MittenKitten - Mar 8, 2012 at 9:31am
QOTW: Are most of your friends and family in worse financial situations then yourself, better or the same? Do you discuss money with them? If you have kids how are you educating them on money?
COTW: Learn something new about money, ask a friend or read a book, website, blog something about getting out of debt or investing.
MittenKitten - Mar 8, 2012 at 9:36am
AOTW: I have the odd thing where my sister's family makes WAY more then we make a year. I think she believes that we live paycheck to paycheck since that is what they were doing up until a year ago. The reality is no where near that. I have been able to put money away into savings most years and have a healthy emergency fund, retirement funds and investment portfolio. Financial insecurity is my biggest fear since both my grandmothers lived of social security and had nothing. All our parents are set and our friends seem to be doing okay but I know things are tight, or at least they are being frugal due to circumstances.
Now I will have to work on the COTW lol....
sapphire12 - Mar 8, 2012 at 11:06am
AOTW: Most people I know are in worse financial shape than I; mainly b/c of their choices. Now, I do have one friend of whom I'm particularly proud. She was laid off a few years ago, got a job at a lower salary and has still managed to stay on course with her financial plans. Now, my parents and a friend's parents are role models. Both sets are retired and before my friend's father's untimely death, both are/were living fabulous retirement lives as far as I'm concerned. It's funny, I was having a financial discussion about retirement with my dad on Tuesday. He is the one I talk to about finances.
COTW: I need to get the nerve to select and buy a good mutual fund for my Roth IRA. I am scared to jump back in b/c I haven't done so well with my Roth choices in the past and I'd like that to change going forward. The market has done so well this year, that I hope I haven't missed my window to get into a good fund.
redwagon - Mar 8, 2012 at 11:18am
AOTW: I know people better and worse off. Much depends on their chosen industries, layoffs, and choices made. I know we should be doing better with what we make, as far as debt payoff is concerned, and that's something we're both working on...
COTW: I need to look into opening a Roth IRA for Blue_wagon for when his raise kicks in. I already adjusted our budget a bit to give us a bit more wiggle room in household expenses (we always need something from home depot for our various house projects, so now there's room for that).
mizbear - Mar 8, 2012 at 11:44am
QOTW- I have a lot of people in my family who are worse off financially- but it is their own fault. Supporting deadbeat adult kids, overextending themselves, burning the plastic up- that sort of thing. My cousin JL moved to the west coast to get away from her family's bad financial habits. My cousin M is also good with money. I finally got tired of cleaning up everyone's messes. My mother makes almost 3 times what I do (she made more than that before retiring) and never has any money- partly because she can't say no. I am already preparing myself for the possibility that I may have to make the decision to split company with her.
COTW- I have already started re-reading Personal Finance for Dummies, I am checking with some lenders about possibly buying a home, and I follow startsmarts business blogs. ;D For the newbies- even if you don't own a business- you should check out her blog- it applies to everyday life too. And I am looking into going back to work once the estate is settled regardless of how close I am to finished with my MT and how I am doing with my CH business. The doctors have said we will talk about it AFTER the estate is settled. I need to do something because DM is doing nothing and it is starting to grate on my nerves.
moneysquirrel - Mar 8, 2012 at 9:33pm
AOTW: I think on the whole my family members are doing ok. I don't do a lot of talking to my friends about finances. I do try to add some financial education into my lessons especially while the students are learning to use excel.
COTW: I do read some articles online but my time is limited so I don't do as much as I should.
Rocky Mtn Saver - Mar 8, 2012 at 10:44pm As for the QOTW, most of my family and friends are more or less in similar financial situations as me, I think, although we don't discuss money much at all. I think I'm generally a bit more money savvy than most, but that's mostly the result of hanging around in places like this.
ImAnAngel - Mar 9, 2012 at 7:12am
QOTW-We are doing better financially than most of our family. We both come from families of low wage earners. My side also has the habit of making absolutely horrible financial decisions. My oldest brother has filed bankruptcy twice. I have tried discussing money with them before, sent them Dave Ramsey tapes, but usually I am just told that things are easier for me because I married a rich man and I forgot what it was like to be poor...uhm....ok! No I haven't forgotten about the times it was so cold in our house the fish tank would ice up. No I haven't forgotten how we didn't have money for to fill the propane and my dad would bring this big machine home from the garage that would blow stinky heat in our house. It is because I haven't forgotten that stuff that I have tried to improve my financial well being. I don't want my kids to ever go without heat.
Our friends are about the same as us. I don't usually talk money with them. I do talk money with my BFF. We have similar goals.
MittenKitten - Mar 9, 2012 at 2:28pm I didn't have good role models financially. Both my parents worked for the city and had pensions. They would purchase a new car every 5 years and take a loan out on it. They also had credit card debt although it wasn't a huge amount. Plus they never talked about money to my Sister and I. I figured it out myself. I knew I didn't want to live like my grandmothers. (I never had any grandfathers) My one grandmother lived on social security, didn't drive, rented an apartment. She saved when she wanted new furniture. While she didn't have any debt she also lived on peanuts but she didn't want anything either. My other grandmother made a lot of money and threw it away. I think she ended up declaring bankruptcy 2 or 3 times worked until she no longer could. While she did buy her house the IRS should have had a lien against it but didn't and my dad took title of it, sold it and then purchased a place for her to live in.
Honeylioness - Mar 9, 2012 at 8:39pm
QOTW: My parents are retired and with their Social Security and my father's two pensions, along with the occasional consulting work he does they are doing okay. I do discuss money with the and they are sending me some recommendations for investments they have found profitable. My parent's have have told me that they are proud of how I handle my finances and for taking steps now to prepare an estate plan.
My brother and his wife are now both working, but they have two children and live in a high COL area. I have not had many in depth conversations with them about money except as it relates to their daughters. My oldest niece is the Grasshopper and my youngest niece is the Ant. The older one seems to spend whatever cash comes to hand - while the other one prefers to squirrel hers away. So much so that last summer as the family was on it's way to a flea market - she came home with all the cash she had left with. Said she had not seen anything she wanted to spend money on. When my brother inquired just how much cash she had - she went into her room, closed the door and counted it. Boy were they surprised when she reported she had $175 in cash1 They took her to the bank to open an account the next day they could.
I do have one friend that I have talked about before - R. She and her husband (T) make more than twice what I do, no children and they rent. Yet it seems they also carry rather high credit card balances and she leases a new car each 3 years. She also has a "hobby" of purchasing estate and other fine jewels. It's hard for me to relate to her when she says casually she purchased another piece for "only" $5,000.
I have tried talking to her in the past about buying a house and keeping a car longer - but it doesn't seem to be something they are interested in. She did tell me a couple of weeks ago that she will be getting the opportunity to cash out some stock options in the Fall - $80,000. She mentioned the word "house" for the first time as well. there are times I find it hard to relate to her and T because of the disparity about our views on money.
COTW: I have already done this - having met with several financial advisers and chosen one. I am in the process of getting my funds from various old 401(k)s and pension funds to consolidate the money into this one account.
