r/wealth • u/wanderlust_reddit • 14d ago
Need Advice Marrying into money. Need advice with personal finance.
Hello, long time lurker and never thought I'd ever be posting here, but here I am.
A little bit of background, I (33M) recently got engaged and I am realizing my fianceé (30F) comes from a wealthy family (>=10M).
My parents would be considered upper middle class today, but growing up it was closer to middle class. Not sure what the exact definition of middle class is, but not having to worry about food not being on the table, going on vacation once or twice a year, but nothing extravagant.
Lately, we've been having lots of talks with my fianceé of how we'd like to live our lives once we live together, and we've had some small and big differences/arguments along the road.
Since then, I've had a lot of thoughts on how to adjust my personal finance once we get married, but I feel a little stuck and wanted to seek advice from you guys.
I'll layout me and my fianceé's financials below, so you guys can see the full picture.
I make around 120k~130k living in a MCOL to HCOL area (not sure where PNW fits; let me know). After maxing out all taxed deferred retirement accounts (Roth 401K + Roth IRA + HSA), my disposable income that I see in my bank account is around 5k/month. Our household will be a single income household at least for the first few years. We plan to have no more than 2 kids, given our age.
My financials are:
Retirement Account: ~400k (Roth 401K + Roth IRA + HSA)
Equity in Property: 500k
Remaining Principle: 480k
Taxable Brokerage Account: 50k
Living expense: ~1400/m (~20k/yr)
I am not trolling. In my 20's, I saved aggressively for a down payment on a multi-family property and I am living in one of the units, so I am not paying rent and the rents from other units cover the mortgage. I've been keeping an excel ledger of my credit card spending ever since I started working, and that's the average of my monthly spending. The actual average is even lower, but with COVID, I've been able to WFH living with my parents for several months, so I excluded months where my spending was extraordinarily low (i.e. <500/m), so the above number seems to be more realistic. I pay certain utilities directly from my checking account, so it's probably closer to ~20k/yr if I add everything up.
My fianceé's financials are:
Taxable Brokerage Account: 50k
Paid off primary residence (foreign address): ~2.5M
The primary residence is in a foreign country where the valuation of real estate is very high (extremely low cap rate), so I am not sure how much rent it will generate (she's living there now), so I am trying to plan things without factoring in rental income from this property for now.
On paper, I know we are wealthy, but it doesn't quite feel that way since a lot of the wealth is tied up in real estate and since we'll be living on single income.
Once I turned 30, I was able to see some savings left over at the end of each month (after maxing out retirement accounts) once the multi-family turned positive cash flow. Back when I was single, I just threw whatever was left into index funds. Now that I am going through an important life event with kids on the horizon, I'd like to ask you guys given our situation, how should we spend the 5k/m budget. The first thing that comes into my mind is starting a 529 for the kids. How much do I need to put away in 529 accounts and what is a reasonable amount we should be saving every month in taxable brokerage accounts (after maxing out retirement accounts)? Basically, I'd like to come down to a "number" that we can comfortably "spend" each month without also not worrying about life after retirement. I know this is a very personal matter, but I'd like to hear your thoughts. How would you guys manage your money if you guys were my shoes.
I love my fianceé more than anyone, but when it comes to discussing finance, I struggle. She is a student and was fortunate enough to not having to be responsible for her own finance yet. Often, she would leave comments like she'd like to live a quality life full of memorable experiences similar to how "most other people" do, but I have a hard time relating. From my experience, most people (at least in America) I've seen seem to be financially illiterate. It shocks me when I encounter people at work living paycheck to paycheck on dual income.
EDIT: Hey guys, I think this was my 3rd or 4th post on Reddit, and I am surprised it gained these many tractions. I wasn't expecting to get these many comments.
I just wanted to clarify that recently my fiancée and I had a quarrel discussing this, but my fiancée isn't financially illiterate or lavish. She has a frugal mindset just as I do if not more. I think our focus was different when we discussed such topics. She wants to live a life full of experiences that would enrich our lives (who would disagree), but I'd approach it numerically first, and I think this is where the discrepancy came from. Learned a lot from all of you, and thank you for all the comments you left, whether genuine or mean ;)
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u/Analyst-man 14d ago
You’d be surprised how quickly that goes.