With a wife and 2 kids, how much money do you need to make before you stop worrying about your budget?

3 kids under 3. Wife stays home with daycare cost more than her teaching salary. I make 70k as a 13th year teacher, another 10k working a night job. Combined school loan debt of over 100k, and mortgage. No car payments (knock on wood), no vacations, eating out, date nights. Paycheck to paycheck every month. When wife gets back to work we'll double our income, and then spend 15 years paying off debt. Then start paying for 3 kids in college (after they go to community college for 2 years).

I'm not sure we're "surviving", but we're doing what we need to. I'm resigned to the fact that I will probably be working some type of job as long as i can stand up.

Anyone with a household income over 100k needs to reevaluate spending if budget is a struggle.

I am surprised that we have such a high level of rich idiots on this site. The median household income is $60k, the 75th percentile is $111k, and the 95th percentile is $178k. So for all of you who are making more than $178k (household!), you are the wealthiest Americans and in the upper 1% in the world. So if you buy into the Democrat's playbook, you should be giving most of that money away because you are truely one of the one percenters. If you are not donating a bunch and socking away an equal amount, you are selfishly spending too much on cars, housing, clothes, food, and entertainment. Check your monthly expenditures to see how much you spend for cell phones, internet, and television. Those are luxuries whether you believe it or not. Check how much you spend on eating out. Check how much you spend for vacations each year.

I’m married, 2 kids, wife is a stay at home mom. We’ve talked about her getting a job but a lot of her pay would go into daycare for our youngest anyway. I’m in the military, make the equivalent of around $70k. We don’t live paycheck to paycheck. We don’t “save” but there is always money in the bank, usually a few thousand and it typically inches up month after month.

It’s all about your expenses. Reduce stupid expenses. We travel on vacation, hit the beach, go out to eat, etc. We don’t have insane car payments. We don’t have private schools.

Alan

As others have said, it's less about what you make and more about what you spend.

I set up a budget, and approximately $500 of each paycheck goes into a general spending account. Because I don't have the impulse to spend $500 every two weeks, I never really have to worry. That account just builds and builds, and eventually, I end up transferring a chunk into savings every 6 months or so, and I never stress about money unless the balance on that checking account gets below $10k, which has happened maybe once or twice in the past 10 years when I bought some relatively expensive items.

But I do take the rest of my budget very seriously. I drive a POS car compared to most of my colleagues. We chose a school we could easily afford. I live in a more modest house than most of my colleagues. Those big ticket items aren't really easy to change, quickly. So make sure you make smart decisions when you move into a new house, buy a car, or choose a school.

Married, 2 kids under 5, household income is 300-400K. We save, save for retirement, have a mortagage, some student loans still, no car payments, have college funds (529s) for both kids, and take vacations yearly. But, we still budget and think (wouldn’t say “worry”) about money and finances a lot.

It should not be a goal to not budget. You always need a budget no matter how much money you make. Get a CFP, I have found that helpful. I am not in finance, so having an expert to turn to for advice about various things has been helpful. You don’t always have to take your CFPs advice but if you find a good one—you should probably listen to them more often than not.

Preparing a budget is the worst thing for most people. It allows them to put money into a bucket for spending on entertainment and other things. When they get to the end of the month and haven't spent their allotted amount, they think they can then go out on the last day of the month and spend it. Instead, if you just absolutely limit spending, you will quickly accumulate savings. Examine every expenditure for its worth.

Another really poor behavior to engage in is to compare yourself to other people.

I know two households that make considerably less than me. But on the surface, I look like I'm struggling, and they look rich. I've known them for a decade, so I figured out how they do it. I save about $4k per month more than they do (including retirement savings).

$4k per month will buy you some pretty nice stuff, and make you look rich. But you'll be working the rest of your life, and your kids will graduate from college with a mountain of debt. However, that's the choice a lot of people make when they are trying to compare themselves against others and keep up with an image of success. Stupid.

Budgeting is for dumbies wrote:

Preparing a budget is the worst thing for most people. It allows them to put money into a bucket for spending on entertainment and other things. When they get to the end of the month and haven't spent their allotted amount, they think they can then go out on the last day of the month and spend it. Instead, if you just absolutely limit spending, you will quickly accumulate savings. Examine every expenditure for its worth.

This has been my strategy all along, and i can attest to how well it works.

All the extra money saved each month goes into investments, which ensures future solvency.

Now that retirement is just around the bend, we have fully funded our son's college education in advance (he starts next year), not to mention having paid off mortgage, own cars, no debt, we just have to decide if we want to retire early or work some more just because we're not ready yet...

And our combined salaries are not even to the level of what many here are posting, and we live in one of the most expensive parts of the country to boot.

A couple of things i might offer that helped us is to get proficient in fixing things yourself. I remodeled our house completely by myself and that saved a lot early on. Don't buy more house than you need - a small but nice house is way more affordable, easier to maintain and heat and furnish and carries less property taxes. Don't buy more car than you need, it only has to be dependable and safe. Compounding of your savings is your friend. Don't get in the trap of feeling you need to buy happiness.

But i do feel that it is worth spending more for one thing, and that is location. I've found that living in a place you love and appreciate every day makes life a lot more worth living.

This is true, and I would also add food costs. With the tiniest bit of planning, it is easy to feed your family healthy food for $2-$4 per meal.

And yet many of my friends spend $10+ per meal (and most of it unhealthy) for almost everything. Let's say the average family is 4 people and you eat 3 meals per day. You're looking at 4,380 meals per year. If you can cut that cost from $10 per meal to $4, you're saving $26k per year.