Making the Most

Growing up is hard and rewarding.

These days I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around longer-term financial planning. I’ve always been fairly good at managing my money, but the thought of planning for investments as big as a house, let alone the cost of raising kids and paying for their college educations, especially in light of our student loan debt, is really intimidating. But, as is true in most things, you have control over the choices you make and there are always trade-offs.

So it feels like it is soul-searching time to determine the real role of money in our lives and our priorities for using the money we earn.

I’ve had some really interesting role models in life, who I’ve admired precisely for their values in relationship to money. First, a former teacher and mentor shared with me that she decided to work part-time, even though it would mean feeling broke, so that she could spend more time with her family (she had a young daughter). Another friend and mentor decided to move from working in a city to rural living – with her husband, raising children (and food) very self-sufficiently on one income. It is easy to envy having that kind of time to spend with your family, doing work that is seemingly so much more meaningful than an office job, but must also be very hard work to make ends meet and make any long-term financial plans for yourself or your children. I knew another woman who liked to say, “I work to travel” – and she made ends meet cheaply while saving as much money as she could to travel abroad as often as possible.

My parents seemed to be able to do it all – live in a nice house in a great neighborhood, help pay for my education, and travel fairly often to boot.

But most, if not all, of these role models are of a generation without staggering student loan debt. At this point, SB and I have a net worth of something like -$60K (let’s face it, more like -$70K). It makes planning for the future seem particularly daunting. And although financial planning can be discouraging because it feels like there will never be enough money for buying a home, starting a family, travel, etc., there exists the reality that people get by on a lot less money and make it work. If we can’t afford to buy a home in the city or travel abroad, we will live in the suburbs and go camping for vacation. Heck, if one of us loses our job we'll just live in an apartment, share a car, and skip vacations - we'd still be better off than plenty of people and still have each other and our friends and family for love, support and laughter. There are so many ways to live, but for me - family will always be the bottom line. And fortunately, in that department, SB and I share a great wealth.