TromboneAl asked a question in the gift thread (http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f27/less-stuff-more-happiness-58909.html#post1134993 ) about giving our daughter holiday gifts. We covered that subject (and a whole lot more) with her in the following e-mail that we sent for her 18th birthday. At the time she was in her first college semester and struggling with classes, NROTC workouts, and her personal spending habits. Now she's finishing fall semester of her sophomore year and things are going a lot better.
Ever since small-kid time she's been encouraged to only give us gift cards or hand-made presents. As she got older that expanded to home-cooked meals and car washes. When she left for college we said that she only needed to send us greetings & love for the holidays.
However my spouse and I spent our college years stumbling through the minefields of our own parents' expectations. That continued well beyond college to a number of other awkward family moments, so this time we decided to seize the initiative and set out the ground rules. Not that we're control freaks or anything-- we're just trying to do for the next generation what we wish had been done for us.
Noble parenting goals notwithstanding, I should point out that it's still a work in progress. So far so good. Zero drama or angst.
We don't exchange holiday gifts but I dump several books on her reading pile every year. (Now that I'm a hotshot blogger, I get review copies of new financial books and I hand them right on down the line.) We pass along freebies that come our way, like a Hawaiiana wall calendar that will make her roommates drool with envy. We send regular reloads of li hing mui mango and Kona coffee and other local cuisine not found in Houston stores.
Some things we do [-]because we worry[/-] for safety. This year when our daughter wanted to visit her grandparents over fall break, she had a choice of a thousand-mile hypercaffeinated Cannonball-Run road trip in a car full of classmates, or of a round-trip plane ticket from Mom & Dad. I still have scars from the former so we were happy to contribute to the latter-- especially because we would've heard about it from her grandparents. When she comes home from college, the Hawaii flight boards at such an early hour that she'd be leaving the college campus at 4 AM. Instead of depending on the kindness of roommates or airport shuttles, we put her up in an airport hotel the night before.
Of course if she chooses to spend spring break wallowing drunkedly among the fleshpots of Padre Island, then she's on her own.
She's living in the middle of America's fourth-largest city, so she knows she doesn't need a car. She "makes do" with ZipCars and friends, and after a rocky start she's finally gotten that under control. When she was eight years old we put together David Owen's "Kid 401(k)" plan to have $5000 in her "My First Car" account when she turned 16 years old. Somewhat to my surprise (I know what I would have done with it at that age) she still has that $5000 laddered in PenFed CDs.
I've heard rumors that Grandma & Grandpa still drop checks on her for birthdays and Hanukkah. Her uncle & aunt may do something similar. She'll have to navigate those minefields on her own-- we still haven't figured them out.
I mentioned a "college profit-sharing plan". The deal is that she put her skin in the game for the NROTC scholarship (and the Navy service obligation) so after graduation we'll gift her some of the money that we otherwise would have had to spend on her tuition. Her side of the deal is that she has to use the windfall to max out her Thrift Savings Plan and her Roth IRA. Hopefully she'll appreciate the deferred gratification of a maxed TSP & Roth IRA contribution at age 22. I doubt I would have.
An unexpected bonus is that her NROTC unit requires her to apply for additional scholarships, and she's already won a couple. $250 here & there is a great self-motivational morale booster. She's also been leading $12/hour campus tours for the Admissions Office. (She's even "on call" for the Hawaii visitors.) What Admissions doesn't realize is that she'd pay them $12/hour for the privilege of bragging on her college to a bunch of high-school kids.
When she graduates, my spouse and I are keenly aware of what the military movers do to household goods. Our daughter's invited to pack anything she wants out of our house to her first ensign's apartment. Of course she's going to take all her bedroom furniture and she's welcome to take any of our other furniture. (If you saw our furniture, you'd understand why we're happy to give it away...) This promise has been a tremendous relief to her as she's watched graduating classmates struggle to furnish their first places. She thinks we're being extraordinarily generous but she hasn't yet realized that (1) there's a weight limit on military moves and (2) if she's going overseas then she'll barely have 400 sq ft to call her own.
Like I said, "work in progress". So far so good. What's worked for you with your young adults?
Ever since small-kid time she's been encouraged to only give us gift cards or hand-made presents. As she got older that expanded to home-cooked meals and car washes. When she left for college we said that she only needed to send us greetings & love for the holidays.
However my spouse and I spent our college years stumbling through the minefields of our own parents' expectations. That continued well beyond college to a number of other awkward family moments, so this time we decided to seize the initiative and set out the ground rules. Not that we're control freaks or anything-- we're just trying to do for the next generation what we wish had been done for us.
Noble parenting goals notwithstanding, I should point out that it's still a work in progress. So far so good. Zero drama or angst.
We don't exchange holiday gifts but I dump several books on her reading pile every year. (Now that I'm a hotshot blogger, I get review copies of new financial books and I hand them right on down the line.) We pass along freebies that come our way, like a Hawaiiana wall calendar that will make her roommates drool with envy. We send regular reloads of li hing mui mango and Kona coffee and other local cuisine not found in Houston stores.
Some things we do [-]because we worry[/-] for safety. This year when our daughter wanted to visit her grandparents over fall break, she had a choice of a thousand-mile hypercaffeinated Cannonball-Run road trip in a car full of classmates, or of a round-trip plane ticket from Mom & Dad. I still have scars from the former so we were happy to contribute to the latter-- especially because we would've heard about it from her grandparents. When she comes home from college, the Hawaii flight boards at such an early hour that she'd be leaving the college campus at 4 AM. Instead of depending on the kindness of roommates or airport shuttles, we put her up in an airport hotel the night before.
Of course if she chooses to spend spring break wallowing drunkedly among the fleshpots of Padre Island, then she's on her own.
She's living in the middle of America's fourth-largest city, so she knows she doesn't need a car. She "makes do" with ZipCars and friends, and after a rocky start she's finally gotten that under control. When she was eight years old we put together David Owen's "Kid 401(k)" plan to have $5000 in her "My First Car" account when she turned 16 years old. Somewhat to my surprise (I know what I would have done with it at that age) she still has that $5000 laddered in PenFed CDs.
I've heard rumors that Grandma & Grandpa still drop checks on her for birthdays and Hanukkah. Her uncle & aunt may do something similar. She'll have to navigate those minefields on her own-- we still haven't figured them out.
I mentioned a "college profit-sharing plan". The deal is that she put her skin in the game for the NROTC scholarship (and the Navy service obligation) so after graduation we'll gift her some of the money that we otherwise would have had to spend on her tuition. Her side of the deal is that she has to use the windfall to max out her Thrift Savings Plan and her Roth IRA. Hopefully she'll appreciate the deferred gratification of a maxed TSP & Roth IRA contribution at age 22. I doubt I would have.
An unexpected bonus is that her NROTC unit requires her to apply for additional scholarships, and she's already won a couple. $250 here & there is a great self-motivational morale booster. She's also been leading $12/hour campus tours for the Admissions Office. (She's even "on call" for the Hawaii visitors.) What Admissions doesn't realize is that she'd pay them $12/hour for the privilege of bragging on her college to a bunch of high-school kids.
When she graduates, my spouse and I are keenly aware of what the military movers do to household goods. Our daughter's invited to pack anything she wants out of our house to her first ensign's apartment. Of course she's going to take all her bedroom furniture and she's welcome to take any of our other furniture. (If you saw our furniture, you'd understand why we're happy to give it away...) This promise has been a tremendous relief to her as she's watched graduating classmates struggle to furnish their first places. She thinks we're being extraordinarily generous but she hasn't yet realized that (1) there's a weight limit on military moves and (2) if she's going overseas then she'll barely have 400 sq ft to call her own.
Like I said, "work in progress". So far so good. What's worked for you with your young adults?
