Salary s/o Baltimore

amother

Snow

Mon, May 09 2022, 11:38 pm

Also depends where you live. If you live in the Beazer your mortgage would be way higher than a semi in the upper park heights area.

My husband's and my salary combined is a little over $200k. We have 5 kids, 2 in dorms in yeshiva and 3 at home in school. We pay full tuition for all 5. We live in the cheaper side of town and live simply. We have what we need and a little extra, but not tons. If we didn't pay full tuition, we'd probably have enough left over to be considered wealthy.

amother

Tue, May 10 2022, 6:49 am

amother [ Snow ] wrote:

At 200K do you have a choice to not pay full tuition? And yeah definitely where you live and how comfortably you want makes a difference. I guess I’m just looking for a general ball park range.

amother

Dimgray

Tue, May 10 2022, 7:25 am

amother [ Snow ] wrote:

Assuming that you both work full time - how do you manage carpool & before and after school etc?

amother

White

Tue, May 10 2022, 7:45 am

amother [ Dimgray ] wrote:

Assuming that you both work full time - how do you manage carpool & before and after school etc?

I'm not op, but live in Baltimore and we both work full time. One of us goes in later and does drop offs and one goes in early and does pick ups. If you have kids at multiple schools, carpools might be necessary depending in where you send and how far they are from each other.

amother

Cerise

Tue, May 10 2022, 8:14 am

amother [ Dimgray ] wrote:

Assuming that you both work full time - how do you manage carpool & before and after school etc?

Also not OP, but I am in Baltimore and DH and I both work more than full time. I work from 7:30-3:30; I leave the house at 7 and get home at 4. My husband is out from 8:10am-6:45pm. One child drives herself to school at this point BH. My 6th grader starts school at 7:30 and ends at 5:15, so he has an AM carpool who takes him to school and I drive the PM shift. My other son has school from 8:30-3:30, so my husband drives him to school, he gets there a bit early, and we pay a teacher to drive him home and he beats me home by about 15 minutes, so he lets himself in and is alone for that short time, which I do not love but he is 9 so we deal.

When the kids were younger, we had the same hours and had various carpools or paid carpools depending on their hours. The boys schools here have different hours depending on their grades, so it gets easier for parents who work full time as they get older. When they are younger, it's very hard and stressful to figure it all out. There was a year when my husband drove the am carpool and the pm carpool dropped them off at a sitter and I literally paid her for 15 mins. a day, and I picked the kids up from her house.

Carpool and paid carpools are the name of the game here. You can also send your kids on a dedicated city bus line which has specific routs just for BY, TI, and TA.

amother

Cerise

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:10 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Yikes this thread is making me nervous. We should be making about 150ish soon (but right now we only have a couple of kids). But don’t know if we’d ever get to 200/250

We make just over 100k. We own two cars and we own a home in a less desirable but still frum area (pay mortgage obviously, but Baltimore has amazing home ownership programs for first time buyers, so we pay no PMI on the house and put very very little down). Three kids in school, one child has her tuition paid by her grandparent (from my first marriage). The other two children are in a school with very generous tuition assistance and we are very VERY honest with our finances. My kids go to camp for free because my husband works there in the summers (he is a teacher). No government programs.

amother

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:12 am

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

My kids aren’t school age yet so I’m wondering how tuition breaks work. Like I’m afraid that we’ll be classic middle class where we make too much to get any breaks but then won’t actually be able to afford life…

amother

Cerise

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:15 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

What does "afford life" mean to you? Like I said, we make just over 100k and when honest with the school, they give assistance. Of course, you have to pick a school with a big enough student body and a large enough scholarship pot to help if you need it. TA and TI have more to give than the smaller and newer boys schools.

amother

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:18 am

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

What does "afford life" mean to you? Like I said, we make just over 100k and when honest with the school, they give assistance.

Right so I’m wondering if let’s say $150K-$170K would be considered making too much for a tuition break if family size isn’t large. Affording life means exactly that. Frum life is expensive even if you are not trying to keep up with trends, have fancy cars/house, go on vacations etc. Paying for kosher food, making simchas even not lavish ones etc. It’s expensive.

amother

Cerise

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:28 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Ok this is where I don't buy it. You can't just say "frum life is expensive"... it CAN be if you make it that way. If frum life = meat every week and frum clothing brands and vacations and overnight camp... fine. If frum life = meat when market maven has it on sale, for Rosh Hashana, sukkos, and Pesach and a few other times during the year, shopping at Target, Macy's on sale, etc, no overnight camp and cheap day camps... go away literally never... it means something totally different.

I am IYH making a bar mitzvah in a few weeks. The basic kiddush package for our shul (300 people) is $2000. That is the biggest expense. The party is at a local hall with catering there, and it's $27/person, and we made it very small, so it will be no more than $2000. Tfillin were $1000. Music is $400, photographer is $400. BH grandparents paid for tfillin, another grandparent gave $1500 to use as needed, and my husband took yet ANOTHER job teaching guitar at night to pay the rest. Some do more here, some less.

Baltimore is not a city where anyone has trends. Some do, some don't, but it's not one of those places where people care. My 18 year old daughter cares very much to be in trend, so I spend what I am willing to spend and she makes the rest herself and spends the rest herself... Man and a Truck is a mod scene when he comes to town, so many people shop with him.

amother

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:36 am

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

I understand what you’re saying but for people who do have to pay full tuition it’s a LOT of money. And it sounds like you’re spending about 6K on the bar mitzvah (Mazel Tov by the way!). You’re lucky that you have family helping out a little but not everyone has that. Even 6K is a lot of money for people to throw down if most of their money is going towards tuition. Know what I mean?

amother

Cerise

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:38 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Totally. It's weird because my family is not frum at all and normally never ever helps out, we did not expect it here at all. Still, 6k for a bar mitzvah, including tfillin, is very little.

amother

Tue, May 10 2022, 9:40 am

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

Totally. It's weird because my family is not frum at all and normally never ever helps out, we did not expect it here at all. Still, 6k for a bar mitzvah, including tfilling, is very little.

Yes 6K is definitely little for a bar mitzvah but that’s exactly my point. This is a necessary expense and is still bare basics Simcha and it’s still 6K which is a LOT of money.