This weekend my cousin graduated from college in Boston. The graduation was on Monday, but she had an award she was getting on Sunday afternoon so we all came a day early. I am pretty close to my cousin and I flew down to go to the events even though it meant taking Monday off and working a full day as a make-up day this Saturday. It was a lot of fun, but too short of a “vacation.”
The commencement speaker was David McCullough, the author of John Adams,, 1776, and Truman, among many others. He gave a great speech on learning v.s simply collecting data and facts.
One of my favorite parts of the speech was the end when he implored “us young people” to stop talking like fools.
And please, please, do what you can to stop the verbal virus that seems increasingly rampant among your generation. I’m talking about the relentless, wearisome use of the words “like”, “you know”, and “actually.” Listen to yourselves as you speak.
Just imagine if in his inaugural address John F. Kennedy had said: “Ask not what, you know, your county can do for you, but what you can, like, do for your country.”
How does this tie into personal finance? The weekend gave me an opportunity to see my family and their financial habits. In a previous post I had talked about my experience after a financial conversation with Ryan’s family, now it was my family’s turn.
My parents have always been fairly wealthy. We are middle class, but in a very rich area of Connecticut, so I always felt like we were a lower class family compared to my friends. By national standards are considered very well off, but where we lived it was definitely below average and in the middle class range.
Growing up we often went on nice vacations and never wanted for anything. When it came time for high school they paid for a small private Catholic education where I could thrive rather than sending me to the large public schools. My tuition was not much, but it still cost my parents to send me there.
My brother was taken out of public school in 4th grade and put in a more personal, private (non-religious), school that runs from elementary to high school. My school was all girls, so he had to go to a different, and more expensive, school.
Then came college and I was very fortunate my parents paid for all tuition above scholarships. My brother is just about 5 years younger than me and starts college next fall, and they will be paying for his as well. As a combination graduation/birthday/Christmas/Hanukkah gift I got a new CR-V senior year, without financing.
I never really knew the details of my parent’s finances; for all of my childhood my mom was a SAHM and my dad worked in computers. I knew he had a decent salary and was saving a lot but I didn’t know how much. Now my mom works part time and my dad has retired early. I also knew that we never financed cars, so I assumed that we didn’t finance any thing else either and that my dad’s salary was enough to cover everything.
I found out this weekend that we have debt, and a lot more than I thought. Being in Connecticut our house is worth a heck of a lot more than it should be, and before the “housing bubble burst” my dad took out a HELOC against the house and has been keeping that money in a higher yielding interest account to spend on my brothers college and some home improvements. This is the second time they have taken out a loan this large, that I know about; they did the same thing to pay for my college, and my brother’s high school education, and my car. They did manage to pay the first loan back quickly, and then took it out again to redo the downstairs of the house where there were some flooding issues and to pay for another round of expensive college tuition at a private school.
So they are doing alright, but not as great as I always thought. My dad has been able to retire young, my mom works for fun in a job she loves, and (even with loans) they have been able to provide for their children very well. But at the same time things aren’t that great as they have a huge amount of loans to pay off, and there’s the possibility of my dad having to go back to work if his investments don’t do as well as he hopes.
It’s an interesting dichotomy, on the one hand my mom will shop at Kohl’s and rave about finding a shirt for $2.70, but on the other they will spend $1,000′s on a new projection TV. They never think twice about spending money on going out to eat and have no interest in cutting energy use or other frugal things.
My parents have worked hard and lived beneath their means most of their lives to save and have financial freedom, yet they chose to go into debt and they still worry about the numbers. Now that I have changed my habits and become more aware of my spending, I cringe at some of the things they are doing. My parents saved for retirement and never made us feel as if money were an issue, so I also have great respect for them and long to provide my family with the same head-start they gave us as kids. I just don’t understand some of the decisions they make, and I hope (for everyone’s sake) that it works out in the end.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
I understand what you are saying about watching your family make silly choices like over spending on restaurants or projection TV’s. It makes me cringe too, but I bite my tongue (or try)!
I wish I could comment better on the debt situation. It is perplexing to me that someone could be retired yet have debt, though I see why the made those choices.
A) Love David McCullough
B) I think it’s interesting when we grow up and learn our parents are human just like the rest of us with some of the same issues. I know my parents have sacrificed for their children, but I’m starting to wonder at what cost…and whether I’ve done enough to show them how much I appreciate it.
Stacking Pennies: The only debt they have is house related (even though that is a lot), and understand the logic, but don’t agree with it. I try to hold my tongue as well… sometimes more effectively than others.
Forest:
me too. It was a great speech.
A)
B) That is exactly how I feel.
Thanks for stopping by my blog. I really look forward to seeing more of what you have to say.
It’s hard to watch your folks make bad choices, but it’s even worse if you don’t learn from them and make the same mistakes yourselves. It looks like you’ve chosen a different path – be glad for that. Also, it might not hurt to keep in the back of your mind that you may need to help them out in one way or another someday and plan accordingly.