u/AdMysterious9810

I could have also tagged this one as "sad" bc I just feel at such a loss. My 3 year old (4 this summer) is having impulse control issues at school and does things like hitting kids with toys, throwing wood chips, or pushing. All different kids across the two 3 year old classes, never targeting a specific kid.

Is this normal? The staff makes it seem like its not. They said a few parents have complained. Is this because he's an only child and doesn't practice this stuff at home? We do tons of playdates and I dont know... kids are handsy. We don't WANT him to hurt other people, obviously. But like... I'm not physically there and I don't know how to keep this from happening. We talk about not hurting others, look how it makes them sad, etc.

The daycare uses a program called Conscious Discipline, which I don't know a ton about, but from what I gather, they don't have consequences except a "calm down corner." At home we use more firm consequences for things and that seems to be what he needs. He gets a firm time out or loss of privileges for undesirable behaviors.

This is kind of a ramble but I'm at a loss. Thanks for reading.

My husband and I accumulated a fair amount of debt in our 20s.

60k student loans

30k credit cards/car loans

In 2019, we were both done with school and making a fair amount at our adult jobs, so I finally buckled down and looked at the finances I'd been avoiding. I logged the previous 3 months and created a "budget" for what we could spend without putting more on credit cards. I was appalled at how much money we were wasting!

In the years ahead, we took an income reduction when Covid hit, bought a house, had a kid, took another income reduction for me to stay home with said kid. But sticking to a realistic budget kept us on track and kept us from taking on more debt. We used our savings the year I stayed home.

Fast forward to now, we have 2 good incomes, 1 kid in daycare (💀💸 iykyk). We are down to our last 30k in student loans, and that should be paid off THIS YEAR. 🎉

We have a small amount in savings, so the next step after the loans is to build that up. After that, we tackle the mortgage. 💪🏼

Here is where our money currently goes:

Living expenses: 45%

Student Loans: 23%

Retirement: 13%

Savings: 10%

Guilt Free Spending: 9%

We can't wait to say we are debt free. The idea of not owing anyone any money is freeing.

I wouldn't call us a success story yet but we are on our way. My biggest advice is to create a realistic budget that you can actually stick to. For us, that included budgeting for fun. We also sold a vehicle that cost too much to maintain and gas, and got a reliable less flashy one. When we bought our house, we didn't let our lender approve us for the top amount. We calculated our desired mortgage amount, got approved for that, and only looked at houses in that range.

Good luck to anyone reading this! Feel free to ask questions if any of this resonates with you. ❤️

2 adults in late 30s

1 preschooler, no pets

Racked up a fair amount of debt in our 20s due to both being in school and being frivolous with money. We began weak retirement contributions in our 20s but nothing worthwhile. We started budgeting and working on everything when we were in our early 30s. Before 2019, I'd never created a budget before but started with a basic spreadsheet. I went back and looked at our statements and logged everything for the previous 3 months, then started logging every purchase and learning how to categorize and plan.

Overall, we probably had about 30k in credit cards/car loans and then 60k in student loans.

I made less during Covid and then stayed home for a year with our baby. During that time, we used a lot of our savings but didn't add debt.

We've slowly been putting money toward debt while still enjoying life with our young child. I find multiple financial personalities helpful, but don't stick to 1 way of doing things because I believe we all have to do what works for us.

We believe in being debt free, and that's our biggest goal (student loans, then mortgage). We also believe in having guilt free spending because this is our life now, and we want to enjoy it while still planning for the future. We are planning for retirement but aren't being aggressive. That will change once the student loans are done.

As of right now, we have 0 credit card/car loan debt and about 30k left on student loans. The student loans will be paid off by December 2026.

We put 23% of our income toward the student loans.We put 10% into savings since we have a young child and don't have a full emergency fund. We could easily drop our loan payment significantly if an emergency arose. We put 45% to our fixed living expenses. We put 13% into retirement due to 401k matching. We do not want to miss out on that. The remaining 9% is what we spend guilt free. Travel, food, recreation, home updates. I don't feel like it's extravagant by our definition.

Income: 13.3k/month

Fixed Expenses: 45%

Student Loans: 23%

Retirement: 13%

Savings: 10%

Guilt Free: 9%

I feel like we've come a long way in about 7 years and am excited for what our 40s bring! 🙂

I'd love any constructive tips/thoughts. Thanks!

2 adults in late 30s

1 preschooler, no pets

Racked up a fair amount of debt in our 20s due to both being in school and being frivolous with money. We started budgeting and working on everything when we were in our early 30s. Before 2019, I'd never created a budget before but started with a basic spreadsheet. I went back and looked at our statements and logged everything for the previous 3 months, then started logging every purchase and learning how to categorize and plan.

Overall, we probably had about 30k in credit cards/car loans and then 60k in student loans.

I made less during Covid and then stayed home for a year with our baby. During that time, we used a lot of our savings but didn't add debt.

We've slowly been putting money toward debt while still enjoying life with our young child. I find multiple financial personalities helpful, but don't stick to 1 way of doing things because I believe we all have to do what works for us.

We believe in being debt free, and that's our biggest goal (student loans, then mortgage). We also believe in having guilt free spending because this is our life now, and we want to enjoy it while still planning for the future. We are planning for retirement but aren't being aggressive.

As of right now, we have 0 credit card/car loan debt and about 30k left on student loans. The student loans will be paid off by December 2026.

We put 23% of our income toward the student loans.We put 10% into savings since we have a young child and don't have a full emergency fund. We could easily drop our loan payment significantly if an emergency arose. We put 45% to our fixed living expenses. We put 13% into retirement due to 401k matching. We do not want to miss out on that. The remaining 9% is what we spend guilt free. Travel, food, recreation, home updates. I don't feel like it's extravagant by our definition.

Income: 13.3k/month

Fixed Expenses: 45%

Student Loans: 23%

Retirement: 13%

Savings: 10%

Guilt Free: 9%

I feel like we've come a long way in about 7 years and am excited for what our 40s bring! 🙂

2 adults in late 30's
1 kid @ 3 years old
living in a slightly lower than the national average COL
no pets
adult # 1- engineer with 401k and max employer match
adult #2- teacher with state pension
no car payments
no credit card debt

Goal 1: paying off student loan debt by end of 2026

Goal 2: paying off mortgage in the next 5 years

Goal 3: invest and save for retirement, kid's college, etc

I know this isn't technically the order you are "supposed" to do it. But we love the idea of having a paid for house.

What are we doing well? What could we do differently/better?

Income	Monthly
Adult #1	6,703
Adult #2	5,304
Total	12,007
Debt
Mortgage	1,261	254,230 @ 3.6%
Student Loans	3,200 (min is 400)	30,862 @ 5.0%
Total	4,461	285,902
Savings
Emergency Fund	1,200	9,637
Travel Sinking Funds	400	100
Birthdays/Holidays Sinking Funds	120	540
Total	1,720	10,077
Investments (pre-tax)
401k	1,268	145,409
Pension	525	65,514
HSA	84	1,469
Roth IRA	0	59,216
Total	1,876
Expenses
Streaming (4 Services)	87
Utilities/Phone	480
Car Insurance	158
Daycare	980
Escrow	631
Food	1200
Dining Out	300
Gas/Tolls	200
Clothing/Grooming	100
Gifts	100
Healthcare	300
Household Supplies	300
Maintenance/Upkeep	300
Miscellaneous	200
Allowance	200
Annual (averaged)	82
Total	5,618
Income	12,007
Spending	11,799
Buffer in Checking	208