Salary needed to support a family of four and live comfortably? (Denver: sales, real estate)

[baddabigboom]

Currently located in Austin, TX after relocating here several years ago from CA due to job change and am now looking to move to the Denver area.

I was curious what y'all think would be a reasonable salary in order to live comfortably? 90k, 100k, 120k? I work in tech, so those salaries aren't unimaginable, however I am wondering if that amount will buy a decent life for a family of four.

By decent I mean potentially being able to own a home in a neighborhood with decent schools, ability to still contribute to 401k, IRA, etc and able to go out on family outings without having to worry about how to pay the mortgage next month.

[caverunner17]

Really depends on what your current home is worth and how much you'll get out of it along with any other debts (cars, college, credit cards etc).

What are your average monthly expenses currently?

[baddabigboom]

Originally Posted by caverunner17

Really depends on what your current home is worth and how much you'll get out of it along with any other debts (cars, college, credit cards etc).

What are your average monthly expenses currently?

Currently renting a house, paying $1800 a month. Car is paid off and credit card paid in full every month. I do have some student loans left. They cost me around $300 a month.

So with a minimum amount of potential debt, what is a good salary to have for a family of four to live comfortably? We would plan on renting at first and then buying after a few years. Looking at either Broomfield, or Littleton/Centennial area. It would all depend on where my job would be, or, if I was working remote, what area is going to give us the best bang for our buck in terms of housing cost and good schools.

[emm74]

Is that with 2 working parents, meaning paying for childcare or with 1 working parent and one staying home with kids?

Childcare in Denver is quite expensive, so it makes a big difference even with the same income amount whether or not you have to include it in the budget

[baddabigboom]

Originally Posted by emm74

Is that with 2 working parents, meaning paying for childcare or with 1 working parent and one staying home with kids?

Childcare in Denver is quite expensive, so it makes a big difference even with the same income amount whether or not you have to include it in the budget

Single income. My wife is a SaHM. We have a 3 year old and a 6 month old. Once they go off to school in a few years she will end up getting a job for additional household income. So we will not have the added cost of daycare thankfully.

[emm74]

Originally Posted by baddabigboom

Single income. My wife is a SaHM. We have a 3 year old and a 6 month old. Once they go off to school in a few years she will end up getting a job for additional household income. So we will not have the added cost of daycare thankfully.

In that case, I'd say if you can make about 10-15% more than you currently make, you'd be ok in terms of maintaining a relatively comparable lifestyle. If you were adding childcare for two kids in there, you'd need another 10-15,000 per year in salary to cover the difference between what you'd pay in Texas vs what you'd pay in Denver.

[lovecrowds]

I would say right at about $100,000 a year gross if you want decent schools.

There are places like Wheat Ridge, Lakewood, Arvada that are in the Jefferson County school district that have nice, ranch homes from the 1960s that are $300,000-$400,000. The school district I think is considered fairly good also.

That area though is close to downtown but far away from a lot of the jobs in the southern metro area. They do have alot of offices parks in the Broomfield area though which is close.

Adams County is slightly cheaper but the school quality ranges from terrible to middle of the road.

The income tax rate is 4.63% in Colorado, sales taxes are rather high but the property taxes are extremely low.

In general in Colorado you'll pay about half a percent of the market value of a house in property taxes each year.

[bluescreen73]

We moved back here in 2011 before the big run-up in real estate prices. We're a family of 5 with older kiddos. Wife works part-time and most of her income is her personal stash of spending cash outside the budget.

I'm in tech, and my salary is in the higher end of your scale. While we're regrettably not saving for our kids' college (yet), we are making enough to comfortably sock away a decent percentage of my income for retirement.

We're pretty frugal. We don't spend a lot of money on family outings, but we do spend a lot more than I'd like on eating out.

[guyatwork37]

You are pretty much in the same boat as I am in terms of kids and their ages and the SaHM thing. My salary is $115k with another roughly $35k in bonuses and stock and we live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood with solid schools and put money in 401k, college funds, and put extra aside for savings and what not. You could probably stand to do with a little less and be fine, but $115k works out just fine. Anything more would just go straight to savings and maybe some daycare/pre-school a few days a week since my wife would like to go back to work.

[baddabigboom]

Originally Posted by guyatwork37

You are pretty much in the same boat as I am in terms of kids and their ages and the SaHM thing. My salary is $115k with another roughly $35k in bonuses and stock and we live in a nice home in a nice neighborhood with solid schools and put money in 401k, college funds, and put extra aside for savings and what not. You could probably stand to do with a little less and be fine, but $115k works out just fine. Anything more would just go straight to savings and maybe some daycare/pre-school a few days a week since my wife would like to go back to work.

Thank you for the reply, this is exactly what I was looking for. It sounds like we can definitely make it work as long as home prices do not jump up even more then the further trend. We plan to rent for a few years before buying, so there is no telling what the housing market will look like then.

In terms of areas we are looking at, Broomfield, Littleton and Centennial. Is there any of these that is going to be better then the other? They all seem to have similarly priced houses with pretty good schools from what I have seen. Would it just be a matter or work location at that point?