View Full Version : Feeling more and more like the money Grinch
I was reading through the thread about being nostalgic for the 1970's. I'm not nostalgic for a certain time period, but sometimes I'm nostalgic about the time before I became so single-minded about frugality and budgeting.
I am the one who handles the finances. I'd say my wife is passively supportive and very grateful that I took the task on. But it seems that, in the process, I've become tight-fisted, especially with myself.
I used to love going to the coffee shop, and sitting with a coffee and writing in my journal. Now I think about it, and I think, "Oh, $5. I don't think I really want to pay $5 for a cup of coffee. I can make coffee at home." And then I make a cup of coffee, but of course it isn't the same, and I can't settle down and write at home because there's all these at-home-parent types of chores to do -- dishes to wash, things to be dusted, floors to be swept.
Then my son, who really loves things ... I snap at him all the time. Yesterday, he wanted to get origami paper, so we went to get origami paper, and then he wanted to go out to buy a cup of soup, which is something we do sometimes on Friday afternoon, but for me, it's an excuse to go bicycling downtown with my son, and lately it's been hovering between the teens and twenties, and icy on the roads and bike paths. We drove down to the restaurant - and I hate to drive - and I bought him a cup of soup, but I was grumbling the whole time. Whenever he opens his mouth to tell me what he would like to get, which is usually what he wants to talk to me about, I snap at him, because more than likely I've been torturing myself over spending money for a cup of coffee for myself and not buying it, and he's telling me that he wants $30 or so for a levitating Tardis. (And often he wants things that are wonderful, like the origami paper, but just as often he wants things like a $200 Van de Graaff generator. He harped on that for two years straight.)
Today, my wife and I went out to breakfast, and she was talking about sending my son to guitar lessons since he's been asking to borrow my guitar. "We don't have a budget for that," I said.
I do budget what seems to be a lot of money for children, and children's activities, but we quickly go over budget, (most often on children, entertainment, and food). Today, my daughter is off at a swim meet, and she wanted money for lunch because the team was going to stop for lunch, and my son was going to a chess tournament, and he needed money for lunch, (and he wants to buy weighted chess pieces for his board). So that was my last $20 and $10 bill. It's only the 7th of the month, and I'm already about $50 over budget on my children's category in YNAB.
I'm nostalgic for the years when I didn't budget, and I just tried not to spend too much, and sometimes I would go into a little credit card debt, and then I would pay it off, and I wasn't snapping at everyone all the time about budget categories and no we're not going out for pizza, we're eating lentils again because we already spent our dining budget for the month, etc. etc.
Of course the difference is it used to just be me. I would go over budget, and then I would eat pinto beans for a month to be sure I paid off the credit card. I was very good at balancing out my spontaneous extravagancies with severe asceticism. I could go out to eat every day for a week, if I wanted, and then get by on stale bread and the last scrapings from the peanut butter jar the following week. The difficulty with being in a family with teenagers (and a spouse), is that they're not so fond of the ascetic periods, and I feel guilty about imposing them.
(And that's actually one of the embedded lifestyle differences in my marriage. My wife believes staples are staples and always need to be replenished. I'm more inclined to buy a nice, grass-fed, steak from the coop one week and not drink any milk the following week. "Sorry, we spent the grocery budget for this month," doesn't sound like an interesting creative challenge to use what we have in our cabinets to my spouse.)
Somehow, I'm always good at sloshing money around in the budget categories to cover everything, but I just don't feel like I have fun anymore, and I don't feel that I'm as much fun to be around. "Can't do that. Can't buy that. If we all went to the movies, it would be like $50 - Are you insane? We're not doing that." And if I wrestle $50 from the budget to go to the movies, I think about exactly how much money that is and how much trouble I had to go through to budget it. [Edited to add: If we try to watch a movie at home, we almost never have something we all want to watch -- My son ends up on one couch, with his laptop and headphones, my daughter the same, etc. It's really nice, now the kids are older and off in their own directions, to go to a movie as a family, but I just can't pull it off that often.]
How is it that when I was younger - and even when I was married but younger - we could spontaneously decide to go to the movies, and I didn't even think much about the cost, and we were making less money back then? That's what I'm nostalgic for.
Of course, a lot of my budgeting anxiety has been aimed at paying off the mortgage, (I've been budgeting an extra $700 a month to the principle - I think that makes the mortgage about 50% of our expenses every month). That will be paid off in the first half of next year. Then, we'll have an extra $1400 a month freed in the budget. But of course I want to save that -- bigger emergency fund, college savings, some house repairs we've been putting off.
I wonder if I'll ever get back to that "Hey let's go to the movies" relaxed attitude toward money. Can you be relaxed toward money without accidentally spending yourself into debt?
I'm tired of being the budget grinch.
I have nothing to say in terms of advice, other than I know how stressful it feels to have to be the "budget grinch." Especially with kids your kids' ages--there is always something, and if you say no, it sometimes has consequences on their social lives or on how they see themselves. Not saying it should, but the fact is... (Let me just say BTDT)
I guess the only encouraging word I can offer is this won't last forever.. Kids grow so quickly and then some of these problems go away but you then you miss the kids and you realize the money issues were not as bad as maybe you thought they were.
I can agree that I'm NOT nostalgic for those tough times when kids brought home a field trip form and of course there was a fee involved and we just didn't have it. I remember thinking, "So this is PUBLIC school??? They're all going for a weekend field trip and it's costing me $200? Really? I thought public school meant you go for free." It's so aggravating. All the neighbors seemed to be "no sweat" and my kids would go to their houses where there were LOTS of things like all the fruit roll-ups your kids would want, and then they'd come home and complain about the unbuttered popcorn.
Really, Paul, this too shall pass. Trust me, and hang in there.
ETA: I think it's harder to be relaxed about money without slipping into debt. That's my experience, anyway.
And also, I don't think it's fair that you feel you are shouldering the burden, and that's one of the things I like about Dave Ramsey--he is ADAMANT that couples share the budget decisions equally, and no ONE person should be the budget grinch. Maybe if you just read Dave Ramsey enough to learn the take-home message on that, whether or not you agree with his overall approach, it might be helpful. He did help me realize that if you do take the oars all by yourself without the buy-in of your spouse, it's simply not going to work.
I'm kind of the budget Grinch in our family. But we don't have our money budgeted into discrete "when-it's-gone-it's-gone" amounts. That just does not seem to work that well for our lives. What I tell DW is that we can afford pretty much anything we want, but we can't afford everything we want.
The key for us is to agree on priorities. We want to join some friends of ours on a cruise next year. We'll be the couple in the cheap inside cabin not eating at the fancy restaurants on board and not engaging in shoppingshoppingshopping. But doing even that means making some choices elsewhere, like repairing the kitchen floor instead of replacing it. Or forgoing the landscaping we were hoping to do someday.
Paul, it's not clear to me from your post that your wife or kids are fully on board with living frugally. Was it a family idea to put so much money toward the mortgage? Have the kids been asked what they would be willing to give up in exchange for other material things? Unless you're Jay Z and Beyonce, the well is not bottomless. Do the kids buy any of their own things (like weighted chess pieces)? Have you and your wife defined "staples"?
I'm lucky -- DW has told me she would be fine if I simply told her that her personal spending allowance for the month was $X. I'm not comfortable with that approach, though. And I know other people (especially those who are the breadwinners) would chafe hard at the idea of being allotted "their" money.
It's truly good of you that you are willing to take on the role of administrator. But unless your family has also conferred the cape of decision-making on you, the job is harder than it has to be. Their buy-in is crucial. Oh, and you can't keep giving people flowers out of your basket unless you replenish once in a while. Maybe coffee out at $5 isn't an every-day or every-week treat but something you budget to do a fixed number of times each month just for you and your well-being? You're a member of the family, too.
How about instead of "we don't have a budget for that", you phrase it thusly: "what a great idea! Let's figure out a budget for that". Then engage your spouse & child in some conversations about spending priorities, and make decisions jointly?
A friend of mine would describe your lifestyle (in a politically-incorrect way) as "budget anorexia." It's a soul-numbing way to live, unless it's for a finite period of time. A short, finite period of time. Your children aren't going to be around forever, and I guarantee you they'll remember your penny-pinching as a good example of how not to enjoy life. Loosen up a little.
I am going to say that the rush to pay off the mortgage while your children are being told no no no no and you are creating great stress for yourself is not working.
"I've been budgeting an extra $700 a month to the principle - I think that makes the mortgage about 50% of our expenses every month). That will be paid off in the first half of next year."
What about renegotiating the pay off date and stretching it one year or whatever the family thinks is fine. Relax a little bit and rebudget for those important things for you all. Is this rush to payoff worth the damage you are doing to both your own sanity and the relationship you have with your son and daughter. The fact you acknowledge you are snapping at them (and it seems often) is worth thinking about. Have you placed money (paying off debt fast) above your family? What will be important when you are gone, the fact you were fast in paying off the mortgage and saving a lot of money or your relationships? I agree with Jane.
I don't advocate spending foolishly but I think you have gone way too far in the other Scrooge category. Being frugal and making rational decisions does not mean only paying off debt. It means balance in your financial life. Often balance will shift. When kids get older, everything costs more and they have to learn about money and relationships.
Note: I think $5 or even $4 for a cup of coffee is insane. I get a $2 regular coffee when we go out and sit and even get a refill if I want.
I guarantee you they'll remember your penny-pinching as a good example of how not to enjoy life
To this day, I recall how my mother would not buy anything but the cheapened version of a shoe that was popular at the time. Ultimately, kids made fun of my "knock-off" shoes. there were other examples of her penny-pinching that I still recall. I think it is good to say to one's self every so often "Life is short - enjoy!"
Miss Cellane
12-7-13, 7:09pm
First, I agree that maybe rethinking the target date for the mortgage payoff might benefit the entire family. At the least, it would take some of this pressure off you.
Second--do your kids have a good understanding of money? I ask this because I grew up in a very frugal home. We all knew that we didn't spend a cent more than we had to. But my parents never really explained the *why* behind this--not getting into debt, paying off the mortgage early (and what that means in terms of money), saving for college. When I left home, I was a pro at not spending money. But I knew nothing about investing, or making good choices on how you spend your money. And I made some bad decisions as a result. And I missed out on some things because I felt guilty about spending any money on myself. The agony I went through for 2 months before I bought a tiny little black and white TV set for $100--looking back, I can't believe I worried about that for so long.
So it might help both you and your kids if you included them in some of the budgeting. Say for example, all their activities. Figure out what you spent last year on your daughter's activities and decide if you want next year to be the same amount, or more, or less. Then bring your daughter into the discussion. Say you want to spend $200 less on her activities next year. Break down for her what each activity cost, and let her decide which ones to participate in next year, and which ones to drop. If she still wants to participate in them all, then have her come up with ways to get the money to do so.
For your son's purchases, maybe give him an allowance for them. Let him decide if he wants to blow it all every month, or save up for a $200 purchase.
Third, budget some fun money for yourself. This shouldn't put your family on the road to debt; it sounds as if there is enough money coming in. That $5 cup of coffee isn't just the coffee. It's getting out of the house and spending time outside your normal realm of chores and work. In a way, it's buying you the time and space to do your journaling, which as you say, is hard to do at home with all the chores calling you.
Also budget family fun. If it takes $50 to get you all to the movies, budget that $50 every month. Let everyone have a say in what to spend the money on. And maybe one month, you all do something very small, so that you can save most of the money and the following month do something more expensive.
To this day, I recall how my mother would not buy anything but the cheapened version of a shoe that was popular at the time. Ultimately, kids made fun of my "knock-off" shoes. there were other examples of her penny-pinching that I still recall. I think it is good to say to one's self every so often "Life is short - enjoy!"
I also remember getting the cheap mark-down version of everything, if I got it at all. And though I am--amazingly--a confirmed bargain hunter now, that made an indelible negative impression on me. Life shouldn't be experienced as constant grim self-flagellation.
I think you need to stop being 100% responsible for all the decision-making regarding finances.
Give the kids an allowance and decide what they will pay for out of that. This has worked wonderfully for my kids. Every week they get their age in $ deposited in an online account. Any little things they want or special treats get paid for out of that. Their "gimmies" decreased dramatically after we implemented this system -- suddenly when they were told they would need to spend THEIR money on XYZ, it turned out they didn't want most of it. They both have roughly $2000 in their accounts at the moment, and that is after DS paid for 1/3 the cost of his computers and the amount we asked him to pay for his cell phone. He tends to save up to get big stuff like that, whereas DD is more the nickle and dime type. The great thing about this kind of strategy is that you are giving them responsibility for managing their own money, and helping them to learn how to assess their own choices in relation to their values, while simultaneously avoiding the grinch factor. You've given them the money to manage -- if it runs out, it runs out, not your problem. And then it is up to your DS to decide -- are weekly guitar lessons more important, or is being able to go buy origami paper and have a bowl of soup more important. It may take him awhile to figure out, like anything else it takes practice. But it is HIS choice about HIS money. Not mean old dad saying no again.
I suggest you adopt this type of strategy for the whole family. Including yourself. If you allot yourself $100 and you only spend $5 of that on a cup of coffee, you can throw the other $95 at the mortgage. Or you can "gift" some of it to your wife or kids, if that gives you pleasure.
I would also lighten up a bit on the mortgage payoff. 50% of take home going to housing is a bit extreme, especially given your relatively limited income. Yes, it will be great to have it paid off, but it sounds like you are giving up a lot in terms of your happiness and healthy relationships. If you budget for a $50/night movie night once a month for the next 6 months, how much would it set you back in terms of the payoff date? Less than a month, right? Sounds like a tradeoff worth making.
It sounds to me like what you are nostalgic about is being HAPPY. Your current lifestyle doesn't sound like it is bringing any of you much joy, and that it is creating a lot of tension. Lighten up on the purse strings a little bit, Paul. And sit down and have a cup of coffee every now and then. Throw the laundry in the wash, put the dishes in to soak, and then enjoy a cuppa with a good book for 30 minutes. Bring some pleasure back into your life. It doesn't have to cost a lot.
Quick question: Does your wife's position come with tuition benefits for the kids? If so then STOP WORRYING about college for the kids. They can go to St John's and live at home, or, if they want to go somewhere else, THEY CAN FIND A WAY TO PAY FOR IT!
Hope you can find a better balance between fiscal prudence and family relationships, Paul. And that paying off your mortgage can be a happy event that all of you can celebrate and enjoy. Yes, building the EF and budgeting for house repairs are important, but I would suggest you discuss as a family a nice way you can celebrate once the mortgage is paid off. Maybe another trip to India? There are tons of Fulbright scholarships there now -- maybe your wife can apply (not sure if librarianship is a field they support there). Again, getting everybody on board in deciding what the celebratory goal is will be important in terms of helping them commit to the mortgage payoff as the financial goal.
I might have over-emphasized my frugality. Each of my children get $40 a month for their allowance. (Though my son is always wheedling for things that "shouldn't come out of his allowance". For example, I gave him $20 at the farmer's market the other day to buy some bread that he likes, and then he used the change for something else as well and still wanted it to come out of the grocery budget.) I think the main person I drive crazy is myself. They know we're trying to pay off the house so we can save more effectively for college. If they choose to go to the college where my wife and I work, they get free tuition, (a roughtly $200,000 employee benefit per child). If they go somewhere else, they get half their tuition paid. I still don't know how much we're supposed to save - the amounts recommended seem huge. But, with the tuition benefit, I hope that we can swing it without their having to borrow money. (And we certainly won't borrow any). My daughter has her sights set on Harvard, but she's still in eighth grade. We'll see.
We're in that awkward income range where we're not rich, and we're not low income. (I don't know why I think that's awkward). I guess because I feel like we have enough money coming in that we should be able to save quite a bit and be more relaxed with our spending. I think "hmmm, what would I like to do?" and sometimes I think, "it would be nice to take a walking tour of the Mediterranean coast", and we're not so poor that it is totally out of the question, but it's also not the type of thing we can pick up and do. (Our annual gross income is around $60,000. I've heard people making $200,000 a year crying to Dave Ramsey that they can't pay their bills and have no savings. We're way ahead of them). And it's the same for movies, eating out, and everything. We did have our one trip to India in 2010. I've been recruited to help out with a canoe trip on the Mississippi River next fall. We're taking a backpacking trip down to White Sands over spring break. My daughter is going to be an exchange student in Germany for two weeks in May. We DO stuff, but it's the day to day leakages of money that drive me crazy and that I get obsessive over. I'm probably more inwardly obsessive - I'm sure I'm much harder on myself than I am on my family members. Maybe it's because I've taken it on my own shoulders, as budgeter in chief, to make all the things we do and want to do possible, and it's not possible to do everything, no matter what your income. Sometimes, I feel like what I have been able to do as the budgeter and at-home-parent is just short of miraculous. We're almost out of debt. We travel fairly widely, if not as much as I'd like to. We eat well.
The subject of cheap clothes is an interesting one to me. I've shopped thrift stores since I left home in the eighties. I don't remember brands of things being important to my peer group when I was growing up - though my mom always bought new clothes. (There were a lot of Polo shirts in the private school I went to, but I don't remember that being important. Maybe it's a gender thing.) My kids have always been dressed in a mix of thrift store clothes and clothes from department stores, but they've never asked for any particular brand of anything. They've never been that interested in clothes in general. Well, that's not exactly true - my son loves bow ties and top hats, and recently, because of the movie "Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog", he's been getting into steampunk style. He has some rubber boots my wife bought him at the thrift store that he loves. My daughter also has a style that's all her own. But I've never got the sense from either of them that brands or fashions are important in their peer groups. I was actually thinking of that the other day because my son was watching the episode of "Glee" where the mother of the new singer is sewing designer labels into her daughter's thrift store clothes. For the past three decades, I've been under the impression that thrift store clothes are about as cool as you can get.
The mortgage is a hard call. With our current plan, we will pay another $90 in interest before we're done, and we'll be done in March. If I pay the minimum, it will be a little over a year, and it will be $190 in interest. To me, it feels worth it to be obsessive for three more months to be free of the debt completely. But I think the nearness of the final payment is what is making me more obsessive and less fun to myself.
I do budget a $50 a month "allowance" for myself, but I usually pull money out of that to pay for overages in other categories.
"Quick question: Does your wife's position come with tuition benefits for the kids? If so then STOP WORRYING about college for the kids. They can go to St John's and live at home, or, if they want to go somewhere else, THEY CAN FIND A WAY TO PAY FOR IT!"
I agree with this, depending on your job security. You're living up to your responsibility here. And for God's sake go out for coffee (cheap Americano, if you like) once or twice a week! As far as the allowance goes, I think Lhamo has the right idea.
I adore thrift shops, and your kids might, as well. But high school brings changes, and that may be one of them.
I was reading through the thread about being nostalgic for the 1970's. I'm not nostalgic for a certain time period, but sometimes I'm nostalgic about the time before I became so single-minded about frugality and budgeting.
I am the one who handles the finances. I'd say my wife is passively supportive and very grateful that I took the task on. But it seems that, in the process, I've become tight-fisted, especially with myself.
I used to love going to the coffee shop, and sitting with a coffee and writing in my journal. Now I think about it, and I think, "Oh, $5. I don't think I really want to pay $5 for a cup of coffee. I can make coffee at home." And then I make a cup of coffee, but of course it isn't the same, and I can't settle down and write at home because there's all these at-home-parent types of chores to do -- dishes to wash, things to be dusted, floors to be swept.
Then my son, who really loves things ... I snap at him all the time. Yesterday, he wanted to get origami paper, so we went to get origami paper, and then he wanted to go out to buy a cup of soup, which is something we do sometimes on Friday afternoon, but for me, it's an excuse to go bicycling downtown with my son, and lately it's been hovering between the teens and twenties, and icy on the roads and bike paths. We drove down to the restaurant - and I hate to drive - and I bought him a cup of soup, but I was grumbling the whole time. Whenever he opens his mouth to tell me what he would like to get, which is usually what he wants to talk to me about, I snap at him, because more than likely I've been torturing myself over spending money for a cup of coffee for myself and not buying it, and he's telling me that he wants $30 or so for a levitating Tardis. (And often he wants things that are wonderful, like the origami paper, but just as often he wants things like a $200 Van de Graaff generator. He harped on that for two years straight.)
Today, my wife and I went out to breakfast, and she was talking about sending my son to guitar lessons since he's been asking to borrow my guitar. "We don't have a budget for that," I said.
I do budget what seems to be a lot of money for children, and children's activities, but we quickly go over budget, (most often on children, entertainment, and food). Today, my daughter is off at a swim meet, and she wanted money for lunch because the team was going to stop for lunch, and my son was going to a chess tournament, and he needed money for lunch, (and he wants to buy weighted chess pieces for his board). So that was my last $20 and $10 bill. It's only the 7th of the month, and I'm already about $50 over budget on my children's category in YNAB.
I'm nostalgic for the years when I didn't budget, and I just tried not to spend too much, and sometimes I would go into a little credit card debt, and then I would pay it off, and I wasn't snapping at everyone all the time about budget categories and no we're not going out for pizza, we're eating lentils again because we already spent our dining budget for the month, etc. etc.
Of course the difference is it used to just be me. I would go over budget, and then I would eat pinto beans for a month to be sure I paid off the credit card. I was very good at balancing out my spontaneous extravagancies with severe asceticism. I could go out to eat every day for a week, if I wanted, and then get by on stale bread and the last scrapings from the peanut butter jar the following week. The difficulty with being in a family with teenagers (and a spouse), is that they're not so fond of the ascetic periods, and I feel guilty about imposing them.
(And that's actually one of the embedded lifestyle differences in my marriage. My wife believes staples are staples and always need to be replenished. I'm more inclined to buy a nice, grass-fed, steak from the coop one week and not drink any milk the following week. "Sorry, we spent the grocery budget for this month," doesn't sound like an interesting creative challenge to use what we have in our cabinets to my spouse.)
Somehow, I'm always good at sloshing money around in the budget categories to cover everything, but I just don't feel like I have fun anymore, and I don't feel that I'm as much fun to be around. "Can't do that. Can't buy that. If we all went to the movies, it would be like $50 - Are you insane? We're not doing that." And if I wrestle $50 from the budget to go to the movies, I think about exactly how much money that is and how much trouble I had to go through to budget it. [Edited to add: If we try to watch a movie at home, we almost never have something we all want to watch -- My son ends up on one couch, with his laptop and headphones, my daughter the same, etc. It's really nice, now the kids are older and off in their own directions, to go to a movie as a family, but I just can't pull it off that often.]
How is it that when I was younger - and even when I was married but younger - we could spontaneously decide to go to the movies, and I didn't even think much about the cost, and we were making less money back then? That's what I'm nostalgic for.
Of course, a lot of my budgeting anxiety has been aimed at paying off the mortgage, (I've been budgeting an extra $700 a month to the principle - I think that makes the mortgage about 50% of our expenses every month). That will be paid off in the first half of next year. Then, we'll have an extra $1400 a month freed in the budget. But of course I want to save that -- bigger emergency fund, college savings, some house repairs we've been putting off.
I wonder if I'll ever get back to that "Hey let's go to the movies" relaxed attitude toward money. Can you be relaxed toward money without accidentally spending yourself into debt?
I'm tired of being the budget grinch.
I don't know how old your children are (if it is in the post, I did not read all of it, sorry). Anyway, if they are old enough to want a $200 something or another, then they are old enough to earn their own money to buy it.
There are still lots of things that children can do to earn money such as mow lawns, shovel snow, pull weeds, wash cars, wash windows, etc. So they need to figure out what they want to do and how to do it. There is no law that says, beyond food, clothing and shelter, that you are required to pay for their interests. That is what jobs are for. Since you are interested in bicycles, perhaps you and your son can learn how to service and repair them and he can make money doing that for his friends. Maybe in the spring, he can help people with their gardens. They can walk dogs or dog sit. There is a wealth of money-earning opportunities out there. It's time that both of your children learn that you are not a wallet.
Since you listen to Dave Ramsey, as do I, you know he would approve of this reply.
Well, given what you have said about your family budget i plugged in 60k annual income, 4 person family from NM, with one in college, no college savings, and the estimated family contribution at Harvard is:
$4600. All of it expected to be contributed by the student through summer and part-time on campus work. NO PARENTAL CONTRIBUTION.
https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator?citizenship=USA&residence=NM
If your daughter gets into Harvard, I don't think you have to worry about paying for it. They give generous financial aid to families making under 100k for sure, maybe 150k. And if your income goes up that high you'll be able to cash flow it. Not to mention Harvard and the other ivies/elite liberal arts colleges are probably all on the list of schools where you get the 50% coverage.
Personally, I would insist my kids go to St. John's. Great school. A free college tuition is nothing to sneeze at, and if they are interested in other things they can take classes at other universities during the summer, or save up for grad school.
Knowledge is power, Paul. Stop worrying so much.
For god's sake, you are almost to the point of paying off your mortgage and you are worried about paying $100 more in interest next year? LIGHTEN UP!!!! How about you adopt a medium range strategy -- rather than struggling and sacrificing to pay the mortgage off in March by adding that extra $700/month to the payment, drop that down to $500 extra/month and give everyone in the family an extra $50/month in spending money. Make it clear to the kids that any/all personal "wants" need to be paid for out of that $50 -- if special bread at the farmer's market will mess up the grocery budget for that month, then it needs to come out of DS's personal allowance. BTW, given how important food is to you guys, I would lighten up a bit on the food budget as well. You don't shop at Walmart and ALdi's for health/ethical reasons, so don't be comparing yourselves/your budget to people who do. So you might want to experiment with adding an extra $150 to the grocery budget as well. Then you still have an extra $350/month going to the mortgage -- that should let you pay it off by what, July or August? See how it affects your quality of life. I bet it will be a really positive change.
I don't want to be harsh, but the elephant in the room here is that your time/energy would probably be better spent on figuring more ways to generate income rather than trying to pinch more pennies out of what you bring home. Your problem is more on the income side than the expense side. Don't need to put all that weight on you, though -- the kids can be part of income generation, too, especially to generate money for family-related perks and individual wants. Since you all like thrift stores, why not try doing some reselling on Ebay of cool stuff you find at thrift stores, garage sales, etc. Might be able to generate a nice little side income doing that, and have some fun as a family exploring while spending relatively little (that ideally you earn back, and then some).
This is a short-term problem, Paul -- things are going to look very different when you get the mortgage paid off.
Have you read the Total Money Makeover? Maybe a system like that, which is a bit more balanced, would help you find more of a balanced approach in your own journey. You're doing things out of order according to his formula, but since you are so close to getting the mortgage done with, you could back up from there. Debt is gone, so if you haven't done so already, you should be looking at these next steps:
1) 3-6 months of expenses in savings (emergency fund)
2) 15% of income to retirement
3) College savings for the kids
On the latter, seriously, take it easy -- your tuition benefit is major and you really don't need to be worrying much about this. Put a little bit away every month, but otherwise start thinking about easing off on the budget in the areas where your family finds the most value -- that seems to be food, travel, activities, and health-related stuff for your wife.
Thanks Lhamo. I had not really looked at the cost of individual colleges. I've been looking at general websites with recommendations for college savings. I don't have the actual figures on the top of my head, but they all seemed alarmist to me and had me alarmed. It was all in the realm of "If you have four years to save for college, you should be saving $750 a month." I know the tuition benefit is major, but there are still dorms and food, etc., which I hope my kids will raise some of the money for themselves, but I've been under the general impression that, with two kids heading for college, I should still be socking away that $1000 a month freed from paying for the mortgage for their college years. I'm terrified - though I know it shouldn't be that terrifying - that either we or our children will be asked to borrow money as part of our college costs. So many books and websites on paying for education take borrowing money for granted, and I just haven't made the time to track down what our situation will actually be. I've just been thinking that, even if we are able to save $1000 a month for the next for years, that's only $48,000, and that doesn't seem like enough with two kids. I need to find the website about cash-flowing college, but I just haven't found it yet.
I listen to Dave Ramsey's podcast most days when I walk to get my son from school. I know we're a little out of order. We have about $2000 in an emergency fund now. We save for retirement, but I haven't sat down to figure out if it's exactly 15%. (We have just over $100,000 in retirement now).
Objectively, I think we're doing as well as can be expected considering I was an at-home-parent for so long and now work part time.
(I do sometimes wonder if I should look for higher paid work. I get paid $17 an hour, but I've taught myself database design. I've moved much of our offices' data from Excel to Access, which has greatly streamlined our workflow. When I used to do occasional computer work while I was being an at-home-dad, I charged $45 an hour and people told me I should charge $60. Why can't I get paid $45 an hour in my workaday world, if I can make that as a person people call when they can't get their email to work? A three-fold increase in my hourly wage would make a great difference in my 17.5 hours a week income. On the other hand, I really love my job and love the office I work in, and it's nice to be back at the college. Edited to add: My beekeeping still only brings in about $1000 a year, though I see myself much more as a beekeeper than a database designer. Maybe I should stop thinking of myself as a Luddite and accept that I'm good and intuitive with technology).
Miss Cellane
12-8-13, 11:44am
When I used to do occasional computer work while I was being an at-home-dad, I charged $45 an hour and people told me I should charge $60. Why can't I get paid $45 an hour in my workaday world, if I can make that as a person people call when they can't get their email to work? A three-fold increase in my hourly wage would make a great difference in my 17.5 hours a week income. On the other hand, I really love my job and love the office I work in, and it's nice to be back at the college. Edited to add: My beekeeping still only brings in about $1000 a year, though I see myself much more as a beekeeper than a database designer. Maybe I should stop thinking of myself as a Luddite and accept that I'm good and intuitive with technology).
Because that $45/hour isn't all profit for a freelancer/contract worker/. Part of it paid your overhead--the space you used to do the work, the computer you did the work on, and other office-type expenses. Part of it goes to taxes and health insurance. All things that an employer provides for employees, but which a freelancer must provide for him/herself.
Your employer is paying you $17. But the actual cost for them of having you as an employee is higher than that. They have to provide you with office space, a desk, a computer, a phone, heat/AC, light, water, bathroom facilities and someone to clean them. There may be an EAP, insurance benefits, vacation time, paid holidays, a pension or 401(k) contribution, social security payment, and, in your particular case, the opportunity for you and members of your family to take college class for credit for free. That last one is huge.
I would give up the extra 700 to the mortgage and enjoy your kids. Spend it on them and realize they will be grown soon. And then tell them that college us up to them. You are not responsible to pay for colkege, but will contribute what you can ... Maybe only 1/4 ... Whatever.
And now that I read further ... Your kids have a free education if they choose your school. If they choose something else the bill's on them. Have you ever read the book by Cloud about boundaries? This isn't about money. It's about boundaries with your family. You are doing too much of the worry and sacrificing. Time to give responsibilities back to others, where it belongs.
SteveinMN
12-8-13, 12:43pm
Because that $45/hour isn't all profit for a freelancer/contract worker/. Part of it paid your overhead--the space you used to do the work, the computer you did the work on, and other office-type expenses. Part of it goes to taxes and health insurance.
Part of it also goes to "bench time" -- the times in your week when you are not fixing people's problems and can bill them for the time. In setting fees for computer consulting I've done and in figuring out how to price my photography services, I've often seen the suggestion that you should bill three times the amount of money you need to make for income, to cover overhead and the times you don't get paid because you're not working.
I'm terrified - though I know it shouldn't be that terrifying - that either we or our children will be asked to borrow money as part of our college costs. So many books and websites on paying for education take borrowing money for granted
I know people have different experiences with debt. Mine are such that I don't fear borrowing for truly-big-ticket items like houses and college educations (for the record, I've done both). That does not mean I went full-boat. But I chose those purchases wisely and didn't sweat a little debt because, without it, those goals were unachievable.
I think half the problem here is that you are taking on the entire problem yourself. I think you and DW should sit down and figure out reasonable contributions for college from everyone in the family. Your wife can put free tuition on the table. Your kids can work part-time and turn over rocks looking for scholarships (there are many out there which have very few applicants). You can provide the financial administration.
DD is getting married sometime in the next couple of years. We (okay, DW before we married) have saved up $X for the event. DD has been told the money is hers to spend as she wishes. If she wants to blow it all renting a carriage and driver and have someone spreading rose petals before her as she walks into the church, fine. If she wants to marry her beau at the Mall of America's wedding chapel and put a good chunk of $X toward their retirement or something else, fine. But there is no coming back to the well. If hiring the carriage and petal-thrower and the New York Philharmonic for a wedding band costs more than $X, it's on her and her fiancé.
You and your wife can do something similar. You can tell your kids that there is a limit to what you can and will contribute. Maybe it's the equivalent of room and board at St. John's and they can have that money (or, maybe even better, borrow it from Bank of Mom & Dad on very generous payback terms) if they choose to go elsewhere. But that's it -- you've given them enough room to choose wisely and well, but not so much room that accommodating them increases your stress level and damages family dynamics. Your kids have a long time to benefit from their decision. They should want to work toward it. If that includes promising themselves out for several years to honor college loans, hopefully you have taught them well and they should respect the decision they're making.
Gardenarian
12-8-13, 3:50pm
Your post sure hit a nerve with me - I get so sick of saying "we can't afford it!" I'm always thinking about the future, instead of living for today. I need a little more balance. As Henry James said, "Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet."
That being said, if you have only three more months to pay off the mortgage, I would certainly keep it up and be done with it. Have a party! Celebrate freedom!
I think you need to have a family conference and talk about college with your kids. I doubt they understand the stress that wanting to go to a prestige college is putting on you. Has your daughter even visited Harvard? Does she have any idea why she wants to go there? What does she want to study? She may not care about brands on clothes, but clearly the college brand has a big influence. I would not be putting my life on hold because of the whims of a 13yo, no matter how successful and sweet she might be.
You should be planning to fulfill your dreams, too.
Jane's comment on "budget anorexia" sounded spot on to me. I too fuss over small expenditures. Last night I went to the movies with my dd (a movie on a week-end night, not a mid-week matinee!) and felt like I was being very grand. The reason I went is that I'm having surgery in a few days and won't be able to get out much for a few months. I'm quite worried about this (relatively minor) operation - thoughts of death - it has made me wonder how much I've missed by being stingy, by not being grateful for everything I have.
I know for me, I need to practice more gratitude. The walking tour of Europe is one of my fantasies too, and if all goes well with my surgery we'll be taking off June 2014... if I don't decide it's simply too luxurious for us. I've done that in the past.
P.S. I am also blessed with a gifted and charming dd, just finishing her first semester at college (at 14.) She's fun and easy and she can play me like a violin.
P.P.S. Mr. Money Mustache sure seems to live the frugal life with gusto - I just don't have his energy, though I do find his blog inspiring (tho' sometimes makes me focus MORE on money.)
Teacher Terry
12-8-13, 8:00pm
I think that balance is a great idea so you can enjoy life & the things/people,etc in your life. I think there is such a thing as too frugal. I too enjoy reading Mr. MM but also think he can be too frugal. You need to enjoy your kids and that means having some wonderful experiences that cost $. I too would finish paying off the house since you are so close but then maybe reward yourselves with a nice family outing. It is one thing to not waste $ but something entirely different if you are not able to enjoy life some too because of being afraid to spend it.
flowerseverywhere
12-8-13, 9:42pm
I will never regret being the super penny pincher to pay the house off. DH fell on the ice and while undergoing back surgeries had cancer detected. Although he thought I was nuts for some of the stuff I did, without a mortgage we could have lived on my salary or his disability easily. He recovered and was able to return to work, but our level of stress was a fraction of someone who had a mortgage and car payments. I say hang in there the as you approach the payoff schedule some nice alone dinners, or nice evening walks with your wife to make future plans
i agree wholeheartedly with posters who said I will pay x towards your education and x towards your wedding. And if your kids can get free tuition all the better. They could do a couple of years there to pick up all the prerequisites unless they can get help to go elsewhere.
On a lighter note, one day when we were approaching the end of the mortgage we went canoeing. Used canoe we had picked up for a song, of course. We came to a small island that was full of beer cans. I picked them all up, and DH was mortified but $4 towards the payoff I could not resist.
Live your our life to the best of your ability, you are not perfect but the rest of us aren't either.
try2bfrugal
12-10-13, 6:02pm
I think that balance is a great idea so you can enjoy life & the things/people,etc in your life. I think there is such a thing as too frugal. I too enjoy reading Mr. MM but also think he can be too frugal. You need to enjoy your kids and that means having some wonderful experiences that cost $. I too would finish paying off the house since you are so close but then maybe reward yourselves with a nice family outing. It is one thing to not waste $ but something entirely different if you are not able to enjoy life some too because of being afraid to spend it.
Some of the ideas in the Mr. MM blog are pennywise and pound foolish. I would rather get some job certifications to increase my income than ride my bike in a snow storm and risk getting disabled for the rest of my life to save $1 on gas. A lot of the MMM advice is the exact opposite of what the millionaires researched in The Millionaire Next Door actually do. They focus on income in their core businesses and are not DIYers.
As far as spending money goes, we can get discount movie tickets at Costco for $8, our library has free passes for attractions, Subway has $2 subs this month, the Costco snack bar always has super cheap food, and a reciprocal museum pass can get you in lots of attractions all year for maybe one $60 membership fee.
If it were me I would focus more on finding creative ways to live cheaply and still do a lot family treats and excursions without spending much money, and not just focus on the not spending money part. Also as other have suggested I would also look at increasing the income side of things (AA degree / certificate program, Microsoft certifications, enrolled agent / tax preparer / whatever you enjoy), enjoy the kids now while they are still at home and scale back on the mortgage pay off.
Our library has lots of good books on how to max out financial aid for college for kids, which could be your fall back if you don't have the same jobs with free tuition as a benefit when your kids are college age. As another poster suggested, I think if you look into things, your expected family contribution would not be that much at your household income level. I think if you had a plan B for college in place for tuition you would feel more financially at ease and not stressing so much over soup and coffee. Plus there are options like CLEP credits, online classes, merit scholarships, work experience credit, paid internships, community college credits or degrees and all sorts of ways to keep costs down.
Teacher Terry
12-10-13, 6:15pm
I totally agree with not riding the bike in the snow. Here our town is not bike friendly and people get hit all the time. If we ride bikes we transport by car to a trail to ride on. I also read the Book The millionaire Next Door and you are right about their focus. WE would always take the kids to the matinee movies since it was so much cheaper then going at night. Once a year we would take our kids to an amusement park for the entire day and they looked forward to it every summer. It was an expensive day but only once a year. We also did things like play cards & games at home which they all loved. The Simple Dollar website also has some great ideas about inexpensive ways to enjoy activities with kids.
Gardenarian
12-13-13, 11:11pm
try2bfrugal
I didn't know Costco had discount movie tickets! I will definitely try that out. I wonder what else I'm missing there! Definitely want to get the most out our Costco membership! I think I will start a new thread on this.
Thanks!
Was just told that Costco has hearing aid batteries at a quarter the price of a hearing aid store.
catherine
12-14-13, 9:41am
Was just told that Costco has hearing aid batteries at a quarter the price of a hearing aid store.
Wow, I hate to say it, but a Costco is going in about a 2 minute drive from my house. I complained bitterly when they started building it--the property used to be the Johnson & Johnson Band-Aid plant, but they've outsourced that manufacturing, so the whole campus, which used to be mostly open, is now being developed.
On the bright side, I hear Costco does have great savings, and my DD said that they treat their employees well as far as big box stores go. Now I'm looking forward to what they have. I've never been in one.
sweetana3
12-14-13, 10:06am
Costco has a great checkout system. They usually have two people per register on busy days and they have some self service ones for small purchases. It runs fast. The employees seem a lot friendlier and more enthusiastic than other stores. I bet they have some kind of incentive program. No chitchat just get people thru in a friendly fashion.
They have great samples. I think there were 8 or 10 different food samples yesterday. Tried their fruitcake which I normally dont like. The sample was yummy and she said they bake inhouse. The only issue with bakery department is the huge packages. There are only two of us so we normally only use them for parties.
I have to weigh in that I love riding my bicycle in the snow. We have one with studded snow tires so snow and ice won't slow us down. I've been a bicycling advocate for years, (and we did manage to live very well without a car for eight years while the kids were in the local elementary school they could ride their bicycles to). Now, owning a car feels like something that is soooo not worth the money it costs, but our kids' charter school is six miles out a high speed road with three roundabouts. They - well my son will be joining my daughter next year - take the bus to school, but my daughter has lots of after school activities and the city bus does not run as late as the activities do. We used to think that owning a car was an unnecessary luxury in this country. Now that we have one again, it doesn't feel so much a luxury as a drudgery. We had sledgehammered up our driveway and planted a garden, and now we have this big, ugly Subaru outback parked where we used to grow lettuce. We're looking forward to the time when the kids are in college so we can get rid of the car again. The bicycles serve us much better, and the city bus system is a good backup. Our city has also become much more bicycle friendly over the past three decades, (and I can pat myself on the back for being part of all the city committees, etc.) We have shared road symbols on the narrow roads, bike paths that actually go somewhere, a very polite driving populace, and great people working for the city and the county MPO.
I, personally, always feel much safer on the bicycle than in a car, though that might partially be because I become bored and sleepy when I'm driving. I HATE driving. I've met people that enjoy driving their cars, and I just don't understand it. It feels like some sort of punishment to have to hold your body so still for so long, especially while moving from place to place. I'm so glad we have a commuter train to Albuquerque these days. In fact, I think we'll lighten up on our budget over Christmas vacation and take the train down to go to the zoo.
flowerseverywhere
12-14-13, 8:21pm
Paul, your need for a car seems perfectly justified to make your family safe. But what you spend on a car can vary widely. My sib and her partner both drive $35,000 + new cars, and wonder why they don't have any money. We have a used car that serves us fine. All about choices.
We have a paid for car, but it still costs almost $1000 a year in gasoline, maintenance, and insurance. The car certainly doesn't make our family safer, (one study found there were almost twice as many fatalities per passenger hour for motor vehicles over bicycles - I'm convinced that bicycling is safer than driving, though you can certainly find conflicting studies). It's just a matter of the charter school being out of town. The car is an uneasy compromise to allow our kids to have a better education. A normal family in Santa Fe certainly wouldn't need a car.
Miss Cellane
12-15-13, 1:45pm
Can you choose to see the car as temporary? When your kids were babies, you had all sorts of specialized equipment for them--cribs, toys, diapers, etc.--that cost you money. In six or so years, the car can go the way of the crib--out of your lives.
The car is another choice. You could have sent your kids to a local school. You could choose not to allow them so many activities after school or indeed any activities at all that can't be gotten to by bus or bike or carpool or hitching a ride.
You could, but you didn't. Because you value a good education. Because you want your kids to be involved in activities that make them happy (and won't look so bad on a college application). The car is the result of those choices.
Cars are not, in and of themselves, evil things. It's how you use the car that matters. You can choose to use the car only for children's activities. You can choose to not use the car two or three days a week, going "car light" instead of "car free."
But right now, at this point in time, the car is necessary to get something that you, as a family, value more than going car free. From my point of view, that really isn't so bad.
Which isn't to say that I can't see your point--that you struggled for years to achieve something and *blam* one kid goes to a new school and it's over. Instead of thinking it's over, think of it as temporary. You'll get back to your normal in a few years.
As a parent I think the hardest thing I had to do was learn to say "No". My son got an allowance and it was used to pay for things that I otherwise would be paying for. If he blew the guitar lesson money on the movies with friends, he missed out on the lesson or had to find a way to "pay for" the lesson (usually trading life energy by mowing the lawn or doing basic repairs around his instructor's home). We didn't give him extra because he wanted something he liked. We also didn't give him more than he actually needed. Read that as NEEDED. Not wanted. In otherwords, we broke down exactly what he would need to pay for his guitar lessons, voice lessons, basic clothing needs, school dues and performance fees (traveled nationally with his choir). He chose how to spend it. Wants were paid out of his pocket and money he earned doing work for neighbors and local small businesses (usually clearing snow off walks, washing display windows, raking yards etc...). We didn't give him a dime for wants. We also capped what we would give him for activities so that he had to pick and choose. ie... He could swing music lessons and travel choir but if he wanted to do skiing he would have to give up something. Life is about making choices and we made sure that he had the opportunity to learn how to weigh his options and make those choices.
By the time our son was a junior in high school he was negotiating trading yard work for math tutoring on his own. (I had just gotten laid off and we couldn't afford a tutor).
He's now a junior in college and has reached a point where he never calls home for money. He works while attending school to pay for those things that he both needs (laundry money,clothing, gas money etc...) and wants (date night money).
I also agree with the others that you and your wife need to work together on the budget and be in agreement about where the money is going and how much is going there. If something comes up,like travel to Germany for your dd, then it should be a family discussion with expectations for working and fundraising by your dd and perhaps a dollar for dollar match by you.
Instead of stressing over the little things like $20 here and there, use these moments as teaching tools and don't be afraid to put limits on what you are willing to shell out for. Enjoy the moments you have with your kids. Buy them fewer things but items of good quality. Better to have one quality pair of running shoes instead of three or four pairs of running shoes from Walmart.
So much good advice here. lhamo especially says much of what I would say. Most important of all, IMHO, is that you get everyone involved in the budgeting. You need to make it a whole big picture, long-term budget conversation though because otherwise I suspect that every other member of your family will think you're crazy for putting an extra $700/month at the mortgage. "But dad! It would still be paid off by the end of the year and we'd have $700/month more to spend on the things we want/need..." Pointing out the long-term costs of college will help prevent the discussion going in that direction.
And having a conversation with your DW to establish what, beyond the employer college/tuition benefit, the two of you are willing to provide towards your kids' college costs is critical. Whether it's nothign, $5,000 per year, $10,000 or whatever, you need to know so that you can include that cost in your ongoing budget when opening up budget discussions with the kids. Knowing what you're willing to contribute and then budgeting accordingly will probably go a long way towards alleviating your constant stress over financials. I don't have kids so have not put much thought into financing college but I suspect that just as many on this board, including you, won't need $1 million saved to retire comfortably even though that's the "standard" the same applies to planning for college. The "standard" amounts are probably a lot more than your reality. Especially with the 1/2 tuition benefit if your kids go someplace else. Put forth the time to truly figure out what it will cost your kids depending on where they go, how much you and DW will be expected to contribute based on family income, etc. Then figure out how much you and DW are ultimately willing to spend, budget for that amount and then get a good night's sleep. And who knows, maybe if your daughter starts to run the numbers on the cost of Harvard vs. St Johns she may change her mind as she gets closer to college age.
My parents were both quite frugal when I was growing up. My mom was the grinch in our family who could pinch a penny until it screamed. Some of my happiest childhood memories, though, were saturdays spent with my dad. He'd take us to the park to play and on the way home we'd always stop at 7-11 and my sister and I could each pick out one candy. Hershey bar, sweet-tarts, whatever we wanted. It was a small splurge but it represents a huge happy memory that I will always retain. Yes paying off your mortgage is important. But at this point the extra $100ish in interest to delay that by a few months might be money well spent.
Powered by vBulletin® Version 4.2.5 Copyright © 2025 vBulletin Solutions Inc. All rights reserved.