Is 10 too big for CA

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Originally Posted by dl4060

It completely depends on expectations. For some, they want to send their kids to Groton, Yale and Harvard Medical School and have the kids come out with no debt. For others, having kids go to public schools and pay for college on their own is fine. Parameters need to be established before cost per child can be accurately computed. It also depends a whole lot on where someone lives. In Newport Beach, where I live, it is extremely expensive if you want to own a home. With 10 kids I would want a very large home, and where I live that is expensive. My wife and I don't have kids, and don't want them, but if I were to decide to have kids I would want them to be able to finish graduate school debt free. I'm not saying that is a requirement, the vast majority of people are not in that situation, but if you want your kids to have the gift of debt free college education it will be very pricey. Take UC Irvine, the resident tuition is about 15k per year, and that is ONLY tuition, it does not include living expenses. 50k per year per child sounds like a lot though, maybe the poster is thinking private schools and expensive neighborhoods. Unless the poster explicitly states what they consider to be normal expenses we really don't know where they got that figure from.

The majority of people do not live in high end cities. The majority of people will not send their kids to ivy league schools. The majority of people will not pay 100% of their kids education nor should they feel that they have to.

Things you have mentioned are far from the norm.

The norm with big families is having more than one kid in a room. When I was a kid we had 4 boys in one room and 4 girls in another. We only had a 3 bedroom home and had 8 kids. My wife and I have had 2 kids per room in our home. we only have 4 kids left in our home now. Some have this idea that every kid needs a room. Never understood that.

What we have done is tell our kids that we will not be financing their education. We have taught them to do what they can to get what they can to make a better life. Five of the six kids have been or are excellent students. One not so much. I have two that have the goal of attending USC. That is a high cost school. These two kids are top students that have never seen a grade below an A. They excel at other things. Who knows what will happen. I am sure that they will make it in life. I am certainly not going to hand them over a life on a silver platter. I don't think that they would benefit from having everything given to them, not that I have the ability to do that anyway. Even if I did, I don't see it as a benefit to the kids.

[wac_432]

You said 8 kids. My numbers are accurate for 10.

So you'll need at least 5br. Rental for that will be between 2500 to 3000 in a safe area in ventura. 30%more if you want good schools. Utilities are tiered, so it's actually more expensive to put 10 people at one address than 2, because you will spike into the top tier rates for electricity, water, gas even if all 10 are super frugal.

Nothing costs all that much except for housing. Rents are skyrocketing, and property values are already bubbly. A 5br in most of the county is 600k minimum today. More tomorrow.

Coastal California is for people who are on their game. This isn't Nebraska where you can plunk down a huge family and do well by keep on keeping on.

I love it here. We surf, bike, bike, climb, fish and just enjoy the awesome environment. We have an old family car, 95% of what we buy comes from thrift stores. We are both frugal and have high-skill high-wage jobs to make it happen here. By all means, if you've got what it takes and you're an outdoorsy social type, come join us. But be sure you're​ honest with yourself about what it takes for newcomers with no connections or property to make it in coastal ca.

[dl4060]

Originally Posted by SOON2BNSURPRISE

The majority of people do not live in high end cities. The majority of people will not send their kids to ivy league schools. The majority of people will not pay 100% of their kids education nor should they feel that they have to.

Things you have mentioned are far from the norm.

The norm with big families is having more than one kid in a room. When I was a kid we had 4 boys in one room and 4 girls in another. We only had a 3 bedroom home and had 8 kids. My wife and I have had 2 kids per room in our home. we only have 4 kids left in our home now. Some have this idea that every kid needs a room. Never understood that.

What we have done is tell our kids that we will not be financing their education. We have taught them to do what they can to get what they can to make a better life. Five of the six kids have been or are excellent students. One not so much. I have two that have the goal of attending USC. That is a high cost school. These two kids are top students that have never seen a grade below an A. They excel at other things. Who knows what will happen. I am sure that they will make it in life. I am certainly not going to hand them over a life on a silver platter. I don't think that they would benefit from having everything given to them, not that I have the ability to do that anyway. Even if I did, I don't see it as a benefit to the kids.

I am very well aware that the things I mentioned are not the norm. I never implied that they were.


I never said that they should feel that they have to when it comes to paying for 100% of their kids education. I said we need to know what the poster's expectations are before we can establish what it takes to raise a child and where they got the 50k from. I also never implied that everyone needs to go to an ivy or live in a wealthy neighborhood. I was merely making the point that different people have different expectations. As far as handing things to someone on a silver platter, people who work at places like Goldman Sachs and have had their educations paid for are certainly not being given things. They are working 80 hours a week and they would have worked very hard to get where they are. And starting out working life without student loan debt is certainly a benefit to the child, I don't see how anyone can logically argue anything different.

[MrsKSmith]

We are barely making it work, but we have one 14 year old kid and our own student loans....