Under the "bad decisions that Toshi makes" category, I'm slowly rethinking my opposition to kid #3. Wife is very persistent. Perhaps I could make this work.
Financially: Maybe don't contribute to 529s at all and let them fend for themselves besides what I've already saved? It'd be easier to swing financially in Denver since I have relatively reasonable housing costs but the built in child care in Seattle is kind of a big deal.
Logistically: The house (either this one in Denver or a hypothetical one in Seattle) would be workable with doubling up the two older kids in a room a bit later.
She's fine with minivans and given my pattern of non-use we'd probably be just as well off with a Pacifica PHEV in the garage for her, and my bike + a Zipcar membership and transit pass for me. (The light rail line to work is opening tomorrow, not that biking essentially halfway to my local station is much more convenient than just riding the whole way in.)
The way I see it she's not really contributing financially now. She certainly is very helpful with the kids, cooking, keeping the house running. So her cutting back on, say, her little kid music classes that she teaches now (noting negative net income claimed on taxes thanks to the home office deduction) wouldn't really hurt the bottom line. It'd be more a question of how much freedom I'd give up with another spawn. As long as I could still go biking and skiing...
Anyway, the car shuffling idea is more entertaining so I'll run with that: Between the two cars we probably have a little equity despite having financed them both with 0% down for 65 months (because of cheap money). The idea would be to replace both the Land Cruiser and the RAV4 EV with a Pacifica Hybrid, which is actually a 33 mile range 14 kWh PHEV despite that innocuous name. With a hitch on it it'd work for my biking and would be adequate for getting up to skiing in all likelihood.
Such a thing would be about $31k net price: $44k for a loaded one with all the fancy autobraking and the like via Truecar, apparently, minus $7.5k Federal tax credit and minus the $5k Colorado credit (noting that it used to be $6k--thanks, legislature!). This is less than the two current vehicles combined so should be less to finance and insure. I honestly could get by with just my bike + calling an Uber on snowy days.
Hmm.
The garage sure would seem roomy... Food for thought/for you all to laugh at my future misery and lack of sleep.
Financially: Maybe don't contribute to 529s at all and let them fend for themselves besides what I've already saved? It'd be easier to swing financially in Denver since I have relatively reasonable housing costs but the built in child care in Seattle is kind of a big deal.
Logistically: The house (either this one in Denver or a hypothetical one in Seattle) would be workable with doubling up the two older kids in a room a bit later.
She's fine with minivans and given my pattern of non-use we'd probably be just as well off with a Pacifica PHEV in the garage for her, and my bike + a Zipcar membership and transit pass for me. (The light rail line to work is opening tomorrow, not that biking essentially halfway to my local station is much more convenient than just riding the whole way in.)
The way I see it she's not really contributing financially now. She certainly is very helpful with the kids, cooking, keeping the house running. So her cutting back on, say, her little kid music classes that she teaches now (noting negative net income claimed on taxes thanks to the home office deduction) wouldn't really hurt the bottom line. It'd be more a question of how much freedom I'd give up with another spawn. As long as I could still go biking and skiing...
Anyway, the car shuffling idea is more entertaining so I'll run with that: Between the two cars we probably have a little equity despite having financed them both with 0% down for 65 months (because of cheap money). The idea would be to replace both the Land Cruiser and the RAV4 EV with a Pacifica Hybrid, which is actually a 33 mile range 14 kWh PHEV despite that innocuous name. With a hitch on it it'd work for my biking and would be adequate for getting up to skiing in all likelihood.
Such a thing would be about $31k net price: $44k for a loaded one with all the fancy autobraking and the like via Truecar, apparently, minus $7.5k Federal tax credit and minus the $5k Colorado credit (noting that it used to be $6k--thanks, legislature!). This is less than the two current vehicles combined so should be less to finance and insure. I honestly could get by with just my bike + calling an Uber on snowy days.
Hmm.
The garage sure would seem roomy... Food for thought/for you all to laugh at my future misery and lack of sleep.
