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atjar
Guest
I have a daughter and grandson. I have joy without the need for frugality. It’s called balance. Only u can put yourself first.
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pianistclare
Guest
Right. Sometimes people think “frugal” means cheap.
Not really. Finding a great bargain is exhilarating, and sometimes the home made stuff is not horrible, not hard, and fairly fun.
Teaching a child to make homemade bread is not only delicious, but a life skill. With memories. Priceless, really.
When I was kid my siblings were both old enough to be my mother, and out of the house. I learned to make my own fun. And my own toys, my own art, my own everything.
At the time I didn’t think of it as anything else. I suspect that’s how it is for people who “do” instead of buy.
But I do carefully weigh the bother factor, the end cost factor, and the ick factor of doing it myself.
Not really. Finding a great bargain is exhilarating, and sometimes the home made stuff is not horrible, not hard, and fairly fun.
Teaching a child to make homemade bread is not only delicious, but a life skill. With memories. Priceless, really.
When I was kid my siblings were both old enough to be my mother, and out of the house. I learned to make my own fun. And my own toys, my own art, my own everything.
At the time I didn’t think of it as anything else. I suspect that’s how it is for people who “do” instead of buy.
But I do carefully weigh the bother factor, the end cost factor, and the ick factor of doing it myself.
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Allegra
Guest
Building your home-makeing skills also allows you to have nicer things than you can afford to buy. For instance, I could afford to buy cheapo curtains from China at Kohls, or I can make my own in exactly the style I want, using precisely the fabric that matches my couch. What I make will look a lot nicer than what I can afford to buy. I expect it’s the same way with canning. Most of the women I know do some form of canning. They like to make jam or apple butter, not because they can’t afford to buy it, but because their own tastes better than the store bought brand and they know exactly what went into it. My mother is an interior decorator and my step-father is a carpenter and so I know the value of being able to do for one’s self. You can afford to live much better when you don’t pay someone else for every little thing.Right. Sometimes people think “frugal” means cheap.
Not really. Finding a great bargain is exhilarating, and sometimes the home made stuff is not horrible, not hard, and fairly fun.
Teaching a child to make homemade bread is not only delicious, but a life skill. With memories. Priceless, really.
When I was kid my siblings were both old enough to be my mother, and out of the house. I learned to make my own fun. And my own toys, my own art, my own everything.
At the time I didn’t think of it as anything else. I suspect that’s how it is for people who “do” instead of buy.
But I do carefully weigh the bother factor, the end cost factor, and the ick factor of doing it myself.
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Allegra
Guest
Sounds pretty unbalanced to me. Stuff doesn’t make me happy. It never has. Time spent together with the ones I love makes me happy, even if it’s just spent making dinner and sitting down together for a meal and a card game. Just the thought of not having my brothers and sisters and their spouses and children in my life makes me sad. I can’t think of a single thing or service I could buy for myself that would improve my life more than being surrounded by those I love. I can’t imagine not giving the same gift to my child either.
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Norm_The_Robot
Guest
Wow, you are so matter of fact about these costs…you must be rich. These kind of fees drive me into foaming at the mouth fits of anger and furious rants about how the entire word is set up as a huge scam so everyone can take my money!I will suggest that it starts well before college educations. I will be spending approx. $2000 within the next 3 weeks to send four of my kids “back to school” - and that’s public - not private school. And no, I’m not talking laptops, or name brand apparel, either - and that only includes one pair of shoes.
What it does include is over $425 in “book fees” charged by our public schools here. Then, as a gifted senior, one is taking five AP classes - which they require you to pay for the associated AP test so that’s another $200-$300. Band shirts (mandatory, even if just taking class - not marching) and gym uniforms another $45.
Then, since I’m a firm believer in that having a busy, active, involved teen is a successful one (proved by my two oldest who’ve graduated), there’s the $360 in “pay to participate” fees so two of them can be on a high school team. Of course, I’m a crazy parent who then actually wants to attend the games - and have to bring youngest along - so that’s another $150 for a family admission pass (way cheaper than paying separate). Of course the participation fee doesn’t include practice tees/jerseys, mandatory food donations for meals before games, socks, etc - so add in another $175.
Can’t leave out the youngest two so there’s $90 in “club” fees for them to do XC and choir. Plus uniforms/tees - $45.
Being a responsible and knowledgeable parent, I join the PTO’s - another $15, and get my background check done so I can volunteer at events ($25).
Having a second teen enter advanced math means a second graphing calculator (specific brand - $99 - $129), taking a foreign language means a dictionary ($15). Mandatory fundraiser $20.
Specifics on supply list such as purple highlighters, flash drives, Expo dry erase marker sets, multiple reams of copy paper, specific size/brand ring binders, and bookstore purchased only art boxes quickly add up to another $100 plus add in another $20 or so for all the basic supplies (the ones that are actually thrown on the back-to-school sales).
One pair of shoes (the rest are okay enough to stall for another month or two) - $65. Shorts long enough to meet dress code standards - 12 pairs, or approx. another $120.
Senior pics require a $25 sitting fee, and purchasing the basic photo package so the youngest doesn’t feel left out by being the only kid not photo’d is another $25.
Since I want them to have an actual hot lunch a couple times a week, I need to deposit $90 into lunch accounts.
Could I tell them that none of them will be allowed any sport or choir, no band class, no foreign language, no AP classes, and that I will not be volunteering or joining the PTO? Yes. Perhaps that would be “frugal” - but it’d also (imho) be definitely unrealistic, ridiculously short-sighted and stupid. Kids need activities for social, and physical development. The money spent on this is much better than having them laying around getting out-of-shape and in trouble. The money spent on education (art, AP, advanced math, etc.) is definitely going to pay off when they go to college.
Here, at least, it’s an either/or situation - we have no low-cost/free infra-murals for example or community clubs/gyms for them to hang out at. So, it is, what it is.
But I’ve yet to see any budgeting advice anywhere that includes these type of costs in their plan.It’s like they believe it to be the “good old days” when these things were free or only a token amount.
Private school tuition, homeschooling curriculum/supplies, or public school costs (above) - education for older kids is pricey. And they need stimulation and enrichment as much as young children do - but a trip to the local park, sharing a book, and buying a yard sale toy or two isn’t going to cut it.
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atjar
Guest
As I said, I have a wife, I have a grownup daughter, I have a grandson, I have a masters degree, I get paid well so I can donate to my church and not be frugal, because a college degree equals comfort and buying power and not using up the most important asset God has given you: time on earth. Time has a cash value. If you spend an hour saving $3 by canning instead of buying the groceries, for example, instead of spending that hour earning $10 an hour at a job, you are penny wise and pound foolish and you come out behind.
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Allegra
Guest
But if you spent that hour preparing something special with your sisters and daughters and granddaughters, you’ve come out way far ahead. In fact, you’ve created more than blackberry jam, you’ve created a priceless memory. It seems foolish to even attempt to compare the values of people and money.
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atjar
Guest
But the difference is you are not spending time making jam because you need to be frugal. I spend time reading a library book instead of buying a book not because I don’t make enough money to afford to buy that book. I am reading the library book because I have the time to do it. Again, lack of education contributes to lesser buying power which results in the need for frugality. Remember, the Lord helps those who help themselves. Help yourself by getting a college education and career.
AJ
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Allegra
Guest
As I said, I already have a college education and a career and I’ve worked very hard for both. Therefore, I am loathe to throw money away if I don’t have to. I spend my money very carefully and I do for myself and make things myself when it is beneficial for me to do so. However, I certainly would not choose to only have one child so that I could choose to wasteful in the rest of my lifestyle, as your original post proposed. Doing small things like making your own laundry detergent or canning green beans so that you can afford to provide your family a good life is infinitely a more intelligent investment than denying yourself children and your child siblings so you don’t have to concern yourself with saving money.
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UbiCaritas
Guest
Indeed.
Likewise, atjar, you might remember that most of the people to whom you are speaking are from a different generation than yours.
In yours, you could reasonably expect to, say, work a job (or two, or even three) over the summer, and have sufficient funds as a result to pay for the following year’s tuition, board, and books at college. My father, who is almost 70, did precisely that, and it was laudable. Now, however, this is simply not possible beyond the community college level. In my state, even with the exceptionally reasonable state tuition rates (better, to the best of my knowledge, than any others in the US), a full-time minimum-wage job, assuming one is lucky enough to find such a thing, as they border on nonexistent even in our very good state economy, would pay for half of one semester’s tuition at one of the cheaper state schools.
This means that a student, to go to college, must rely on a combination of state and federal grants, parental assistance–and, yes, loans.
ETA: DH’s parents were able to help him with school, though he got mostly scholarships. Mine did not help me. As a result, though I worked 2-3 jobs the entire time I was in college, I still have about 20K in loans to pay off. That’s a burden on any family’s finances. If we had that money, we could invest it for the future, but we can’t. Bear in mind that that balance is lower than that of most of my generation, and that it represents about $400 each month in payments. I took them out, I’m responsible for them, but there’s no argument that they make things more difficult than they could be.
My husband and I did go to college. He has a master’s, and I a bachelor’s. We decided that I would stay home with our kids. He makes in the top 20% of US incomes, and we live in a state where the cost of living is low. Despite this, we live fairly frugally. Why?
Well, for one thing, we’re paying almost twice what you paid for much of your working life in FICA/social security taxes, in no small part because your generation tended to only have one or two children. Though we pay a far higher rate, and you’ll collect far, far more than you ever put it because of our contributions and because of your younger retirement age, our generation can’t reasonably rely on Social Security for retirement. The system is so far beyond broke that to expect that we’ll have it available in 25 years is foolish at best.
(When the SS system was set up, it was based on the average recipient living a few years after retirement. Now the average recipient lives 15-20 years after they stop contributing. This disparity has led to Social Security being little more than a grand Ponzi scheme on the government level.)
Similarly, DH’s job offers him a pension plan, in which he is fully invested. However, many companies have eliminated pension plans, and there is no guarantee that his won’t, either. Therefore, we can’t reasonably factor that into our retirement plans. It would be very nice indeed if we do end up collecting it, but we can’t know it will be there. As a result, we are saving very, very heavily indeed for retirement, and using conservative investment strategies to ensure that we will, hopefully, be able to retire one day. We fully contribute to our IRAs, and use the stock market to make small but definite returns on investments.
Lastly, you seem to be under a misapprehension. Of the recent posters on this thread, all have–or claim to have, it being the Internet and all
--college degrees. Several do have jobs, and good ones. Others are stay at home moms, part of whose job is to help manage the family finances as best they can. This is what many of us are doing. Telling us to “get college degrees and jobs” implies that we don’t have either. As it happens, we do.We are working and saving this hard partly to fund your retirement, partly in the hopes that we can retire someday, and partly with it ever in our minds that our children must go to college as well, and that they will require our assistance to do so. Finally, and most importantly, we are doing it with the perspective that the best gift we can give our children, the Faith aside, is a warm, loving, supportive family in which to live their Faith. On my deathbed, I hope not to be thinking about how much money I’ve earned, but about the souls DH and I have co-created with God, and what a better place the world will be with them in it.
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atjar
Guest
I am 58. Why is having a wife, an advanced college degree, a lawyer daughter, a grandson, a condo on the ocean, and the means not to have to be frugal, am I not living in a way God would approve or I am not providing support and love for my family? The best gift I gave my child is the same values as I have and a big one is: take care of yourself first if you want to be able to take care of others.Indeed.
Likewise, atjar, you might remember that most of the people to whom you are speaking are from a different generation than yours.
In yours, you could reasonably expect to, say, work a job (or two, or even three) over the summer, and have sufficient funds as a result to pay for the following year’s tuition, board, and books at college. My father, who is almost 70, did precisely that, and it was laudable. Now, however, this is simply not possible beyond the community college level. In my state, even with the exceptionally reasonable state tuition rates (better, to the best of my knowledge, than any others in the US), a full-time minimum-wage job, assuming one is lucky enough to find such a thing, as they border on nonexistent even in our very good state economy, would pay for half of one semester’s tuition at one of the cheaper state schools.
This means that a student, to go to college, must rely on a combination of state and federal grants, parental assistance–and, yes, loans.
ETA: DH’s parents were able to help him with school, though he got mostly scholarships. Mine did not help me. As a result, though I worked 2-3 jobs the entire time I was in college, I still have about 20K in loans to pay off. That’s a burden on any family’s finances. If we had that money, we could invest it for the future, but we can’t. Bear in mind that that balance is lower than that of most of my generation, and that it represents about $400 each month in payments. I took them out, I’m responsible for them, but there’s no argument that they make things more difficult than they could be.
My husband and I did go to college. He has a master’s, and I a bachelor’s. We decided that I would stay home with our kids. He makes in the top 20% of US incomes, and we live in a state where the cost of living is low. Despite this, we live fairly frugally. Why?
Well, for one thing, we’re paying almost twice what you paid for much of your working life in FICA/social security taxes, in no small part because your generation tended to only have one or two children. Though we pay a far higher rate, and you’ll collect far, far more than you ever put it because of our contributions and because of your younger retirement age, our generation can’t reasonably rely on Social Security for retirement. The system is so far beyond broke that to expect that we’ll have it available in 25 years is foolish at best.
(When the SS system was set up, it was based on the average recipient living a few years after retirement. Now the average recipient lives 15-20 years after they stop contributing. This disparity has led to Social Security being little more than a grand Ponzi scheme on the government level.)
Similarly, DH’s job offers him a pension plan, in which he is fully invested. However, many companies have eliminated pension plans, and there is no guarantee that his won’t, either. Therefore, we can’t reasonably factor that into our retirement plans. It would be very nice indeed if we do end up collecting it, but we can’t know it will be there. As a result, we are saving very, very heavily indeed for retirement, and using conservative investment strategies to ensure that we will, hopefully, be able to retire one day. We fully contribute to our IRAs, and use the stock market to make small but definite returns on investments.
Lastly, you seem to be under a misapprehension. Of the recent posters on this thread, all have–or claim to have, it being the Internet and all
We are working and saving this hard partly to fund your retirement, partly in the hopes that we can retire someday, and partly with it ever in our minds that our children must go to college as well, and that they will require our assistance to do so. Finally, and most importantly, we are doing it with the perspective that the best gift we can give our children, the Faith aside, is a warm, loving, supportive family in which to live their Faith. On my deathbed, I hope not to be thinking about how much money I’ve earned, but about the souls DH and I have co-created with God, and what a better place the world will be with them in it.
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Allegra
Guest
I worked like crazy to avoid those loans and I still got stuck with them. I was a straight A student in high school, involved in all the necessary clubs and activities. I got a scholarship from the state for getting above a 30 on my ACT and another academic scholarship from my university. They covered my tuition for the first trimester. Then 911 happened and the government began cutting funding to public universities.Indeed.
Likewise, atjar, you might remember that most of the people to whom you are speaking are from a different generation than yours.
In yours, you could reasonably expect to, say, work a job (or two, or even three) over the summer, and have sufficient funds as a result to pay for the following year’s tuition, board, and books at college. My father, who is almost 70, did precisely that, and it was laudable. Now, however, this is simply not possible beyond the community college level. In my state, even with the exceptionally reasonable state tuition rates (better, to the best of my knowledge, than any others in the US), a full-time minimum-wage job, assuming one is lucky enough to find such a thing, as they border on nonexistent even in our very good state economy, would pay for half of one semester’s tuition at one of the cheaper state schools.
This means that a student, to go to college, must rely on a combination of state and federal grants, parental assistance–and, yes, loans.
Well, for one thing, we’re paying almost twice what you paid for much of your working life in FICA/social security taxes, in no small part because your generation tended to only have one or two children. Though we pay a far higher rate, and you’ll collect far, far more than you ever put it because of our contributions and because of your younger retirement age, our generation can’t reasonably rely on Social Security for retirement. The system is so far beyond broke that to expect that we’ll have it available in 25 years is foolish at best.
(When the SS system was set up, it was based on the average recipient living a few years after retirement. Now the average recipient lives 15-20 years after they stop contributing. This disparity has led to Social Security being little more than a grand Ponzi scheme on the government level.)
Similarly, DH’s job offers him a pension plan, in which he is fully invested. However, many companies have eliminated pension plans, and there is no guarantee that his won’t, either. Therefore, we can’t reasonably factor that into our retirement plans. It would be very nice indeed if we do end up collecting it, but we can’t know it will be there. As a result, we are saving very, very heavily indeed for retirement, and using conservative investment strategies to ensure that we will, hopefully, be able to retire one day. We fully contribute to our IRAs, and use the stock market to make small but definite returns on investments.
Lastly, you seem to be under a misapprehension. Of the recent posters on this thread, all have–or claim to have, it being the Internet and all
We are working and saving this hard partly to fund your retirement, partly in the hopes that we can retire someday, and partly with it ever in our minds that our children must go to college as well, and that they will require our assistance to do so. Finally, and most importantly, we are doing it with the perspective that the best gift we can give our children, the Faith aside, is a warm, loving, supportive family in which to live their Faith. On my deathbed, I hope not to be thinking about how much money I’ve earned, but about the souls DH and I have co-created with God, and what a better place the world will be with them in it.
By the time I graduated, my tuition had gone up so much, I had to take up to two grand in loans each semester. I was already working 40+ hours to pay my rent and living expenses, but I tried to save as much as possible to cover the extra tuition. Today, the tuition rate at my university is almost double what it was when I left.
I scrambled to avoid loans because I was realistic about the fact that there wasn’t a job fairy posted outside the university, waiting to give me my promised career as soon as I got my diploma. Meanwhile, many of my peers were erroneously encouraged by financial aid counselors and their parents alike to continue taking out loans as an investments in their future. No counseling was given in regards to what their actual monthly payments would be in the future. They were promised that once they graduated they would be automatically given their happy ever after and they would be able to pay the loans back.
No one explained that they were signing on to TEN YEARS of up to $400 monthly payments! What gets me is that a decade later, there are still people who want to ignore reality and claim that a degree will ensure good employment and a comfortable lifestyle. There are millions of people out there with masters degrees that can’t find a job in their field, or even any job that pays a living wage. Corporations are quickly taking over every industry and positions that were once considered an entry level job that paid a reasonable wage are now barely paying over minimum wage, despite the fact that the job requires a college degree! Try paying that $400 a month back on $10 an hour! Yeah, you’re gonna be making your own laundry detergent!
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atjar
Guest
Remember, Christ had no children and he told his disciples to drop everything (and that means not having wives or children) and serve as ambassadors and nobody found that wasteful. Remember, every generation needs leaders, and no better way to lead is to be in a good place financially so you can devote time to doing good things.
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atjar
Guest
I would expect a college degree would net you the ability to pay a $400 a month loan payment and earn more than $10 an hour. Its an investment in your future and if you can’t repay the loan because of work hardship, nobody is throwing you in the clink.
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Allegra
Guest
It also means not having condos on the ocean.
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Allegra
Guest
Statistically speaking, in today’s economy, your expectation would most likely fail to be met. You might not be thrown in the clink, however, the loan would not go away and would continue to follow you, preventing you from being approved for any loan, getting a mortgage for a home, etc. Eventually, the piper has to be paid.
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pensmama87
Guest
I must be misunderstanding you.
So a person who is having difficulty paying off debt should default on their loans rather than make personal sacrifices to pay it off?
(I’ll admit that I should have been smarter about how I financed my education. I probably could have earned more scholarships than I did and worked more hours in the summers. But I’d rather take ownership and say, “Well, I accumulated this debt, so now I’m going to pay it off” than say, “You know what? I deserve this stuff, so I’ll tell the bank to take a hike.”)
Plus it trashes your financial history. I don’t plan on taking on more debt, ever, but that could be bad if, say, I ended up needing to sell my house and rent a place to live.
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atjar
Guest
Why would he say not have a condo on the ocean? He knows you need to have a home. If that’s the case, tell the pope to move out of the vatican into Section 8 housing in the states. You know, that thing “vow of poverty and chastity.” God gave me gifts of freewill; I use them to be successful. I honor God by using his gifts.
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atjar
Guest
Government backed educational loans, don’t worry, they’ll help you find a job if that’s what’s keeping you from paying it back. And they’ll stretch it out even longer if hardship and if you teach in low income areas, portions of it are forgiven year to year.
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Allegra
Guest
No one in an anonymous internet thread is going to have enough information to even begin to make a statement as to the condition of your soul. No one knows where you’ve accomplished or failed in your life. I will say that I highly doubt that having a degree or a fancy house are considered much in the way of accomplishments by God. If you are really interested in an honest answer to your question, you should look at the last sentence in your post and consider how that meshes with what God commanded of us. I don’t remember Christ saying, “Feed my sheep, once you’ve taken care of yourself first.” He and His apostles put others first, despite the fact that they had nothing but the sandals on their feet and the cloaks on their back.
But that’s neither here or there. Being wealthy isn’t a sin, in and of itself, but neither is it a virtue of any kind. It certainly isn’t worth the sacrifice.
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