Mustachianism has infected another generation of ohana Nords.
When our daughter started college in 2010, I began sending her a weekly e-mail titled "Dad's Weekend Links". They're just a half-dozen articles or blog posts, a sentence or two with each link, culled from the dozens of blogs that I scan every day in my RSS feed. (Hint: RockstarFinance.com.) Most of the topics are about personal finances or lifestyle with "XYZ Tips For Millennials". My notes to her say things like "Made your Roth IRA contribution yet?", "You already understand this", "Look how far you've come since high school" or "Let me know if you have questions about it." Maybe I'll add some neighborhood gossip.
As you parents would expect, I never get a response to those e-mails. (I do it more for my own desire to stay in touch.) But once in a while I've skipped a week, and a few days later I'll get a query: "Where's your weekend links e-mail?" That's how I know I'm doing it right-- it's pure parenting gold.
Every few months in those e-mails I'll include a MMM blog post or forum thread-- less than 1% of the content. I'm sure she enjoys the concept of badassity and the occasional thrill of parentally-endorsed profanity. My spouse and I have been financially independent for over half of our daughter's life, so she already keenly appreciates the rewards of pursuing FIRE. Especially the parts where we got up early so that she went to high school and I went surfing, but I digress.
Today our daughter's two years into her Navy career and she just promoted to O-2. She recently married (another O-2 who's a great guy), and she's working 60+ hours/week at Nuclear Power School. (Her spouse is stationed on a Norfolk ship and he's currently deployed to a combat zone.) They both have three years left until they can leave active duty for the Reserves or Guard. Our contact is limited to an occasional Facebook message or a rare phone call. But my spouse and I are visiting our daughter in her Charleston home this weekend, and last night we all talked story until we're practically hoarse.
Of course we spent the first hour yakking about Nuclear Power School-- both what she's doing now and what I did there 33 years ago. Little has changed. She is such a nuke. There's probably a gene for that.
But later, about an hour into our personal-finance updates, she said "You know, I really enjoy MMM's posts. It's made a big difference for me to get rid of a lot of my stuff, and my spouse is much better with his finances." I asked her what she'd do all day if they saved/invested enough to stop working in her 30s, and she said "Duh, I'd live my life like you guys, Dad." I asked her what her spouse would do and she said "Are you kidding me?!? He has so many projects he wants to work on now that he'd never be bored. You and MMM have shown him that!"
More parenting gold. Thanks, MMM!
The two of them are saving over 50% of their income. (For the next six months it's closer to 75%.). I've asked her about affluenza, "economic outpatient care", trust-fund babies, stunted personal growth, and smothered initiative. She's heard of those concepts but she doesn't see how they'd apply to her & spouse. She'd rather base her choices on their quality of life than on their quantity of finances.
Then we talked about how her 1999 Honda CR-V (that she bought used in 2012) just had another check-engine light at 175,000 miles. Instead of another $500 repair, she replaced it with a 2011 Toyota RAV4 SUV. She bicycles to work 6-7 days per week and will mostly use the RAV for errands... and conjugal road trips to Norfolk.
She also assured us parents that somewhere in the next 5-10 years we'd be grandparents, but that's a whole 'nother thread. Yikes.
