Some gems from my dinner with the in-laws a couple days ago:
They want to move closer to the city, this is great, good for them.
A few interesting things came out of this discussion though.
First, they primarily chose the city they want to move to based on where they think there is the most growth for their Primerica business.
Then I asked, "So are you going to be downsizing?" MIL says "I'd like to get something bigger, you know how cold the winters get in Minnesota, and I just feel like it's much more warming to have a lot of space. It's nice to be able to move to a different room sometimes." I don't even know what on earth that means. They currently have a 1500ish sq. ft. home for 2 people, which was enough when they had four kids, but apparently it's too... ?? something ?? I really don't understand.
Also another reason for moving given was "You know how old homes get, ours is getting to 25 years and things are just starting to fall apart and it's just not worth it." Cocked my head at this one... They know our house was built in 1915. Their house is falling apart because they can't generally afford to do real maintenance on it, not because it's 'old'.
I think this move probably won't happen, seems like they are blowing money like crazy right now based on the assumption that they are going to make it big with Primerica, and that house plans are also based on the same assumptions.
Another really minor thing was that FIL brought up some things about how we should really let him/Primerica take care of our 401ks. I shut him down pretty quickly but I was really thrown off when he asked if I was getting a "good interest rate on my 401k." Okay, contextually I know what he means, but I don't know anybody with good knowledge of finances that would call what you get from a 401k a "interest rate," unless you were talking in the context of exclusively buying bonds or something, most would call that average RoI or RoR or something. Again, really minor in any other context, but it really made me even more certain that he is completely unqualified to handle anybodies money.