Living on 120K family of 3. Doable?? (Arlington, Franconia: loan, school, moving to)

[JfromReston]

Originally Posted by Smiles:-)

Bethesda, MD is an upscale pricey area. You can get a larger home with a nice size backyard if you look into the burbs of DC. The further South you go the cheaper it gets but then you will have to deal with the commute.😁 Good Luck.

Considering the job is in Bethesda, MD the OP should be looking north of I-495 to get the best commute for a reasonable price. The farther north/north east they go the bigger the houses will be for the money. They should not be looking in the south DC burbs - the commutes will be terrible.

[FCNova]

Originally Posted by LIG3204

My husband said we will be totally fine; I think we'll be totally tight.

I think you're both right. People live here on less. One of my old coworkers had a wife who was SAHM, and he was pulling in well under 100k per year. They lived somewhere in MD, not super far out either. I want to say Gaithersburg but could be wrong. But they had to live VERY frugally. They had no cable, and he even made a comment one time about not having A/C. Maybe they had it but just rarely used it to save money. Anyways, you can definitely do it you just need to formulate a strict budget and stick to it.

[ameridreamNoT]

Originally Posted by LIG3204

Not sure about it. Buying makes more sense.

There is a train system, but I forgot the name of it. I know it is accessible easily by transport.

MARC train? Definitely live close by this type of transportation as it is cheaper than most.

[FindingZen]

Originally Posted by LIG3204

400k ideal, 450k max

If you're open to a TH or single-story SFH, you can find some decent, if somewhat older properties in areas mostly outside the Beltway(I-495). That would make for a long commute, as mentioned earlier. Honestly, unless there are tax and political reasons that you're looking at Virginia, I'd suggest looking at communities in Maryland along the I-270 corridor. If your husband's job is indeed within walking distance of a Metrorail station, that would be even better. I'd strongly recommend, as others have, looking into the Washington DC suburbs of Maryland sub-forum.

[LIG3204]

Thank you all for all this wonderful help!!! We have a place to start.

We'll look in MD and go from there. The one thing I did not think about is not paying for school if our kid goes to a public school. This way, we can go up $2500 in rent and have a nicer place with green around us.

This forum is great!!

[LIG3204]

Originally Posted by Vectorhead

Try not to worry too much! Apart from housing and traffic, this is a pretty nice place to live. You'll hear lots of moaning and groaning about lack of small town charm and that is very true. But there's a lot to do here and the schools are excellent and the job market is far better than it is in most of the country. We've been here 10 years and are really quite happy we settled here. I hope you find it a fun place to live as well.

Thanks, Vectorhead!!

[LIG3204]

Originally Posted by ameridreamNoT

MARC train? Definitely live close by this type of transportation as it is cheaper than most.

That's it. Marc. Transport is paid for by the company. So that's that much taken.

[SophieDaphne]

We make a combined income of about $85k and we get by. I also have student loans that we've reliably been chipping away at... we have $ left over at the end of the month for savings, sinking funds, etc... so, yes, it's doable.

[Germany2DC]

Originally Posted by SophieDaphne

We make a combined income of about $85k and we get by. I also have student loans that we've reliably been chipping away at... we have $ left over at the end of the month for savings, sinking funds, etc... so, yes, it's doable.

SophieDaphne, if you don't mind me asking, where do you live and where do you work?

[SophieDaphne]

Currently live in Arlington, moving to Fairfax later this month. We both work for INOVA - myself at Fairfax, my fiance at the healthplex in Franconia. We live with a roommate now, but we're moving into our own place, finally, with this move and will be there for at least 2 years. We've been adhering to the Dave Ramsey method of saving... we live frugally, for sure, but we're pretty comfortable. My fiance will be going back to school next year and we've also been putting money aside to cash-flow his education. Every dollar we make goes towards something, but I've been paying about 10x my minimum loan balance each month. We're never going to be "rich" in this area, but we can afford a nice trip once in awhile It really is doable, and I always find the posts about not being able to live here with less than 393k a year, or whatever, crazy.