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> an information technology worker in New York City, has taken money out of retirement accounts three times since the 2008 recession. He withdrew more than $50,

> an information technology worker in New York City, has taken money out of retirement accounts three times since the 2008 recession. He withdrew more than $50,000 to pay credit card debts, tuition for his six children to attend a religious school and, most recently, an overdue mortgage. “It was really a choice of saving the present versus securing the future,” he said. “My situation wasn’t someone who’s frivolous. Expenses were just more than I was making.” Raiding retirement accounts to pay for private school seems like a terrible idea. Credit card debt and overdue mortgage payments might be somewhat more understandable as reflecting a pinch of mandatory expenses growing faster than income, but I'm pretty sure that NYC public schools would provide an adequate enough education to not be worth the risk of having insufficient savings for retirement. If you can't pay your mortgage and credit cards, I'd consider private school to be an extravagant luxury that you literally can't afford at this time.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Having six kids does not help your finances living in a Tier 1 city (assuming you need at least a three bedroom for that sized family). Each one costs $250k-$300k to raise 0-18 (per Brookings) without accounting for daycare, private school, or college. Hard to have sympathy for the financially irresponsible. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/08/30/its-getting-more-expensive-to-raise-children-and-government-isnt-doing-much-to-help/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/08/30/its-getti... (2022) https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-child https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-chil... (2017) https://gothamist.com/news/it-could-cost-you-500k-to-raise-a-child-in-nyc https://gothamist.com/news/it-could-cost-you-500k-to-raise-a... (2014) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 (additional citations from a previous comment)
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  There's a lot of variability in those costs. A third of the estimate is just housing. It's not quite as simple as saying that each kid will cost you another $1400 out of pocket each month.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - svnt 3y ago
    They easily will for the first six years of their lives in NYC, assuming both parents work.
    - xenospn 3y ago
      For a religious family with six children that is probably not the case.
    - rootusrootus 3y ago
      On what, though? Well over a thousand bucks a month per kid? The dollar figure specifically excluded daycare.
- pc86 3y ago
  Not trying to dispute anything here, as I don't think anyone sane would suggest it isn't expensive to have kids, but the Brookings article in particular is kind of hard to parse. $310k for kid #2 born in 2015 to a middle-income family. What's middle-income in this case? How does that change for higher income which would be more representative of HN readers? How does that change if it's kid #1 instead of 2? They also say "adjusted for higher expected future inflation" but don't say what numbers they're using. Elsewhere they say that inflation is increasing the cost by about $26k overall. Over 18 years that's $120/mo which for a $300k expense is pretty insignificant overall. And in general, I don't think people take cost into account for children this granularly. Who is looking at $290k over 18 years and thinks "yeah let's do it" then balks at $310k? Nobody.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    > And in general, I don't think people take cost into account for children this granularly. Who is looking at $290k over 18 years and thinks "yeah let's do it" then balks at $310k? Nobody. 40% of pregnancies annually are unintended in the US [1]. Poverty is the fourth leading cause of death [2]. Between 9 and 12 million children are exposed to chronic hungry (fluctuates year to year) [3]. High level, the citations and data strongly suggest that no one (or very few people) does the math, and then they're all surprised pikchu when US socioeconomics comes for them. You'd laugh at someone when they buy a Lambo and can't afford the gas for it, but no one batts an eye when people do the same with kids. [1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-u... [2] https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2023/04/17/poverty-4th-greatest-cause-us-deaths https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2023/04/17/poverty-4th-greates... [3] https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/child-hunger-facts https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/child-hunge...
    - hammock 3y ago
      >40% of pregnancies annually are unintended in the US Note that 61% of unintended pregnancies are aborted.(1) So it would be mistaken to think that 40% of children born are unintended. (1)https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-world...
- MuffinFlavored 3y ago
  > Each one costs $250k-$300k to raise 0-18 (per Brookings) without accounting for daycare, private school, or college. $250k / 18 years / 12 months a year = $1,150/mo on average to feed + clothe a child, take it on vacation, put it in sports, buy it school supplies, and take it to the doctor, deal with a broken arm, birthday presents, tutoring, etc. About $265/week. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Call it 3 meals a day. $37.95/day to raise a kid. $12.65/meal 3 times a day for 18 years. (that's 100% of the budget for food, obviously unrealistic). 80% of the budget is $10/meal 7 days a week before inflation.
  - HWR_14 3y ago
    Eaten at home, I cannot imagine a breakfast approaching $10. School lunches (the majority of lunches in any given year) average $4.33.
- tmpz22 3y ago
  Further the financial stress almost always passes to the children in one form or the other. The kids through no choice of their own may get stuck with a big bag of guilt, anger, apathy, insecurity, and more. This is why public institutions are so important. This is why studying the real impact of socio-economic disparities on an individuals pursuit of happiness is so important.
csomar 3y ago
Religion, huh?
2023throwawayy 3y ago
> “My situation wasn’t someone who’s frivolous.“ Sending 6 kids to a private religious school sounds extremely frivolous to me.
- pb7 3y ago
  >someone who is good at the economy please help budget this. my family is dying[0] [0]https://dril.fandom.com/wiki/Candles https://dril.fandom.com/wiki/Candles
- hobo_in_library 3y ago
  [flagged]
- axus 3y ago
  I'd say it depends on the quality relative to the other options. In some areas near me, people will choose a Catholic school even when they aren't Catholic. My own experience with a public vs religious elementary school was much better at the public school.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  I went to an inner city urban high school and anyone suggesting that you must withdraw from your 401k to send your kids to private school if you live in NYC is out of touch.
- MobiusHorizons 3y ago
  Frivolous would suggest the decision is not weighty. Religious schooling is considered very important to many people. It may not be the choice you or I would make, but I have a hard time imagining it as a casual choice.
- fundad 3y ago
  What do you think money is for?
svnt 3y ago
If your social support depends on your membership in that community, which depends on your kids attending a similar school, you’ll dig deep to preserve it.
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  Uh, no - there is no way paying for an urban day school through 401k withdrawals makes any financial sense.
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Right I think they're saying that someone's social/family/community life is more complex than a financial calculation. It's not about making this "make sense" in terms of endorsing it as an outsider, but about understanding what circumstances would lead to someone feeling like this makes sense for them.
    - whimsicalism 3y ago
      I don't disagree that the person feels that this makes sense for them, but I am not confusing how this person feels with what they ought to be doing. At the limit case (and withdrawing from your 401k to support your 6 children going to private school is definitely a limit case), you can absolutely reason about what 'makes sense' and this simply is not it.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    If it leads to your kids into an upper echelon college like Harvard, which then sets up their trajectory for a very lucrative career, it seems entirely sane to me. The lifetime earning potential of a Harvard grad and chance of being the President is so much higher than someone who dropped out and maybe managed to get a GED later on in lift that it's not even funny.
    - jknz 3y ago
      Millions of families make this reasoning and spend $30k or more per year and per kid from age 2. Very few of these kids make it to Harvard or other top 4 colleges, maybe 1 will become president. Sane Western countries have free and decent public education; and parents can't withdraw their future retirement early to fund dreams.
whimsicalism 3y ago
Wow, what poor financial decision making. It's literally the dril candles joke but with religious private school instead of candles.
- fundad 3y ago
  I love how everyone assumes that man left $0 in retirement savings: "Now working in the public sector and paying into a pension..."
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    He paid penalty on 401k withdrawals. I made no assumption that he left $0, but it is a stupid decision to pay 401k penalty in almost all situations.
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    The words immediately following your ellipsis are: "...Mr. Scharf, 55, calculates that if he retires at 70, he can draw 40 percent of his former salary." Working until 70 and even at that having only 40% of his former salary sounds like a pretty bad financial planning outcome, especially if you voluntarily put yourself into that situation.
yardie 3y ago
Getting a gauge on private schools in my experience is difficult because each family's situation is different. There are the typical non-denom prep schools which cost a car payment every year. And then there the private religious schools which are more of a sliding scale. Prices go down further if you have scholarships, being a member of their church, parent volunteer, etc.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  I've seen $15k up to ~$50k /yr (non-boarding—I've seen boarding as high as $70k) The ~$15k ones tend to be Catholic or otherwise religious, and quality varies from "worse than the local public schools, actually" up to "notably better than the local public schools, though not as good as a really good private school". Some cheap secular schools are only a little more expensive than the bottom end of the religious ones, but they don't tend to be much better than average public-school quality (nb. that may still be a lot better than some particular public school district)
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    Always take the opportunity to note that public schools cannot refuse anyone. Private schools can kick out low performers if it could help raise the average student performance on standardized tests.
    - yamtaddle 3y ago
      Yes, of course, they benefit hugely from the ability to select students. They're also less answerable to parents or the public than public schools, in many way, which can free them up to ignore stupid demands from parents (they select families, as much as they select students)—or free them up to maintain stupid policies or approaches that could never fly in public schools, which is sometimes exactly what their customers want (as in the case of e.g. fundamentalist religious schools). They're more answerable to the set of expectations they've created for their families, than to the particular whims or desires of any given family, or any constituency present in the broader public. ... which doesn't necessarily mean preferring a better school that's only better due to selection bias (and knock-on effects from being able to remove very-disruptive or low performing students) is a bad way to go, at the individual level, if one has that option. The observation's more relevant to policy-making, than to the relative merits of those options to any given family.
youreincorrect 3y ago
Agreed. I would add that he probably shouldn't be budgeting to have that money go into his 401k in the first place. He's paying more in tax + penalty to do this.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Having six kids does not help your finances living in a Tier 1 city (assuming you need at least a three bedroom for that sized family). Each one costs $250k-$300k to raise 0-18 (per Brookings) without accounting for daycare, private school, or college. Hard to have sympathy for the financially irresponsible. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/08/30/its-getting-more-expensive-to-raise-children-and-government-isnt-doing-much-to-help/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2022/08/30/its-getti... (2022) https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-child https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/01/13/cost-raising-chil... (2017) https://gothamist.com/news/it-could-cost-you-500k-to-raise-a-child-in-nyc https://gothamist.com/news/it-could-cost-you-500k-to-raise-a... (2014) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33991744 (additional citations from a previous comment)

rootusrootus 3y ago
There's a lot of variability in those costs. A third of the estimate is just housing. It's not quite as simple as saying that each kid will cost you another $1400 out of pocket each month.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- svnt 3y ago
  They easily will for the first six years of their lives in NYC, assuming both parents work.
  - xenospn 3y ago
    For a religious family with six children that is probably not the case.
  - rootusrootus 3y ago
    On what, though? Well over a thousand bucks a month per kid? The dollar figure specifically excluded daycare.
pc86 3y ago
Not trying to dispute anything here, as I don't think anyone sane would suggest it isn't expensive to have kids, but the Brookings article in particular is kind of hard to parse. $310k for kid #2 born in 2015 to a middle-income family. What's middle-income in this case? How does that change for higher income which would be more representative of HN readers? How does that change if it's kid #1 instead of 2? They also say "adjusted for higher expected future inflation" but don't say what numbers they're using. Elsewhere they say that inflation is increasing the cost by about $26k overall. Over 18 years that's $120/mo which for a $300k expense is pretty insignificant overall. And in general, I don't think people take cost into account for children this granularly. Who is looking at $290k over 18 years and thinks "yeah let's do it" then balks at $310k? Nobody.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  > And in general, I don't think people take cost into account for children this granularly. Who is looking at $290k over 18 years and thinks "yeah let's do it" then balks at $310k? Nobody. 40% of pregnancies annually are unintended in the US [1]. Poverty is the fourth leading cause of death [2]. Between 9 and 12 million children are exposed to chronic hungry (fluctuates year to year) [3]. High level, the citations and data strongly suggest that no one (or very few people) does the math, and then they're all surprised pikchu when US socioeconomics comes for them. You'd laugh at someone when they buy a Lambo and can't afford the gas for it, but no one batts an eye when people do the same with kids. [1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-united-states https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/unintended-pregnancy-u... [2] https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2023/04/17/poverty-4th-greatest-cause-us-deaths https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2023/04/17/poverty-4th-greates... [3] https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/child-hunger-facts https://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/child-hunge...
  - hammock 3y ago
    >40% of pregnancies annually are unintended in the US Note that 61% of unintended pregnancies are aborted.(1) So it would be mistaken to think that 40% of children born are unintended. (1)https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-world...
MuffinFlavored 3y ago
> Each one costs $250k-$300k to raise 0-18 (per Brookings) without accounting for daycare, private school, or college. $250k / 18 years / 12 months a year = $1,150/mo on average to feed + clothe a child, take it on vacation, put it in sports, buy it school supplies, and take it to the doctor, deal with a broken arm, birthday presents, tutoring, etc. About $265/week. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. Call it 3 meals a day. $37.95/day to raise a kid. $12.65/meal 3 times a day for 18 years. (that's 100% of the budget for food, obviously unrealistic). 80% of the budget is $10/meal 7 days a week before inflation.
- HWR_14 3y ago
  Eaten at home, I cannot imagine a breakfast approaching $10. School lunches (the majority of lunches in any given year) average $4.33.
tmpz22 3y ago
Further the financial stress almost always passes to the children in one form or the other. The kids through no choice of their own may get stuck with a big bag of guilt, anger, apathy, insecurity, and more. This is why public institutions are so important. This is why studying the real impact of socio-economic disparities on an individuals pursuit of happiness is so important.

csomar 3y ago

Religion, huh?

2023throwawayy 3y ago

> “My situation wasn’t someone who’s frivolous.“ Sending 6 kids to a private religious school sounds extremely frivolous to me.

pb7 3y ago
>someone who is good at the economy please help budget this. my family is dying[0] [0]https://dril.fandom.com/wiki/Candles https://dril.fandom.com/wiki/Candles
hobo_in_library 3y ago
[flagged]
axus 3y ago
I'd say it depends on the quality relative to the other options. In some areas near me, people will choose a Catholic school even when they aren't Catholic. My own experience with a public vs religious elementary school was much better at the public school.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
whimsicalism 3y ago
I went to an inner city urban high school and anyone suggesting that you must withdraw from your 401k to send your kids to private school if you live in NYC is out of touch.
MobiusHorizons 3y ago
Frivolous would suggest the decision is not weighty. Religious schooling is considered very important to many people. It may not be the choice you or I would make, but I have a hard time imagining it as a casual choice.
fundad 3y ago
What do you think money is for?

svnt 3y ago

If your social support depends on your membership in that community, which depends on your kids attending a similar school, you’ll dig deep to preserve it.

whimsicalism 3y ago
Uh, no - there is no way paying for an urban day school through 401k withdrawals makes any financial sense.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Right I think they're saying that someone's social/family/community life is more complex than a financial calculation. It's not about making this "make sense" in terms of endorsing it as an outsider, but about understanding what circumstances would lead to someone feeling like this makes sense for them.
  - whimsicalism 3y ago
    I don't disagree that the person feels that this makes sense for them, but I am not confusing how this person feels with what they ought to be doing. At the limit case (and withdrawing from your 401k to support your 6 children going to private school is definitely a limit case), you can absolutely reason about what 'makes sense' and this simply is not it.
- fragmede 3y ago
  If it leads to your kids into an upper echelon college like Harvard, which then sets up their trajectory for a very lucrative career, it seems entirely sane to me. The lifetime earning potential of a Harvard grad and chance of being the President is so much higher than someone who dropped out and maybe managed to get a GED later on in lift that it's not even funny.
  - jknz 3y ago
    Millions of families make this reasoning and spend $30k or more per year and per kid from age 2. Very few of these kids make it to Harvard or other top 4 colleges, maybe 1 will become president. Sane Western countries have free and decent public education; and parents can't withdraw their future retirement early to fund dreams.

whimsicalism 3y ago

Wow, what poor financial decision making. It's literally the dril candles joke but with religious private school instead of candles.

fundad 3y ago
I love how everyone assumes that man left $0 in retirement savings: "Now working in the public sector and paying into a pension..."
- whimsicalism 3y ago
  He paid penalty on 401k withdrawals. I made no assumption that he left $0, but it is a stupid decision to pay 401k penalty in almost all situations.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  The words immediately following your ellipsis are: "...Mr. Scharf, 55, calculates that if he retires at 70, he can draw 40 percent of his former salary." Working until 70 and even at that having only 40% of his former salary sounds like a pretty bad financial planning outcome, especially if you voluntarily put yourself into that situation.

yardie 3y ago

Getting a gauge on private schools in my experience is difficult because each family's situation is different. There are the typical non-denom prep schools which cost a car payment every year. And then there the private religious schools which are more of a sliding scale. Prices go down further if you have scholarships, being a member of their church, parent volunteer, etc.

yamtaddle 3y ago
I've seen $15k up to ~$50k /yr (non-boarding—I've seen boarding as high as $70k) The ~$15k ones tend to be Catholic or otherwise religious, and quality varies from "worse than the local public schools, actually" up to "notably better than the local public schools, though not as good as a really good private school". Some cheap secular schools are only a little more expensive than the bottom end of the religious ones, but they don't tend to be much better than average public-school quality (nb. that may still be a lot better than some particular public school district)
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  Always take the opportunity to note that public schools cannot refuse anyone. Private schools can kick out low performers if it could help raise the average student performance on standardized tests.
  - yamtaddle 3y ago
    Yes, of course, they benefit hugely from the ability to select students. They're also less answerable to parents or the public than public schools, in many way, which can free them up to ignore stupid demands from parents (they select families, as much as they select students)—or free them up to maintain stupid policies or approaches that could never fly in public schools, which is sometimes exactly what their customers want (as in the case of e.g. fundamentalist religious schools). They're more answerable to the set of expectations they've created for their families, than to the particular whims or desires of any given family, or any constituency present in the broader public. ... which doesn't necessarily mean preferring a better school that's only better due to selection bias (and knock-on effects from being able to remove very-disruptive or low performing students) is a bad way to go, at the individual level, if one has that option. The observation's more relevant to policy-making, than to the relative merits of those options to any given family.

youreincorrect 3y ago

Agreed. I would add that he probably shouldn't be budgeting to have that money go into his 401k in the first place. He's paying more in tax + penalty to do this.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]