Something Essential Has to Happen Before Our Baby Comes. My Husband Outright Refuses.

Pay Dirt Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by lolostock/Getty Images Plus. Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt, My partner and I are pregnant with our second child, due in five months. Our oldest is about to turn 5. We bought our house about two years ago, and have a never-ending list of projects. But there’s one project I desperately want to finish before the baby comes. We have a bunch of vinyl flooring we bought when we moved in to replace the carpet. Some was just aesthetic, and some (like in the basement, where the former owner put carpet over a completely unsealed cement) is more structural. For me, finishing this project is my highest priority before the baby comes. I think we will be so overwhelmed and busy afterwards, it’s likely we’ll never get to it. We spent a lot of money on the floor, and the weight of that big unfinished project weighs heavily on me. In addition, the flooring takes up half the space in the guest room, and I would love that room to be more accessible to our actual guests. My partner thinks we absolutely should not do this project now because life with a 5-year-old and a pregnant parent are already so stressful. (Um, what does he think like after is gonna be like?!) He is also worried about the money, because even though we already paid for the flooring, there will be a lot of other costs when we install it, such as all new trim (the trim is 100+ years old and crumbled when we attempted to take it off), and leveling and sealing the crumbling concrete floor under the basement carpet. He says right before we have a new baby is not a time to be spending money. But those costs will be true to matter when we do this project, and with inflation they will only rise ,in my opinion. Plus, it’s not like AFTER having a second child will be a better time to spend money??! What should we do? —To Floor or Not to Floor Dear Floor, It sounds like a question about priorities—your husband wants to focus on getting ahead of the financial whirlwind that having a child brings, and you want to get these floors done because you know that once the baby comes, you’re going to be too busy to think about it for a long time. There’s no right or wrong answer here. It’s just about finding a compromise that works for both of you. But to find that compromise, you need some real numbers. For example, aesthetics can wait, but if the basement flooring is a structural problem, that might make it way more expensive to fix later. How much is that going to cost? The answer could be a solid reason to do it now rather than later. On the other hand, what does your emergency fund look like? Do you have any debt you’re trying to tackle? The bigger your family gets, the more savings you want to have on hand for the unexpected. In other words, the project comes with a major opportunity cost, which is that every dollar you spend on it is a dollar that’s not available for baby-related expenses or padding your emergency fund. Weigh that tradeoff carefully. It will also help to know how much this project is really going to cost you. Get a quote so you can work with an actual budget estimate for what the project would cost. Seeing those numbers might nudge you or your partner in the other direction. Or it might make you dig your heels in harder. Either way, it’s more information, and more information will make it a little bit easier to decide. Whatever you choose, come up with a plan for the other person’s concerns. If your husband is worried about future finances, make a budget and savings plan for after the floors are done and the baby comes. If you decide to postpone the project, create a savings goal and timeline for tackling it down the road so you can ease your anxiety about it never getting done. Your husband is right that tackling a project like this is going to be stressful when you’ve got a baby on the way and a small child at home. And you’re right that it’s going to be stressful later, too. The question is what sounds more manageable now, and how will money feed into that stress? Once you have some hard numbers, it’ll be easier to answer that question. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Pay Dirt, I bought a house a couple of years ago because I was tired of dealing with annoying neighbors, lazy landlords, and the other hassles of renting. Plus I just wanted my own space. I got a small inheritance that boosted my savings enough for a down payment. I like my current house fine and have no issues making me want to move, but I never planned for it to be a “forever home” or anything. It’s somewhere to live on my own terms while building some equity. I just passed two years of ownership, meaning I can sell without paying capital gains taxes, and while I don’t have any concrete plans to sell immediately, that milestone is making me think about it. I imagine I will sell in the next few years, whether to buy a different house in this area or maybe to relocate to a new city. So I’m curious if it’s worth it to be paying extra principal. I normally throw in a little extra money ($50-$100) to principal each month just to feel like I’m doing something. I know that’s not really affecting how much interest I’ll pay overall. But I could up that to a few hundred if I felt it was worth it. But if I sell before the house is paid off (and with a 30-year mortgage, I definitely will), that’s not really going to matter, is it? Wouldn’t the extra principal only matter if it helped me pay it off earlier? So my thought is to from now on stick to the basic monthly payment and put anything extra I want to save in my Roth IRA. I save 12 percent of my salary in my 401(k) between my contributions and my employer match, and I normally end up with a few thousand a year in my IRA but not the full $7,000 I could contribute. Am I missing anything in my thinking about this? For context, I’m single and live alone, so there’s no complications in that regard, and I have a solid savings account for emergencies. —In the House or in the Bank? Dear House or Bank, If you’re planning to move in a few years anyway, it’s probably best to pay your monthly payment and focus on retirement. Paying extra principal reduces the total interest you’ll pay over the life of the loan, and it increases your equity faster. In other words, when you sell, you’ll have more money because you’ll owe less on the mortgage. But if you’re not going to be in the house for anywhere close to the full 30 years, the benefits might not make a huge difference to your financial bottom line. Of course, that depends on factors like your interest rate and when you actually move but generally speaking, you’re not going to save that much in interest by throwing a few hundred bucks a month on a big loan that will be gone in a few years anyway. So you’re right that paying a few hundred extra each month might not change your financial picture all that much if you sell in the next three to five years. It’s not like it was a bad move to throw that money at the principal, there are just better ways to optimize your finances. It’s more efficient to put that money somewhere that continues to benefit you no matter where you live, like your Roth IRA. You’re already contributing to your 401(k), you have an emergency fund, and it doesn’t sound like you have any other complicated financial issues going on. Putting extra money in a tax‑advantaged retirement savings account pays off whether you stay in this house, buy another, or move across the country, and it gives that money time to grow. The only exception I can see would be if you had a higher interest rate and were planning to stay longer than you think. But that doesn’t seem to be your situation. Either way, here’s a calculator that can help you crunch the numbers. Put simply, you’re not missing anything. The usual caveat applies, talk to a Certified Financial Planner if you’re really worried about it, but it sounds like you’re on the right track. Make the regular payment, let your equity grow naturally, and put your extra cash somewhere that will help you in the long-term. —Kristin Classic Prudie In my husband’s family, it is a “tradition” to hand down baby items to the next pregnant family member. I am an only child and respect this to an extent, but most of the stuff isn’t valuable like a christening gown—it’s onesies, threadbare teddy bears, and beat-up strollers. A lot of the stuff isn’t safe to use. I caused a tiff because I refused to use my cousin-in-law’s car seat with my second child. I offended the family by sending them all a copy of the recall notice for the car seat (they wouldn’t drop the subject until I did). Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Personal Finance Real Estate