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Respectfully I disagree with you. (1) The OP does not sound controlling at all. (2) The OP does not sound like a know-it-all. He sounds concerned.
I agree with you. The only thing he has done is talk to his not yet wife and suggest that a closer look is given to their budget. There hasn't been much interference at all and he hardly seems a know it all to me. In blended families the step children are not completely not your business. They are family.
I have made this same suggestion to clients that are not even my children. It is good advice. What a bank may qualify you for may be way over the limit of what you can really afford. They don't know peoples spending habits. Doing your own math first is always a good idea because only you really know what you can afford.
As far as where his concerns lie be it for their best interest or his I will wait for him to tell us if he wants to. He may be worried about them or worried about picking up the pieces later or both. Still I don't see how his bit of advice is bad.
First, he said "almost wife" so I take that as they are not married, which means he has no financial liability no matter what his partner does.
OP, why do you think the bank will loan them money for something they can't afford?
You seem a little bit of a downer, and pretty negative overall. They are not doing bad, sure, without the baby they could have been doing better, but they certainly aren't bums.
It sounds more like you have an issue with your wife, and no one giving you the consideration you think you should have.
We were all (mostly) young and struggling at one time or another.
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Unless the boy is a crackerjack mechanic, be sure to budget a home warranty to cover the old water heater, HVAC, refrigerator, dishwasher, plumbing and electric. 12 year old house is about ready to implode.
Mine is $45 a month and replacing my water heater would have cost $2000 but I paid only $500 which was for code upgrades.
We have propane heat and there are two HVAC units at probably $5000 each. Budget That!
They can wait 5 years to start on funds for their retirement and the baby's college fund.
They definitely need life insurance; I'd suggest $500,000 on each with the young baby.
A 12 year-old house is about ready to "implode"? what?
The most worrisome prospect is whether the mother will repeat what her mother (with the high rate of breeding) did. The daughter-in-law has not met all her siblings??!!?
Yep... can you believe it? The daughter inlaw's dad even went so far as to divorce the "DIL"s mom, make two kids with another woman, then got back together with the DIL's mom, then they split up again, and actually lives in the same apartment building as she and the stepson. She is something like one of 8 or so kids that this guy made and she has NO full siblings. Like 8 kids and 6 moms.... Nice enough girl, the DIL, but surprising that she came out as she did with her home environment growing up.... She was actually working at the same Dunkin' as her mom, and one day her mom threw a coffee pot at her! Messed up. My "almost wife" (we had to put our plans on hold due to her car accident injuries from 2 years ago), has become the DIL's surrogate mom.
I agree with you. The only thing he has done is talk to his not yet wife and suggest that a closer look is given to their budget. There hasn't been much interference at all and he hardly seems a know it all to me. In blended families the step children are not completely not your business. They are family.
I have made this same suggestion to clients that are not even my children. It is good advice. What a bank may qualify you for may be way over the limit of what you can really afford. They don't know peoples spending habits. Doing your own math first is always a good idea because only you really know what you can afford.
As far as where his concerns lie be it for their best interest or his I will wait for him to tell us if he wants to. He may be worried about them or worried about picking up the pieces later or both. Still I don't see how his bit of advice is bad.
Thank you.... They seem dead set on a big house (colonial, with a two car garage, almost 1,900ft) in a community that they can't really afford, when close by they can more readily afford a more modest ranch, 1,000ft at a LOT less money. A two family and raking in $800 per month or more rent is probably a great plan for them (stepson would probably end up renting it to his dad) and before the granddaughter enters school, he will probably be making more money, DIL might be full time unless they make another grandchild for grandpa Jim, THEN they can move to a nicer school system.
It sounds like these kids might have made some mistakes, but they seem to be handling it quite well for their ages. 20 and 21 is pretty young, and they both have good jobs and were able to save up a 10 percent down payment. They're doing better than a lot of the 30-year-olds that I know, honestly.
I'd gently let them know about your concerns and then butt out. They're going to do what they want to do anyway. If you're negative during the whole ordeal, you'll just push them away and upset your (almost) wife.
They won't be the first couple to buy a home without a huge savings account. They seem to have fairly good heads on their shoulders, so I'm sure they'll manage.
Yes. The stepson has stepped up. They are just being a bit premature in what they are trying to do, IMO. I don't discuss such things directly with the stepson, not my place, but I offer my opinion to his mom, "make them write a budget of their expenses and give you and his dad a copy for review and comment". She won't do it, and I don't know why. She actually used to be a realtor before CT's market crashed years ago. She knows the situation.
I really try to not upset the Mama Bear, no winners there.....LOL.
They are actually on good paths. Pipefitters and medical techs are in short supply and high demand. If they are not making $100 K between them, they need to change jobs or move to some other location.
Apprentices are not paid that well, but journeymen make very good money. A journeyman pipe-fitter makes $70 - $100 K. If he makes journeyman and is not in that range - the demand for pipe-fitters right now is unbelievable. They get paid signing bonuses, and on some jobs, even get a bonus just for showing up each day. The contractors are all short of workers and trying to steal each other's top guys. They work set hours, get to actually take vacations and vacate during them, never need to pay for gym membership to get some exercise, can move to any city and get a job immediately. The pay is not amazing, but it is quite good. Benefits are decent. For a bright young guy there is considerable opportunity to advance (for a while).
If he is smart, and a hard worker, he will be a foreman soon and may be able to move up to superintendent. Then the company may be willing to send him to school at night to become a project manager. Civil engineering will be much easier for him if he is already an experienced pipe fitter. Our experienced PMs make about $160K a year plus bonuses. (He will need to be a project engineer for several years until he proves himself capable of managing a job. He could be a PE while attending school. He could major in Civil Engineering or Construction management and turn his pipefitting background into management of refineries or NG compressor stations etc in the hundreds of Millions.
He is on a good track right now. Engineering is a guaranteed job too, but few people make it all the way through engineering school, no matter how bright they are. It is more about dedication and focus than intelligence. They have to be reasonably smart, but frequently less bright but more focused people make it through while brighter but more distracted people move into other areas of study.
BTW, when we bought our first house, we put $3000 down. The owner carried back the rest of the down-payment as a second. We cashed in our life insurance, sold the stock our grandparents had given us and use a tax return to cover the down payment and moving/closing costs. We had Four kids at the time. We had very little furniture. We sat on a blanket on the floor of our dining-room for the first year or so. The house was a wreck and in a somewhat rough city that was 88% Hispanic. We paid $175,000 for it. We struggled to make the payments, but after a while it got easier. We refinanced the house and paid off debt, fixed it up more and more. 9 years after we bought it we sold it for $757,000. t was not foolish at all even though we really could not afford it when we bought it.
Not just a pipefitter, but a pipefitter building nuclear submarines....... He's on his way to a good career, but he's really more of a work in the office type of guy. I probably told him, to inspire him to not stay stuck in the fitter role, to look at the fitters in their 50's..... It's a hard job and hard on a guy's body. The plant has college degree benefits, but if you are working 2nd shift, and taking care of your child in the mornings while your wife is at work, how do you squeeze in 2 classes per semester? Once he gets experience, and an associates degree, he'll be a good project manager some day.
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