Hacker News Reader

Comment by resters | Hacker News Reader

Try raising a few kids in a major city and paying private school tuition and child care fees. It easily eats up most of $500K of income.

View on HN

If you can send every kid to private school, you're not "struggling".

Or — "after I spend all my money, I don't have any money left!"

Hi!

My wife & I are raising 2 children in Berlin (a major world city) & earn a lot less than $500k while not struggling at all (in fact I save about 1/3 of my net pay even after deductions for both private and public retirement funds).

Sending your kids to private schools is hardly a must, especially if you live in at least a middle-class neighborhood (which I assume you do on a $500k income).

The way the United States provides schooling free of charge from age 4 to age 18, and expects families to pay massive tuition bills before and after, does make parenting expensive at times— especially for young families starting out.

$500,000 in income is, of course, enough money to pay even expensive bills, being well into the top 1% of family incomes.

People pay for private k-12 because there's a perception of the public schools being awful (and it may be true depending on the area). But if you live in a nice area with a well-funded school district, paying for private school is just ego. You won't get much of a difference in learning outcomes

It depends on where you live. In my case the decision was rational and not due to some desire for status signaling.

> Berlin (a major world city)

No. In fact not at all. It is one of the only capital cities in europe that is a cash drain on the nation it resides in. It is in no way a "major world city". It is not a business centre, a financial centre or a cultural centre. It is not even the most interesting or beautiful city in Germany,

Europe mostly has a much better school system with predictable outcomes that can't be achieved in much of America. The reasons for which are for another debate

Not that you don't have a point of some kind, but you are certainly ill informed about how the world works, and your place in it.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city:

Global Power City Index

The Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial Foundation in Tokyo issued a comprehensive study of global cities in 2018. They are ranked based on six categories: economy, research and development, cultural interaction, livability, environment, and accessibility, with 70 individual indicators among them. The top ten world cities are also ranked by subjective categories including manager, researcher, artist, visitor and resident.[13]

Global Power City top 10: 1. London, 2. New York City, 3. Tokyo, 4. Paris, 5. Singapore, 6. Amsterdam, 7. Seoul, 8. Berlin, 9. Hong Kong, 10. Sydney.

London added the entire population of Berlin in the last 20 years or less. Berlin gets on that list because of the nation state it resides in having significant world status and economic output, and not because Berlin is of any presence in the world.

It is a burden on its nation*

*https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2016/08/S...

I mean, this very linked article lays out the finances of some people who are doing just that and it appears to be the result of some very expensive personal choices rather than a fact of life.

My point is that this is not the case. When you take out high Federal and State taxes, high rents, tuition, etc., it's about equivalent to $80K/year income without kids. Seriously.

Can you break that down? That's 420,000 pre tax and if taxes are 50% (I'd guess lower but I don't know the US system) that's more than 200k left over.

Smartasset puts the take-home at 333k, 270k more than a household bringing in 80k. https://smartasset.com/taxes/new-york-tax-calculator#gO77UAY...

How are kids adding a quarter of a million dollars per year in costs?

Holy smokes, with those kinds of expenses, you might have to hang on to that BMW 5 series a few more years before replacing it. I don't know how people are supposed to get by these days.

For the past few years I've driven a car that cost under $1K.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com