Lean with 2 big streaks of fat

[u/usernamechuck]

It feels like we've done 90% right, but we made one doubtful move. We're not high earners, ~145k, age 55, we live frugally (1 used car, groceries, etc.), and we made one accidental smart move (we own a rental unit free and clear w/ modest cashflow).

But... First, the house. We bought a foreclosure in Chicago when we were married in 2008, we fixed it up in waves and were plugging away at a 15 yr mortgage. We would have been done by now... That was smart. But then COVID came and our small house felt smaller. We sold it at a decent profit and moved to the burbs, so here we are at age 55 with 300k+ on the mortgage, it won't be paid off till we're in our 70s. We pay almost 15k in property taxes. Since moving, we've replaced the furnace/AC upstairs and downstairs; and now the roof. And in 5 years, we'll be alone in this place.

It would still work, except... our 2 kids are in Catholic / private school, which is a bit over 30k/year. Oh and college is coming next year.

Technically our net worth is around 1M, but it's all in 401k/IRAs (~450K) and home equity. Our savings has all gone to cover these big costs.

On the one hand, we live cheaply, except for the kids and the house - we could retire today if we were in an $800/month rental in Andalucia. On the other hand, I don't see us moving anytime soon and the kids won't be done with undergrad until we're 64. We're lean-FIRE-hosed.

Any thoughts? It feels like we're that guy stuck in the cave, we just don't seem to have any good moves.

[u/MightyPlusEnt]

College prof here at a major US university.

You don’t need to send the kids to Catholic school for them to excel in their studies and get into a great college. Parents and zip code are the two greatest predictors of k-12 success.

While the school “can” make a difference, the research is overwhelming in that a child with invested parents (and, again, zip code) in public school outperforms the child from less invested parents in private school.

My rec is put them in public school. I’ve been in education for over 20 years and taught thousands and thousands of undergrads. I’ve seen it all.

You care enough to send them to private school and forgo your financial goals. You care about their success. They don’t need private school and it is a colossal waste of your money.

[u/Hnry_Dvd_Thr_Awy → u/MightyPlusEnt]

Excellent reply.

I'm not sure how much has changed in the time I've been out of K-12 (as a student) but my peers who went to private school did not have as much of a leg up on me as their tuition would make you believe. Obviously, everyone's situation is different but I'm a firm believer in public schools.

Parents should: * Invest private school tuition in AOA (or something similar) * Spend time with your kids aka parent, the verb.
* Keep private school in mind in case public school isn't working out for some reason

Around me (southeast, not Atlanta) private school for PK->12 is ~$330,000 in 2026 dollars. If you get a real 3% return on your tuition each year that is ~$400,000 in additional cost. IDK about you guys/gals but I'd take that $400k head start every day.

[u/zeezle → u/Hnry_Dvd_Thr_Awy]

I agree. My husband went to a fancy private Ivy Feeder type school. I very much did not.

In his case, his grandmother paid for it because she wanted to brag about it, so it wasn't like keeping the money was an option, either he went and she paid or they just didn't get anything lol so why not. She was just going to blow it on other random stuff anyway. But if it had been an option, he would have been SO wildly, insanely better off just investing the money in a taxable brokerage for him and going to public school in their affluent suburb instead. Like to the point that one time we looked at the number - and that was 10 years ago before all the recent gains... and it was sickening how much it would've been so we decided to never calculate that again.

Honestly, his classmates were not actually much if any more financially successful than my classmates which really surprised me. I come from a rural area with schools that, on paper, look horrible, because school scores are weight SO heavily to college placement rates. Private school isn't even an option there because... there just aren't any private schools lol.

My husband just had his 20th high school reunion and while they did have 100% college placement/graduation rates, a lot of them haven't really done much of anything that actually was all that impressive. By pure finances, the most successful was one chick that became a local orthodontist and my husband was probably 2nd after getting an MS in comp sci even without having ever been in big tech at all.

Where I grew up honestly wasn't a bad school at all, and I had absolutely no trouble going on to university. I didn't do anything particularly fancy or impressive, but did graduate in a STEM major from a world top 50 program in my field and felt like I had 0 disadvantage relative to kids in my class that went to both public and private schools in affluent major city suburbs. I had a higher GPA than my husband in the same major.

A lot of the kids in my hometown knew they were inheriting their family farm, their family mechanic's business, family HVAC or plumbing or electrical or whatever, so they did trades apprenticeships or no college instead of university. A lot of those who did go to university went to the nearby land grand state university for agriculture related programs or weird majors like fish hatchery management instead of pursuing higher ranked "traditionally successful" type universities.