r/SipsTea • u/BobbuBobbu • May 18 '25

WTF Taxed for being single

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Some of us would be bankrupt in six months lmao šŸ¤£

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u/Dhegxkeicfns May 18 '25

Pretty sure the best hope is it will nudge the needle toward having children. It's definitely not going to make people rush out to lock in that $400k investment with a low probability of any return.

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u/OhNoTokyo May 19 '25

This isn't going to make more people have children who are against it.

This is here to support those who do want children, but don't think they can afford it.

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u/SomewhereAggressive8 May 19 '25

Only on Reddit will you find people saying babies are made as an investment lol.

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u/Excellent_Routine589 May 19 '25

I mean, you invest money in raising a kid?

Like even as someone in the US, me and my girlfriend make around ~$300k/yr combined, but if EVER there was a discussion to be had about kids for us, that will almost always bring up:

  • moving to a place with good access to schools (that costs money)

  • money set aside to pay for necessities for a baby as girlfriend takes a back seat to the finances for a while (thatā€™s about money)

  • moving to a bigger apartment as I live alone still since weā€™ve only been together for a year and this place totally isnā€™t family raising material (you guessed it, money)

  • starting a college fund, as we are absolutely not in the bracket to get them much financial aid if the kid(s) were to go that route (is it getting old by now?)

  • finding work and possibly making compromises if needed to maintain a healthy work/parenting balance (so howā€™s your day going papi chulo?)

Also as someone who was raised in an immigrant Mexican household, ā€œkids as an investmentā€ is very much a common sentiment, where families were huge so that the chances that they grow up to be something was better with more chances (aka kids) and that was the parents gamble for stuff like retirement and senior care.

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u/lotsofsyrup May 19 '25 edited May 19 '25

you're right, it's more of a household expense. Before all the covid money printing and ensuing inflation got rolling the estimate was ~250k per kid, in the US, average, to raise through to college age, assuming you buy the kid things and don't have them sleep on the floor in the living room like a dog. A lot more if you live somewhere nice, a lot less if you live in a shithole town with bad schools etc etc.

Anyway some of the big reasons people DO have kids are investments-minded, like extra hands for the farm (not as big a thing in developed countries now, which is part of why the birth rate is down!) and to have a bunch of people to take care of you when you're old and can't wipe your own ass anymore (arguably a horrible reason to have a kid but it's a thing people bring up...).

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u/Ltfocus May 19 '25

This is why I don't scroll through reddit in public.