Sandwiched between two diametrically different generations, I'm realizing that we all have wildly diverging ideas of what constitutes "real money". Each of us is capable of doing math and perhaps even calculating between present & future values but we have emotional tripwires that have been locked into our generational genetic code. It's not just inflation-adjusted numbers from the 1950s to the 1970s to the 2000s. Maybe it's also the variety of consumer items that were available to us as we were growing up.
After four years of strenuous ER effort, I've pretty well trained myself to cough up $10 on demand without whimpering. It's rarely a recurring expense and whether or not it's for a good cause I don't lose any sleep over it. Of course I still pick up pennies from the sidewalk but I no longer dive into four-lane rush-hour traffic to retrieve them.
Yet I found my blood pressure surging when our kid explained that she required three separate pairs of sneakers, excuse me, footwear, for 9th grade. I can understand a pair of basketball court shoes but I can't distinguish between "regular" school sneakers (daily wear) and "PE sneakers" for gym class (which apparently are also different from the basketball variety). My emotional stupidity is further demonstrated by the fact that it's not even my money-- spouse and I give the kid $50/month for her clothing/toiletries budget and it's her own darn decision whether she looks good or smells nice.
When she commented that student yearbook pictures portraits are next week and she has nothing to wear (six weeks after buying her end-of-8th-grade wardrobe), I started hitting the emotional ceiling again. When she couldn't get the digital camera to download to the PC and declared that we should just buy a new one, I could feel myself spinning right up on the governor. Again, ironically, neither of those decisions has any financial impact on me. It's her money.
I think that part of my frustration is driving her from store to store while listening to an endless whine angst-filled litany of peer-group issues, and being awakened at 11 PM by a kid still agonizing over what to wear for the first day of 9th grade. However I'm a veteran parent-- I should know how to limit that provocation and not let it get to me. I'm not sure that she has an emotional financial tripwire. To her money is just a tool designed to furnish her happiness and she doesn't care how much of our money it costs to get it. At her age I was probably the same.
But then I watched my FIL's self-imposed anguish over spending $500 for a new computer. He's the fastest man alive at picking up restaurant checks with us... but when his expenses rise into three figures his spending reflexes start to stutter. When he and his spouse were deciding how to refinish two 45-year-old chairs (Dye or reupholster? Leather or Naugahyde? Yellow or red?) I thought the question would be rendered moot by a spousal murder/suicide. In his world, spending more than $1000 on any home improvement is absolutely unthinkable. Yet I spent nearly 15 times that amount on photovoltaics and spouse is ready to spend 30x that much on landscaping.
To him, value is a separate line item. He won't spend $35/month on DSL because he "only spends $5/month to read e-mail and the Washington Post" (conveniently forgetting that his spouse planned their entire six-week Mainland trip on at dial-up speeds). He hates buying tomatoes because "I can grow them cheaper myself." (He plants the seeds but guess who's transplanting & growing them for him-- you're welcome.) He thinks that we should sell our lychee by the side of the road (at $3/pound). He'd sooner split a plug of zoysia than pay for a yard of sod. In his defense, his retiree time is worthless while sunshine & dirt are free. However I'd rather go surfing than sell lychee or move landscaping around one blade of grass at a time.
In 1944, to my then 10-year-old FIL a nickel was worth... well, you've all heard that story from your own elders, and Wal-Mart and Target didn't exist. One CPI calculator claims that by 1970 the same 1944 nickel was worth a dime to my 10-year-old fortune, and Radio Shack was making electronics a lot cheaper. In 2002 our 10-year-old kid would have needed two quarters and I can't even keep up with consumerism's orgy of products. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised that my emotional financial tripwires are so different from my FIL's and my kid's.
What's your emotional financial tripwire?
After four years of strenuous ER effort, I've pretty well trained myself to cough up $10 on demand without whimpering. It's rarely a recurring expense and whether or not it's for a good cause I don't lose any sleep over it. Of course I still pick up pennies from the sidewalk but I no longer dive into four-lane rush-hour traffic to retrieve them.
Yet I found my blood pressure surging when our kid explained that she required three separate pairs of sneakers, excuse me, footwear, for 9th grade. I can understand a pair of basketball court shoes but I can't distinguish between "regular" school sneakers (daily wear) and "PE sneakers" for gym class (which apparently are also different from the basketball variety). My emotional stupidity is further demonstrated by the fact that it's not even my money-- spouse and I give the kid $50/month for her clothing/toiletries budget and it's her own darn decision whether she looks good or smells nice.
When she commented that student yearbook pictures portraits are next week and she has nothing to wear (six weeks after buying her end-of-8th-grade wardrobe), I started hitting the emotional ceiling again. When she couldn't get the digital camera to download to the PC and declared that we should just buy a new one, I could feel myself spinning right up on the governor. Again, ironically, neither of those decisions has any financial impact on me. It's her money.
I think that part of my frustration is driving her from store to store while listening to an endless whine angst-filled litany of peer-group issues, and being awakened at 11 PM by a kid still agonizing over what to wear for the first day of 9th grade. However I'm a veteran parent-- I should know how to limit that provocation and not let it get to me. I'm not sure that she has an emotional financial tripwire. To her money is just a tool designed to furnish her happiness and she doesn't care how much of our money it costs to get it. At her age I was probably the same.
But then I watched my FIL's self-imposed anguish over spending $500 for a new computer. He's the fastest man alive at picking up restaurant checks with us... but when his expenses rise into three figures his spending reflexes start to stutter. When he and his spouse were deciding how to refinish two 45-year-old chairs (Dye or reupholster? Leather or Naugahyde? Yellow or red?) I thought the question would be rendered moot by a spousal murder/suicide. In his world, spending more than $1000 on any home improvement is absolutely unthinkable. Yet I spent nearly 15 times that amount on photovoltaics and spouse is ready to spend 30x that much on landscaping.
To him, value is a separate line item. He won't spend $35/month on DSL because he "only spends $5/month to read e-mail and the Washington Post" (conveniently forgetting that his spouse planned their entire six-week Mainland trip on at dial-up speeds). He hates buying tomatoes because "I can grow them cheaper myself." (He plants the seeds but guess who's transplanting & growing them for him-- you're welcome.) He thinks that we should sell our lychee by the side of the road (at $3/pound). He'd sooner split a plug of zoysia than pay for a yard of sod. In his defense, his retiree time is worthless while sunshine & dirt are free. However I'd rather go surfing than sell lychee or move landscaping around one blade of grass at a time.
In 1944, to my then 10-year-old FIL a nickel was worth... well, you've all heard that story from your own elders, and Wal-Mart and Target didn't exist. One CPI calculator claims that by 1970 the same 1944 nickel was worth a dime to my 10-year-old fortune, and Radio Shack was making electronics a lot cheaper. In 2002 our 10-year-old kid would have needed two quarters and I can't even keep up with consumerism's orgy of products. So maybe I shouldn't be surprised that my emotional financial tripwires are so different from my FIL's and my kid's.
What's your emotional financial tripwire?
![:-\](https://www.early-retirement.org/sk/forums/images/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
