a carve-out.
When my kids were little, we ate out on Monday nights. They had violin lessons and only had a short time from when I picked them up at daycare and the lessons. We rotated who got to pick the place. It really helped with them asking to go to McDonalds when we were out on a Saturday as I could say “Oh, you can pick that on Monday when it is your turn to pick.”
My friend’s family ate pizza on Fridays. Out or at home, only on Fridays. She said otherwise they’d eat it 3 times a week.
It was actually very nice. Monday was the day the school sent out The Brown Envelop’ with all the paperwork, announcements, permission slips, etc so we could review those too.
I have a standing date with daughter #2 for dinner on Wednesdays. Since Thanksgiving I think we’ve gone 4 times because of snowstorms, being out of town, other conflicts but at least we try.
That brought back a memory I must’ve blocked, for at least a year my 3 oldest had back to back swimming lessons late afternoon/evening. I would drag my toddler twins and we’d hang out in the playroom. Afterwards I’d get them all showered/pajama’s and we’d go through the McDonald’s drive through on the way home. The order was always wrong, and I’d try to be even about digging into all of the fries driving home. Good times.
Anyone going into a second marriage shouldn’t be in the true-love-conquers-all teenage mindset. I expect them to make a long-term financial plan and get on the same page about it before they marry. If they can’t do that, then it’s a red flag that the marriage may be a bad choice.
I’m aware that this isn’t what most people do, but it’s what they should do.
If I tracked it I would bet we go get food and bring it home probably 1.75 times a week. We rarely eat out at a sit down restaurant. Just not worth it. When we get food and bring home I would say it averages $8-9 per person. I never get drinks. I also would never do ubereats or doordash. We look for deals or coupons.
Same deal when we are at the grocery store. Always looking at what is on sale.
I am not a fan of used cars, but we drive our cars into the ground. My wife is driving a 13 year old car.
We saved what we could in a 529 starting early. Of course it wasn’t enough.
We only went to Disney because I won a nice sum of money in a poker tournament. Many of our vacations were driving ones to my childhood city to see family. Ironically those were some of the best ones.
The last part we knew the game from the beginning and knew that good grades/scores meant merit$. We tried to start the kids off right early and watched them closely. Made sure they were doing ECs.
We went on exactly ONE vacation to Disney…it was when our kids were 6 and 9. The little one did go a second time on a school trip. So please don’t overgeneralize. And we definitely could have gone every year if we had wanted to. We didn’t.
Eating out was and is a treat. Very often, we go out to lunch rather than dinner. Our kids both did that when they were in college…it’s less costly at lunch time.
Pizza? Well…we made home made pizza every snow day!
We don’t do any of these things and neither do any of our friends or family members. Or our kids. Agree…you need to become familiar with current ways people spend.
And just to clear something up, it appears that several points of view on this topic have been thrown into the hopper with the “I would tell my kid to run from a mom with kids” post. While I’m not here to pile on to that post, I want to be clear that is not what I wrote and it’s not what I think. At all.
My point was that if I had young children and someone I was going to marry was delineating what she would and would not pay for, especially if it were directed at the kids, then I would probably avoid marrying that person. I might continue dating them if they’d go for that; but marriage would seem, to me anyway, an unnecessary and perhaps unwise step to take. With young kids, anyone marrying me would understand clearly that I come as a package deal and I’m looking for a partner, not a roommate.
If I were later in life and my kids were launched or close to it, then no, of course I wouldn’t expect someone to swoop in and take on the big burdens for children she didn’t really help raise. That’s asking a lot.
But my main point was Hanna’s: on second marriage, you’re (hopefully) an adult. Nobody is making you get married, there are a million good reasons to not get married (but also not break up), and if you persist on getting married, understand what you’re signing up for and get it out in the open. All else being equal, you’re buying each other’s past, the good and the bad. That ostensibly includes children and ex-spouses.
This is a misconception that I see a lot on CC. We’re in that income range and receiving need-based aid at an ivy. The generous FA brings the cost down substantially. We have “typical assets”: a lot of home equity and funds saved in dedicated retirement accounts. We are easily able to meet our parental contribution through a combination of 529 funds and current income.
I always urge people to use the NPC and, if available, request a financial pre-read. Families might be pleasantly surprised by the generosity of some colleges.
The problem is that most schools aren’t nearly as generous as Ivies and other schools of that ilk. Most schools aren’t offering need based aid to people making $250k. Not to mention the supreme difficulty of getting into an Ivy (or like school). It’s definitely worth a shot but students (and their parents) need to know that the odds are long. Also, not everyone in the donut hole can even afford $40-50k a year which is a nice discount off $80k, but still a lot for many folks.
I agree. We are in that range and felt like the COA would at lowest be $35K to $45K at Ivies.
Now not to rehash something that is discussed for years here, but I would have had a hard time paying 2-2.5 times the COA at an Ivy compared to where D19 ended up at MiamiOH. D19 got her COA down to $14-15K at Miami. And the ivy would have meant loans. That was the nail in the coffin for the decision. With that in mind D19 only applied to one Ivy and didn’t get in. If she would have been interested in IB then we might have made the stretch.
But as I say here everyone’s situation is different and that is fine. There is no one right answer for all kids.