Hi! My fiancee and I are late 20s/early 30s, and thinking about when it makes sense to start a family. I'm working now, make a good salary, and the fiancee is in an MD/PhD program and still has 4 years to finish it up. Luckily, neither of us have any debt.

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We're trying to figure out when to have a family, how much we should have saved before we have children, how much we should budget for various childcare costs, etc.

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The plan is to have 2 kids, and if we can handle it financially/time-wise, do so sooner than later.

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We both work stressful/long jobs/hours, and so one thing we'd really want is top-tier help. Daycare, nanny/au-pair, night nurse, etc - I think for us, those things are really necessary. I don't think private school is necessary, but being able to provide academic enrichment opportunities/tutors/etc. would be really important.

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What large cost centers/budgets should we be keeping in mind? How did you budget/do you wish you had budgeted and planned differently? If so, how so?