New parent in fintech making $60K debates the financial impact of a second child

Age

32

Do you have kids? If so, what’s your #1 most stressful thing right now?

One child. Most stressful is probably the unknown costs ahead. She’s only 6 months, and we’ve been able to adequately prepare so far via research, and that’s treated us well. So I guess we’ll continue doing that!

Living Situation

I own a home. It’s our first house, and rates were incredibly low, allowing us to take advantage with only 5% down on a 30-year conventional mortgage.

Job

Finance operations specialist in tech.

Salary

$60,000

Salary Growth

I started in healthcare 8 years ago, with predictable 2-3% raises per year and a low relative salary for my experience and field. 

Then, I switched to business consulting. I had no experience when I got the job and did it for a few years, while getting 5-6% raises along with a higher salary. 

I just started a new career in fintech with a fast-growing company and a salary bump. We’ll see what that raise looks like next year.

Debt

Student loans and a mortgage. For the student loans, we refinanced to low rates during COVID. Our mortgage already has a low rate. The rates are low enough that it is more advantageous to invest any additional money rather than pay them off.

Budgeting

Yes, we use zero-dollar budgeting with YNAB (You Need a Budget). It was a life-changing tool for us when we started using it. Now, we use it to primarily track our expenses and ensure we are not going too far over our limits for each category. It also allows us to track that data over time and see how our expenses (gas, electric, etc.) fluctuate over the years.

Splurge

Coffee beans. I enjoy the nuances found from various regions and roasters (specialty roasters). That is hard to find around here, so I generally have to have it shipped to me.

Local Hack

I don’t have any off the top of my head, but I’d love to see what others have to say!

Favorite Local Restaurant

CR Heroes! Most of the things on the menu are great! I don’t have a particular favorite, but the potato charcuterie board is amazing.

Savings and Investments

We are still ramping up our savings, but I take a DIY approach. I enjoy learning about it and don’t feel the need to hire someone personally. I use tools like YNAB to help with our expense tracking and ProjectionLab to, you guessed it, project where we are going with all the nuances included (projected taxes, expenses, etc.). We stick to index funds with a small (5-10%) portion of cryptocurrency exposure.

Best Money Decision

Doing a financial foundations class and using YNAB.

On Your Mind

Deciding whether we want to have another child and how that would impact us.

Total Net Worth

$150,000