The differnence between losing your stock value as oppposed to losing your home value is this: If your stock goes to nil, its a paper loss. If your home goes the same way and gets forclosed your’re out on the sidwalk or forced to move in with your kids (not sure which I would dread more, if C’V I ever came to that).
That’s false. I know plenty of people under water (meaning their mortgage is higher than their house value). All it means is that if you can’t afford your house payment you may be foreclosed. As long as you can afford that, you won’t be kicked out.
If your stock goes to zero, you lost out on money. Its not a paper loss. You put money INTO the stocks, the same way you put money into your house.
If I have equity, I should tap into before making someone else pay. That goes for schooling and any other bills that are MY responsibility.
As to the commute – its 90 minutes PLUS travel within NYC. I don’t work right near port authority. Sure I knew about tuition and COLA in NNJ when I moved – I’m just pointing out the struggle is similiar across the board.
Lets say we cap spending. Certain costs are NOT fixed. And certain costs rise much faster than the rate of salary increases (that’s really what’s been happening in the last 10 years). Just to give an example: when my parents bought a house, a middle class house cost 1 year of my fathers’s salary (they bought in Monsey, but in Teaneck houses were comparable in price). In Teaneck now, it costs 4 years worth of both me and my husband’s salaries. Costs have risen greatly, but salaries have not kept up. That’s one of the big problems facing schools today.
As to the secular education: the kids coming out of the cheaper schools (like the ones in Lakewood that have very limited limudei chol) are not being properly prepared for college. They will have a much harder time getting in and making it through a program. They will have worse job prospects and worse salaries (as a general rule), making it hard for the next generation.
So yes, I would rather pay more and have my child well educated. Its still expensive though.