Late 20s making decent money. Over the holidays, some older family members expressed concern regarding our lifestyle and fear we are overextending ourselves. I’ve always thought I was good at managing our money, but now I’m having doubts.
We tend to go on a few trips throughout the year (usually one big international where flights are fully funded by points), have newer cars, and recently bought a larger house in case starting a family becomes something we want. The house is definitely bigger than we need, but I saw it as an amazing deal. In the year and a half we’ve been here, it’s estimated equity is already about 120-130k more than payoff. Our savings did slow down a bit as we put 20% down, paid for our wedding, and some minor home repairs. In 2026, I’m hoping to increase our savings.
We have about 37k in our emergency fund. Between us, we have about 190k in 401ks / Roths.
Monthly Required Expenses:
$440 for my car (financed at 3%. Payoff is like 15k. KBB is around 40k)
$270 for my wife’s car (financed at 2.5%. Payoff is 7k. KBB is high teens / low 20s)
$2500 for our mortgage and taxes (6.6% 30 year. Payoff is 299k and the house is valued at 430-440. We were able to find a divorce quick sale for a 4/4 in a very nice suburb for 365k)
$480 we pay monthly towards my MILs Parent Plus loans. Long story short, my wife was told her tuition was “taken care of” but was surprised with these loans shortly after graduation. I audited it and the amounts appear to be valid. Unfortunately, my MIL was not very proactive with filling out financial aid docs so she took the entire tuition out in PP loans. She’s getting older and the total balance is almost 160k. She has a history of abuse towards my wife, so we try to maintain our distance. My view is to treat this like a subscription until she dies as the balances are then forgiven. I do not see this getting paid off ever.
No CC debt or anything, but we do put everything on our cards to fund our big yearly trips through rewards and miles.
$120 a month home insurance
$60 a month for our cellphones (I pay my parents to remain on their plan)
$50 in streaming services
Utilities tend to be $300-$400 a month
I paid off most of my student loans, and the small remainder is around an $80 payment that has been in deferment. I have been continuing to pay but it is not required at this time.
We did have some larger random expenses lately. Instead of a ring, I bought myself a nice used watch for about 4k with the intention of paying myself back from my bonus next month. I also spent around 3k over the last year in getting dual EU citizenship for us both in case it’s ever needed.
Income fluctuates a bit due to my wife being a nurse with required OT.
Bad Month with no OT we take home about $8750
Average month we take home about $9100
A good month where she’s needed we take about anywhere from 10-12k
We are both 29 and live in a large midwestern city.
My bonus being paid out next month should be a little over 10k
How are we doing? Are we truly living outside of our means? We‘ve been enjoying married with no kids life the last 2-3 years and trying to travel as much as possible.
This summer I’m planning another trip to Asia. flights will be covered. Hotels will cost about 3k for 15 days. Is this reasonable on our numbers or should we cool it a bit?
Seeing how nothing we own is really “underwater” has quelled some of my anxiety as of late. We've still been in the process of furnishing, but have managed to save 1-3k a month. Is 1k a month in savings a reasonable goal?
Family members are distorting my view of what we can afford. How risky is our lifestyle ?
byu/Limp-Cheesecake-8624 inpersonalfinance
Posted by Limp-Cheesecake-8624
41 Comments
You guys are in great shape – it just sounds like you outearn family members they don’t really understand it.
What is your gross annual income?
How much are you saving per year?
How much of that is to retirement?
How much of that is general savings?
You can’t be cute about divulging income in a question about what you can afford.
Given $9k/month post-tax income on average, $1k/month is pretty low, but if you’re clear about that being temporary, that’s ok. You left food out of your required spend, so I’d go back and clarify that you’re including what you need to in order to make sure your E fund is big enough, but I’d guess you’ve got at least 6 mo.
You’re doing just fine. Family will always have opinions. Doesn’t make them right. I’d say you’re being responsible and you are very blessed. Don’t obsess now, keep living your life and doing the things you like to do and can afford to do and you’re doing fine.
A $4k watch is foolish and completely at odds with any idea of financial responsibility.
On its own it wont change your financial trajectory, but it is highly suggestive about how you treat money.
Edit: its weird that here you say you have no kids, but also post about “draining” your husband on Christmas after the kids went to sleep.
Don’t worry about what others say. Trust yourself and make sure you’re comfortable with your decisions. I do not think you will regret these choices. It’s important to live life and not put everything off for the future, so your trips are important. Your bigger house is an investment in your future and you get to use it and enjoy that investment. Don’t let other people’s fear of living life affect your values. You’re doing great. I wish I had it this together at your age. Best to you in continuing to live well and within your means!
Your family sounds like they’re stuck in a different era tbh – you’re clearing 100k+ with solid equity positions and a decent emergency fund
That Asia trip is totally reasonable on your income, especially if flights are covered. You’re saving 1-3k monthly which is better than like 90% of people your age
The MIL loan situation sucks but treating it like a subscription is probably the smartest approach given the circumstances
It would help to know what your savings rate/amount is, either via the 401K or after-tax brokerage.
It would also help to know what you’re spending on groceries, maintenance, and other discretionary items like shopping, entertainment, restaurants, etc.
None of the expenses you listed scream “outside your means”, but you could easily be outside your means if you’re under-contributing to retirement and/or going into debt.
Sounds like you can afford it. But maybe limit the details with your family. People get jealous and this is what you are seeing.
What is the total of money going out every month?
What is left then?
No, don’t itemize. Not the point at all.
What is left after everything **you currently pay out**?
Look at the remainder. **There is a remainder, RIGHT?**
Now, ask yourself how can your **future** be shaped by this extra cash?
A 401k can tank in a month. And you don’t have instant access to it.
International travel is fun, but where tf is your head at in this environment, doing that foolishness?
New cars? Why? Seriously. Keep a car 6-10years to get the real value of it.
29yrs old. If you are **serious** about “one last year of childishness”, ok I guess.
Nothing said is intended to be rude. You asked, I provided possible context. Please reflect a bit before rage replying. I don’t know you, and didn’t pretend to.
Stop talking to your family about your finances. It makes you uncomfortable and they aren’t paying any of your bills, so there’s no reason to give them any details.
Some spending will be visible to them, like your trips, but there’s no reason for them to know how much you make, how much you have saved, or how much your mortgage payment is.
You are doing good.
Your “life planning” is excellent. Now, before you start a family, is the time for travel like you are doing.
Start transitioning to saving more as your incomes go up.
So, do you have kids, or not? The first sentence of your other post mentions having kids.
Edit: ah, you deleted it rather than explaining. [unfortunately](https://imgur.com/a/fkhAbxK) it’s the internet.
My only thought is the Parent Plus Loan, if you have been paying on it, can they make you responsible when MIL passes?
When you say $1 K a month in savings, are you referring to retirement savings? How much is actually going into your 401(k)? Earlier in life is a good time to plow money into retirement so you can benefit from the time to compound. With the $ watch, new cars, vacations, it suggests getting used to a lifestyle that may not be sustainable if you have kids and have to pay for daycare, etc. and all their expenses (Camps and everything are a lot). Once you get used to luxuries, it can be hard to give them up, and that may be what your family members were talking about.
How did you work the EU citizenship, and why did it cost $3k?
I’m concerned too, because you typed all of this out and did not mention your gross income, but did mention the equity in your house. That signals, to me, that you don’t have a clear grasp on budgeting, and that you feel richer than you actually are.
You have a perfect budget and lifestyle. Remember that older people had difficult times and became frugal. Most people under 30 spend money and leave paycheck to paycheck so you are well ahead.
Honestly, too much info and you are making it too complicated on yourself.
How much do you make per year and how many percent of that do you save/invest? If the answer is ~25% you are most likely going to be ok.
Is this for real? Maybe I live under a rock, but I’ve never heard of $100k+ in value in 1.5 years. Especially in a market that’s cooled down so much in a lot of places.
Edit: and what do you mean you got dual citizenship “just in case”? That’s not how immigration works.
Sounds like a pretty average nice lifestyle. If your aim is to retire early, you should save more. but if your aim is to just retire at 65, sounds like you guys are doing fine.
No disrespect to you OP, but I assume that you are bad with money based on the quality of your personal finance description. There are tons of missing details including thousands of dollars of monthly income missing in the description you gave.
Hey would you care what they think? Grown ass adult who clearly handles their own finances according to their income and lifestyle , who wtf are they 🤣
The only recommendation I would make is avoiding borrowing from your future bonus like that. It’s a trap that can lead you to over extend in a big way. “Oh, I’ll just pay myself back” should be your sign to stop and save up instead.
Very few “deals” are so in the moment that it’s worth that risk. Most deals you find like that are false deals driving engagement and scarcity mindset so you’ll buy.
Let them think you’re struggling. It’ll be better if people aren’t looking into your finances too deep.
If they bring up money stuff, “oh, we’re pretty house poor right now, we need about 5 years until we catch up to where we want to be with monthly payments and equity.”
You’re doing ok but $1k/mo savings is way too little. You don’t say you’re gross but you’re saving something like 7% of your gross. 15% gross should be your target, closer to 30% if possible while maxing 401K.
You’re maybe making ok money, but not really great money. I think the reason your older family members view the situation differently is because they have probably lived through a lot more things.
You are viewing everything optimistically, which is normal for as someone young. But you are leaving out a lot of expenses. For starters you have not factored any maintenance into your budget. You have 2 cars and a large house. To be realistic about your situation you would have to estimate how much maintenance and upkeep will cost on all these things. You do not have a new home, and it is a large home, you will easily need to shell out 20 – 30k if not more when something like your roof needs replacement.
As far as having kids goes, it will be tough for your wife to work overtime, so don’t count on any of that. Also you will need 20 – 30k per year for childcare if you both want to keep working.
So let’s take a look at what an older person sees as a likely scenario. You have a kid, so you’re at the low end of take home – roughly 9k. But in that same year you need some 30k repair to your home, 6k worth of work done on your car, and you’re paying 30k for childcare. That’s 66k of expenses dropped in your lap you haven’t even thought about when your take home is 108k. At the moment your max savings is 3k – so I’m not sure if you have everything covered.
Aim to put 15% savings into your retirement between your contribution and your employer. Just putting enough the get the match and a few hundred into an IRA probably isn’t going to cut it, TBH. Otherwise, things seem fine. I’d be bumping my savings rate up though.
“Value $120-130k more than we paid,” you paid $365k and now its value is supposedly $430k. How is that $120-130k more?
So kids are the big wildcard here.
You can’t come close to living like you are living now if you decide to have a kid.
Your budget is a mess. You claim you have around 4K in monthly expenses listed, but have almost 10k in net income a month. Yet, you can only save 1k. So where is almost 5k per month going? Where is your budget for food, car insurance, maintenance, gas, home maintenance, personal care, out of pocket medical? None of those things I mentioned are optional expenditures. You should be budgeting around 400/mo just for home maintenance.
But let’s go back to kids. What happens to your net income with a kid? How much less will one of you work? How much will child care cost you?
What are your long term goals with regards to saving? How long do you plan to work? What do you want post work to look like?
You guys are currently and theoretically earning more than you’re spending, so in that regards you’re ok. What that means for your big life goals is another thing. It feels like you are sort of drunkenly spending money because it’s ok for now without doing any real planning for your future
If you want to be able to say F u then fully find your ROTH IRAs and 401k, not just match. That’s the max you can tax defer (pretty much). You will be able to retire early if u spend every penny after those.
If everything else is good you and your wife might want to consider term life insurance. You’re at an age where it can be very cheap, provides for the survivor if one of you dies, and you will want it for sure if future kids are involved.
It’s a lot of expenses you’re juggling, but you seem to have it under control. Since you’re young, you should try to max out your ROTH accounts every year. I wish I had put more into ROTH instead of regular 401ks earlier in my career.
Seems like you have the income to fund how you’re living now, and you’re doing well. As you enter your 30s though, with plans to have a family, you need to get serious about getting a grasp on your retirement savings and your spending. Be careful of lifestyle creep. The next decade (30s) will be a lot more financially turbulent. Looks like you already have a great E-fund saved up, but your retirement savings should probably be more concrete – Only contributing up to the match for the 401ks, and throwing a few hundred bucks to your Roths probably isnt good enough going forward, why are you not maxing one or both of these tax advantaged accounts ? You should definitely know your retirement savings rate, general savings rate, and yearly spend after taxes. Otherwise, sounds like you guys are doing great.
I was so confused how you were doing so good and then you said no kids 😂🤣😭 aww man I could have taken so many trips, obviously I prefer my kid to that but you’re good. I think people might just be jealous
You found a 4/4 for under 400k in a nice Chicago suburb? That doesn’t seem right…
There’s one item in that wall of text that would be the key, savings, and it looks like you’re good there. 6 figures of savings in your 20s is great.
I think you’re both successful young professionals with no kids, which leaves you with a lot of disposable income. If you’ve only got 1k spare some months, that’s going to go straight to daycare/child expenses when you have kids though.
A couple thoughts – you do still have car debt. You could try snowball strategy- use the bonus to completely pay off your wife’s car loan, then you could put that money towards paying off your car. Once you pay off the cars, that gives you ~$700 a month back for daycare when the time comes.
Travel while you can! Don’t forget to add in food and other expenses to your travel plans though.
Y’all are doing great. Only you know where you can trim the fat so to say. If you can I would look at purchasing a home every 2 years. Live in and flip. You pay zero dollars in capital gains tax after living in it for three years. 203k loans are the best for fixer upper properties . I’m 40 and owe 60k our house. Have both cars paid off. One is 2007 truck the other is 2018 accord.
It’s great that you can have an open discussion about finances with your family without it becoming toxic or confrontational.
As I read your post, I wondered how secure your jobs are in this current market, especially now that A1 is impacting many areas of employment. If both of you were to be laid off, your existing emergency fund would cover about 3-4 months.
If you don’t already have a Plan B in place, I suggest discussing one with your spouse in the event of an emergency such as a job loss, health crisis, pregnancy, etc.
Personally I would suggest taking one vacation a year and apply your travel money towards building a bigger emergency fund or paying off debt.
My Dad’s advice was as follows: Save money. You’ll never regret it.