Just a little (link) love: aching body edition
December 13, 2018
How $12,500 turned into $1.5 Million (of erased debt). I would to do this for one of my next organized charity activities.
I like GYM’s part time plan.
When your number isn’t just YOUR number.
Seven years ago, Hiro was wheeled into the OR to have her brain operated on.
A simple one minute test for stroke.
RB40 asked: “Do you feel guilty for not giving your family the best when you can?”
(He’s talking about material things.) Nope, because I do give them the best I can. It’s just that to me, the best doesn’t mean the most expensive or what other people think is the best. The best is the thing that serves the purpose well without generating unnecessary waste. What do you think?
Related to that, Matt talks about how to be happy and you might notice that buying it isn’t a good long term plan for that sort of thing. There is a threshold where money makes a real difference, but after all our needs and most of our reasonable wants are covered, I want myself and my family to embrace gratitude and contentment, and not have to keep chasing the next high.
Why do you tell your story? Good question! It used to be because I didn’t have enough people to discuss money with but that’s less true these days.
What a litter!
The most popular videos of 2018: Golden retriever mother takes tiger, lion and hyena cubs as her own pic.twitter.com/VhnZtYPNHn
— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) December 11, 2018
Re: RB40’s thing: I don’t feel guilty about not providing my family with everything. I think that it’s important for people to learn how to be okay with not getting everything they want, exactly how they want it. I’m in favor of providing all of the needs and a decent number of wants, but–especially for kids– learning that they can be okay without getting everything they want is a really important life skill.
All that said, I hate RB40’s essay. It seems to focus more heavily on what he calls “the finer things in life,” which is a phrase that to me feels straight out of the past and extremely judgmental of people making different choices than his.
And I think he’s a real jerk about how he talks about his wife and her clothing choices. Gosh, a coat for her costs more than his entire annual clothing budget, and she wants nicer work clothes. But okay, she can spend what she wants on clothes as long as she’s working and she accepts that he’s saying that she can’t have nicer clothes after she retires. And hey, “fortunately,” HE feels “no guilt for depriving” his family “of the luxurious things in life.” She can spend “her” money how she wants.
Never mind that the right clothes, especially in an office environment, are critical for continued employment. Never mind that the right clothes are a way to garner respect and advance your career, and there are people who don’t get hired and don’t get promotions because they stick with dressing in the wrong way. Never mind that women’s clothing often costs more than men’s, and that his budget for himself may be assuming a completely different set of needs that hers.
Never mind that she’s an adult woman who is capable of making good choices for herself and that he’s supposed to love and respect her.
They should be partners. He should not think he’s the boss, he should not think it’s okay for him to judge her like that. He should not think he gets to decide what she needs or deserves to wear now or decades from now. If he’s going to feel guilt over something, it shouldn’t be about what is/isn’t being spent. It should be over his attitude towards other people, especially the ones in his own family.
I read that part about his wife and her clothes as tongue in cheek but also because I agree with it for MYSELF I wasn’t reading in the same spirit you had – I can see how it came across as condescending.
Thanks so much for the link love!! I like my part time plan too. I took two days off this week and it feels great to know I only have tomorrow and then it’s the weekend again!
Yay!
I feel the ‘aging parent with questionable financial plan’ thing. My FIL has a serious neurodegenerative condition, my MIL depends on his pension which has minimal survivor benefits, they have virtually no savings, and they refuse to discuss any future planning despite being in their seventies. And they 100% cannot live with me.
Whew I would be very on edge with that IL situation facing me!
My hard limit is that I will leave this house the day they come to live in it so I have offloaded the worrying to my spouse! Also their house will sell for 400 easily so there’s that.
That is the smartest way to deal. <3
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