u/Impossible_Fault_796

Hi all! I have a question, and I'm wondering if Dave has already answered it (or a version of it) on his show. Feel free to direct me to clips if you know of any, or let me know your own thoughts.

The question is basically, what would be the best way for a family to build wealth assuming homeownership is not an option?

The reason I'm asking: my husband and I live in Brooklyn, NY with our 3 kids, and we're like 90% sure we're going to move to another state in about 8 months because our chances of ever owning a home in NYC are slim to none, especially if we follow DR's advice and don't let ourselves be house poor 😆

But if it weren't for that cost-of-living/homeownership consideration, we would really prefer to stay in Brooklyn! My husband's entire family is here; our kids have all their friends, church community, etc. And we generally like it here. So a small part of me is wondering: what if we just stayed and accepted the financial tradeoffs of living here -- specifically, expecting to be renters indefinitely? I know that owning a house is a standard step for families to build wealth, and I understand that renting isn't ideal because we'd be subject to increasing costs forever. But if this was a sacrifice we were willing to make, I'm wondering if DR would adjust his baby steps in any way for families in a situation like ours. I'm assuming we should save and invest more aggressively? Any specific guidelines?

(In case it's relevant: we are on Baby Step 3 as of a couple weeks ago!! It's so wonderful to be debt-free, and I'm grateful to this sub for the camaraderie, insights, and encouragement.)

Just curious here:

In criminal cases, the prosecution is supposed to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. But people can doubt even a really solid case depending on how high their standards of evidence are or how conspiracy theory-inclined they're feeling 😅 Are there any guidelines that could help jury members decide whether or not any perceived gaps in the prosecution's case are legitimately significant?

Hi all!

My question is simple: would DR advise non-homeowners (ie, those without a mortgage, ie, those who would have to follow baby step 3b) to pause 401k contributions until they've completed baby step 3b (house down payment) or just baby step 3a (3-6m emergency fund)?

More personal context for those interested:

I know that DR's most unpopular advice is to pause all retirement investments until you're done with baby step 3, including 401k contributions even if your employer offers a match. My husband and I are currently in what should be the last few months of baby step 2, and his employer does, in fact, offer a 401(k) match -- but we haven't paused it so far in our baby steps journey. It's the one area where we're still diverging from Dave's advice, and so far, we've been okay with that, because who would turn down a guaranteed 100% ROI? Our line of thinking has been, if it makes us a bit slower to progress through the baby steps, that's okay, because it will benefit us in the long run.

As we're getting closer to our BS2 goal, however, I notice that one consistent theme on our journey is that whenever we diverge from Dave's advice, we end up regretting it in one way or another. With the 401k thing being the one point we're still stubbornly holding out on, I'm getting curious how bad it would be if we just followed that one last piece of advice to free up some margin and get through the baby steps faster. If we only had to pause 401k contributions until we had our emergency fund, that would not take too long, so that might not be too bad. But, since we don't have a home yet and live in a HCOL area, if we had to wait until we had a house down payment, that would take way longer and would probably be a different story.

I know that at the end of the day it's our money and we can do whatever we want. But I'm just curious what DR's official position on this is.

Hi all! Thought I'd get your thoughts on this situation I got myself into that I'm kind of kicking myself for. What would you have done differently?

For context: my husband and I are on what should be the last 4ish months of baby step 2 (paying off all our debts ASAP), which means (as you all probably know) that I am currently unusually uptight about our budget. In any other season of life, I probably would not consider this situation to be a big deal at all, but since we're doing this "gazelle intensity" thing (or trying to), I'm using this as an opportunity to learn as much about frugality and money management as I can.

So, today I agreed to a $150 last minute expenditure that I low-key consider wasteful, and I'm wondering what you guys think my main learning lesson from this is.

Here's what happened:

A few weeks ago, my mother-in-law told me that a friend of hers was looking to give away a kids' bunk bed set. She said it was super high quality, wood, in good shape, etc., and that I could use it for my two sons' room. I told her that my kids weren't in urgent need of new beds or anything like that, but if it was free and her friend couldn't find anyone else to claim it, then we could take it off her hands and give my sons' bedroom an upgrade (they currently basically sleep in bunk beds already -- older son's bed is a loft bed, and younger son's bed is a normal toddler bed that's placed underneath his brother's.) This wouldn't be the first time my husband and I had gotten furniture gifted to us by friends or family, and I assumed we'd do what we normally do: drive to their house, help them disassemble the furniture if needed, and drive it home.

Until today, I didn't get updates on the bunk bed situation except one in which MIL told me she was still waiting on her friend for a response. This morning, she called and said that her friend knew a guy who could disassemble and deliver the bed for us for $150. My initial reaction was "I don't think so," since I had only agreed to take the bed because it was free, and $150 for delivery isn't the same thing as free, and I hadn't made any room in our budget for an expense like that this month. (We do have a line item for small unexpected expenses every month, but that one is designed for e.g. when our electronics break and replacement can't wait until next month -- just so that we don't have to dip into our starter emergency fund for every little thing. In my mind, this bed did not qualify for this line item since it's not really an emergency for us; our kids don't need new beds urgently. And while we do technically have the money, paying for this would mean going without $150 worth of stuff we have greater need for.) I asked if I or my husband could come by her friend's house tomorrow and take it ourselves (today wouldn't work for us), and MIL said she would ask her friend. She also started selling me really hard on this bed delivery, saying it's a great deal for delivery in our area, to which my reaction (which I didn't voice out loud out of fear of sounding rude) was that even if that's the case, that doesn't mean we have to make an unnecessary purchase while we're on a tight budget.

I was also texting my husband about this update, and he said that he'd defer to me on whether to get this bed delivered but that he felt like this could be a worthy investment in our kids' room since the beds would last a while. I disagreed, saying high quality furniture isn't that hard to come by for cheap/free in our area if you know where to look (Facebook Marketplace, garage sales, etc.), so it's not like this bunk bed upgrade can't wait until we're more flexible financially. My husband also pointed out that we had already agreed to take it, and that was the one point that stuck with me; I'd feel bad backing out after initially accepting the offer.

A couple hours later, MIL called me back saying that us taking the bed tomorrow wouldn't work for her friend; she needed to get rid of it today, and the delivery guy was already at her house. So our options were to pay $150 for the delivery or back out altogether. At this point, between my MIL pushing delivery, my husband saying it was a good investment, and me not wanting to look like a jerk for changing my mind, I relented and agreed to pay for the delivery guy, feeling a little cornered (potentially by my own decisions) and wishing I didn't have to say yes to this.

So what (if anything) did I do wrong here? Should I have inquired further into the logistics/timeline of acquiring this bed before agreeing to anything? (That's what I'm leaning towards rn lol) Should I have stood my ground and declined to pay for these bunk beds for the sake of protecting my family's financial boundaries, even if it made me look cheap or inconsiderate? Or is my husband right that this wasn't that bad of a purchase, even if it wasn't ideal timing-wise, and I should just chalk this up to "life happens" and/or choose to consider it a favor for my MIL's friend?

Open to thoughts!