Author Topic: Dad, are we poor?  (Read 19301 times)

ubermom4

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #50 on: December 08, 2014, 07:01:47 PM »
Very good topic. Your son may need reassuring or he may just be curious. He sees $ signals all day long -- kids with fancier clothes, fancier cars, fancier vacations, bigger houses, etc. We have 4 children who are now teens. We moved several times and sometimes we were perceived as 'rich' and other times 'poor' by the kids in their respective schools. We talked about this often. Did the 'richer' kids seem happier? Were they just more materialistic?  The children also hear that 'money is the root of all evil' from their teachers. We taught them that money is neutral -- neither evil nor good. Having it gives one choices, that's all. When your son asks about your financial status, it is definitely a 'teachable' moment. It signals that he is interested. We have been very open with our children about our money (except earnings). Some of their peers have parents that work at our company and kids are not always discreet. We would show them their 529 statements with deposits and capital gains. When you talk about finances or anything with your children they will sense your mood and follow your lead. If you are calm, confident and clear -- they will learn that there is nothing to worry about. If you seem unsure, frightened or worried, they will sense that immediately and understand that there are things for them to worry about. It is good for kids to learn about spending, saving and giving to others. They are going to make lots of mistakes -- the way we all do. It is helpful for them to feel that they may speak with you about these matters. I hope this helps.

Beric01

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #51 on: December 08, 2014, 09:36:17 PM »
My Dad showed me his monthly budgeting when I was about your son's age. It really made an impression on me - 6 kids eat a lot! That was around when I realized why we were restricted to 2 glasses of milk at dinnertime - milk was ~10% of our food budget!

However, I have to agree that net worth might not be such a good idea so early. My Dad only told me his net worth very recently. It was good for me to know - gave me some confidence he can support himself if he retires someday (probably after me, incidentally). But telling that to a 12-year-old would open a lot of questions about why you don't spend more, which they might or might not be ready for. I know I didn't understand why my parents were so stingy with the gifts (compared to other people) until much more recently.

retired?

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #52 on: December 18, 2014, 12:36:30 AM »
To Ubermom4, I agree a lot with what you have experienced.  Funny(?) or should I say interesting thing is that recently I opened Wells Fargo savings accounts for both my kids (other is a daughter who is 12 and so realistically confident that she is not worried at all about my current situation....she has sold art, crafts, etc....nice to see).  The son wants to put all his cash in ....but, so he can take it out via debit card and spend it.  Haven't quite been able to teach that is no purpose of the account.  He, at 10, seems very focused on the idea of having a "card".

He is now much more aware of the overall finances without knowing "totals".  He knows we can cut spending a good bit and it doesn't matter what I do, or that if I return to work for a few years then we can cut less and still be fine.

One thing I have conveyed to both is that their college educations are fairly well funded in 529s, which I think takes a lot of pressure off of them. 

benjenn

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #53 on: December 18, 2014, 05:46:11 AM »
I wish I'd done a better job teaching my kids about money when they were little but I think I did okay as far as showing them how to live within your means instead of beyond them and I hope they learned from that example. 

I was a single mom, too, from the the time they were 6 and 8 but most all the other kids at school had two parents families and SAHMs.  Many of them were snobby and everything at school was based around the SAHMs so I didn't get to partiipate much because I worked.  I'm sure my kids felt like those families were better off because their mom had to work and many of their friends in the neighborhood had nicer houses than ours.

Our state offers free college tuition to families who make less than $50,000 and they start pushing this to the students around 5th grade.  Many of the kids' friends were signing up for it and I remember my daughter coming home excited to sign up for it because all her friends were doing it.  I had to explain to her (and her brother) that we couldn't sign up for that... because Mom made too much money.  That was very eye-opening for them.  I explained to them then that you can appear to have more money than you do but it's better to have more money than you appear to.  I hope it stuck!

Of course I also explained to them that they shouldn't tell their friends who were signing up for the plan why we weren't going to... because we didn't want them to feel bad about not having as much money as we had.

EDSMedS

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #54 on: December 18, 2014, 06:08:02 AM »
The son wants to put all his cash in ....but, so he can take it out via debit card and spend it.  Haven't quite been able to teach that is no purpose of the account.  He, at 10, seems very focused on the idea of having a "card".

SO creepy!!!  Yet so understandable.

I think this is reflective of the "I don't worry about money" attitude that I experience with a lot of well-paid, yet indebted, coworkers.  "The card" doesn't show your bank account when you swipe it, so you could have $.35 or $1,000,000 in the account and the person behind you in line will never know (the card owner doesn't even need to know!).  Compare that to a person handing over crinkled $1s or crisp $100s - very noticeable and judgeable.

I'll be interested to hear how this develops with your son.  How have you addressed this so far?

Our state offers free college tuition to families who make less than $50,000 [...]

Nice!  What program is this and how can I find more info?  Our plan is to have ~1 parent working post FIRE, which will likely result in <$50K/year income.

pbkmaine

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #55 on: December 18, 2014, 06:13:32 AM »
 We were responsible for my husband's daughters' back-to-school clothes. The youngest was 12 when this started. We would take them to an outlet mall and would give them each $100 in small bills in an envelope. It was absolutely amazing how far they could make that money stretch. They are all good with money today. If I had it to do over again, though, I would have done it with thrift stores instead of outlet malls.

ltt

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #56 on: January 05, 2015, 05:27:33 AM »
I was in the grocery store with my daughters a week or so ago and mentioned that we were starting to talking about their dad retiring.  You would have thought the world stopped!!  What??  How will we go to college?  How will we buy food?  How will we go to school?  How, how, how.....  They were very concerned about money to buy things.  They did not understand the concept of retirement (and one of them is your son's age).  I think this is very age-related.  Our daughter, 10 years old, is very much into saving for things that will happen in the future.  Yeah!!  Our teen daughter, not so much.

RootofGood

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Re: Dad, are we poor?
« Reply #57 on: January 05, 2015, 09:10:41 AM »
On my morning walk with the kids to their elementary school, I was thinking some of the same thoughts expressed here.  What will my kids' general take on life be like compared to the "traditional" childhoods most kids have where one or both parents work?  I haven't worked in 1.5 years and my wife is down to 4 days a week with a week or a month off here and there, and she's leaving for good probably within 6 months. 

So far, they seem to not really care that I don't have a job. Their understanding of our family's finances is pretty good.  They know that we have investments, investments pay us money, and that we have "enough", and that mommy's job is optional.  They don't really know what we have (we've told them we are millionaires, then we get questions like "sooo... we have like $29,000?").  I think any amount of money larger than a few thousand $ is just as large as a million to them (at age 8 and 9). 

We have discussed the "are we poor?" question.  80-90% of their classmates receive free/reduced price lunches, therefore are of low to moderate incomes (what some might call "poor").  However many classmates have blinged out $100-200 sneakers and some have expensive cell phones or other fancy gadgets.  They get that we could spend money on all that stuff, but then we wouldn't be able to spend money on other things (robotics or moviemaking camp, international vacations, etc). 

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!