For most people, the percentage is zero.

For you, you are looking at some of the most expensive schools in the country, and it's only 10%ish.

Does the kid want to go to boarding school?

This post was sort of bizarre: https://www.reddit.com/r/answers/comments/11d6lze/isnt_boarding_school_a_way_to_save_money/

As though boarding schools were somehow providing services below cost.

A few quick hits.

1, you can't just say HCOL and name drop specific schools and assume we know what you mean. I'm guessing this is the US, but boarding schools are simply not a thing in the part of rhe US I live in.

2. You also did not indicate your expectations with respect to these schools here either. 210k is (checks math) what 4 years of private school would cost and is about 4x what I spent getting my BS and MBA.

That may depend on how flexible you are regarding your retirement date and how long you are preparing to live post-retirement. If you're going to retire in you're 30s by giving a surprise two-week notice whenever you hit "you number," I think staying all-in on equities isn't too suboptimal. But in most cases (including mind) there'll be some diversification as I near the big day.

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I have edited my post with more details.

Here's a link to the PF Wiki for helpful guides and information.

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I love the flowchart! Here's the wiki page with more context and information.

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Only start a taxable account after maxing tax advantaged accounts. Follow the flowchart.

My generic advice:

https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png

Here is the flowchart from the r/personalfinance subreddit’s Prime Directive. If you follow that, you will be ahead of almost all of your peers.

Stop by the sidebar to see the Common Topics, which include basic money handling and investing.

You don’t need to talk to anyone or buy some random book to do this. You have all the tools right here.

I did that this afternoon and they said it will take almost 2 weeks because they are so backed up…

My spouse and I have a combined income of 650k.We live in a HCOL area and have only one child.The schools we are considering are mostly boarding schools like Exeter, Choate, Loomis, Deerfield.These schools general cost somewhere between 55k to 70k excluding things like uniforms and school supplies.

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Will do. Thank you. Hopefully they’ll just give me a good rate to begin with so I won’t have to go through all that…

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I love the flowchart! Here's the wiki page with more context and information.

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You should Follow the flowchart. Use a traditional 401(k) and a Roth IRA to take advantage of both.

My generic advice:

https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.png

Here is the flowchart from the r/personalfinance subreddit’s Prime Directive. If you follow that, you will be ahead of almost all of your peers.

Stop by the sidebar to see the Common Topics, which include basic money handling and investing.

You don’t need to talk to anyone or buy some random book to do this. You have all the tools right here.

In Brazil 0% interest sales are possible with credit card or a payment method we only have here called crediario.

If you could use the money in other things maybe is a good plan, what isn't a good plan is pay for expensive jewelry.

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There's no right answer here. You'll get responses like "India" or "Costa Rica" which have expat populations - but also have to be okay with spending 4k on plane tickets whenever you want to visit the US for a grandkids' event. And never do things like see a Broadway show if that's your jam.

"Best" is going to be a value assessment based on a host of factors like access to your children, access to specific recreation, and so on.

So what do you value?

This is not a percentage based query, and no good answers are available devoid of context (like your earnings, your choices of schools, their prices, and your expectations).

It’s not uncommon but not the standard either. I’ve never paid last months rent. First month plus deposit for every apartment I’ve ever lived in

I’ve never heard of this. It seems to me like it should be subjective to your specific budget situation and cost benefit analysis of available private school options.

Does your step mom have children from a prior marriage?

For young people in the US and other developed countries, this advice will apply pretty well if you are roughly between the ages of 15 to 20. You may also be interested in our reading list which also includes some videos.

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VTSAX and VTWAX make up 50% of my portfolio. You really can't go wrong with them. If they do go wrong, the entire market is screwed anyways. Once you're over 50 you might want to rotate some of it into bonds though, just to be safe....

The balance you're trying to strike is one that's quite common for retired people. Publications that cater to those people publish annual lists of the best places to retire. Do a web search and check those out.

Countries consistently at the top are Spain, Portugal, Panama and Costa Rica.