How am I doing financially

**bjl584** · 11-04-2013, 04:54 AM

On the surface it looks like you are doing fine.

A few questions:

How do you plan to pay for daughter's college? Loans plus cash?
What are your monthly expenses? Your Emergency fund may or may not need beefed up.
How much do the investment properties bring in? What are the expenses on them?

**Chlopaige** · 11-05-2013, 11:49 AM

Response

We plan on taking out loans for college and paying them off sooner with college fund, future bonuses,etc. we don't spend bonuses before we get them and usually save a lot of it. Monthly expenses are about 7000. We are contributing max to 401k and save about 600 a month to college funds. Our emergency fund ( readily available cash is about 50k). We basically break even every month on the investment properties but we are paying on the principal for both of them.

**bigdaddybus** · 11-05-2013, 12:33 PM

I think it sounds like you are doing well. I thought I would share where I am as our households have some similarities.
39 yrs old, 4 kids (2,3,11,13), 2013 income approx $186K per yr. Our house is worth $335K and we owe $250K. I have a car loan that I owe 22K on a car worth 30K. 2 other cars are paid for, no cc debt, also spend right at $7000 per month on our budget.

Wife and I both work and the current estimated cash value of our pensions plans are $385K
145K in our 401Ks
22K in Roth IRAs
20K in savings
23.5K in college funds

My wife and I have seen a rapid rise in our income over the last 10 yrs so I am pretty happy where we are at currently. ($60K in 2002, $105K in 2007) graduated college in 2002 after my previous military service.

Just because I am curious......Do you live in a high cost of living area? My wife and I are fortunate that we live in the midwest in a large ranch home (for our area) that approx 4500sqft of finished living space between the floors. I have been offered relocations to higher cost of living areas and we are always scared to do so due to housing costs.

**Goldy** · 11-05-2013, 02:45 PM

I think you are doing OK. The standard rule I have heard and use is 2-3x income saved for retirement by the age of 40 which is close enough to your bread winners age. By that rule you are a little behind but given that you have savings other than the 401k your probably doing fine.

Do you plan to fund all of your childrens tuition? Depending on where they go 36k might only get you a year. I got the sense from your reply that you were going to take loans and pay for college but have you thought of having your kids get those loans?

Also, do you have a Roth IRA? While your income is near the phase out excluding the bonus I would bet you would still qualify based on all of the other deductions you can claim. I would recommend funding that to the full extent if you aren't already.

**LivingAlmostLarge** · 11-05-2013, 06:52 PM

Good but for college. How much are you thinking of spending for college per kid? How old are the kids? Perhaps financial aid if they are overlapping.

**Chlopaige** · 11-06-2013, 06:33 PM

We live in a suburb of Houston,Tx so we are getting a lot of house for our money. Our house is about 5,000 sq feet. We are planning on the kids taking out the loans and we will pay them off sooner if we can. Our kids are 15, 13, 11, 11, and 4 months. We would have more saved but we just paid off my Masters Degree (20k); my 2011 Toyota Sequoia (30k) and a few other things. We plan on saving most of future bonuses (average from 20,000 to 50,000 gross). Right now Texas is booming do we feel good here.

**LivingAlmostLarge** · 11-13-2013, 11:11 AM

So how much will college be? I think it'll be okay but if you have to clear college for them all it could put you behind in retirement savings.

How am I doing financially