I would like to have a baby. My husband is an anxious person who claims he’s “just a realist” who tends to be stubborn and likes big things planned out in advance. He agreed to have a kid before we got married, but only if we could financially afford to. That’s where our opinions differ; I think we can, and he disagrees.
Together, we currently make at least $200,000 in gross income. However, we live in a city that we love with high costs and we are religious enough that my husband INSISTS that the kid needs to go to religious day school. (There is no flexibility around this requirement. Believe me, I’ve tried.) Religious day schools in our region are notoriously expensive (we’re talking five-digit numbers yearly, starting at $20,000). My husband fears that even with tuition assistance, which is common, we would end up leading a lifestyle that requires us to penny pinch, worry about money, never go on vacation, have no retirement fund (to the point of joking about committing suicide as a retirement plan), and devote every single spare dollar to tuition. Even if I say that we could afford it now, he argues that with inflation and recessions, etc., one day we may not be able to afford it. Clearly, in an ideal world, he would want a trust fund with the tuition money already saved up. Obviously, that’s not going to happen.
We’ve tried going to a financial advisor for reassurance, but they weren’t very helpful; I need hard, specific numbers relevant to our location and projections for an 18-year period, minimum. When I suggest moving to a city with a lower cost of living, he says that our salaries will drop according to the location and we will be back in the exact same boat (he thinks the current remote work trend will be disappearing within the next few years). What do I do? Who do I talk to who has an understanding of school tuition concerns? How do I get these numbers? I can’t do it myself; I’m over my head. I suspect the most helpful thing would be for my husband to take anti-anxiety medication, but that’s not going to happen, so this is the next best thing.
—35 and Not Getting Any Younger
My late mother owned a significant amount of property. One was a cabin she rented out in an increasingly developed area. Land prices are booming. “Debbie” and her mentally handicapped son have lived in the cabin for the past 20 years and never had a single rent increase (and never a late payment). She was my mother’s friend.
After my mother died, I sold most of the properties, except the cabin. I informed Debbie that her lease would not be renewed and she broke down in tears. She told me she had nowhere else to go and she and her son didn’t make enough money to live anywhere else. I was still grieving my mother, so I offered to renew the lease for an extra year to give Debbie some time to find other lodgings. Then the pandemic hit. And the state froze evictions. Debbie didn’t pay rent for six months. Both she and her son got sick, but I ended up having to pull out of pocket for the increasing property taxes and put in a new septic system, plus a new roof. None of this is Debbie’s fault.
All my kids are in college, my business took a serious hit, and my wife has illness issues—I don’t want to be a landlord. Debbie has been begging me to renew the lease for another six months. I have offered to sell the cabin to her and shave off the other acreage. Debbie told she has no savings and no family other than her son. Looking into charitable help has done nothing. Everything is on a waiting list if you can even get on it all. I even asked the church my mother attended if I could donate the property with a clause stating that Debbie and her son get to stay in the cabin. The offer was declined—too many complications. My wife tells me we have done enough. I still feel like a complete bastard. Debbie looks a lot like my mom and hearing her cry is like a knife in my heart. I just can’t keep doing this.
—Cabin Endings
That and more over here on this week’s column:
And like, he would have more of an argument if they were actually low income, maybe, but “we can’t afford it” when you define afford as “without any impact to our spending, lifestyle, or savings” is… gross. When this is a major life experience your partner really wants and you’re just scared.
