Pardon the expletive!
Saving log - $1 tip box
Spending log - $1.84 coffee, milk + $4.50 curry + $8 watch battery
The title of this entry is a fast criticism of the title of this article:
I know I shouldn't bother with reading these things on CNN, because the writing is so subtly anti-saver, and that makes sense because savers don't spend and therefore aren't worth advertising to. But still...
Note to CNN: All money is real money.
The young couple depicted in the article are already earning 90K, more than my DH and I. Just because they eventually will earn 200K doesn't mean that they are right now being paid in Monopoly money. They aren't earning hobby money.
But that isn't what really, really tears it. Its this: you learn just as much money management with the small amounts as with the large amounts. As a matter of fact, you had BETTER learn your money management with the small amounts. Its not a case that when you come into a large chunk of money that that somehow gives you the impetus to handle it better. Oh no, you better had practiced with your tens and hundreds before you get your tens of thousands.
Its dangerous to give that two-tiered emotion with your money - "real" vs. "fake". If you don't assume that the small sums are important and worth treating with respect, you probably will never give them the chance to grow to a "respectable, real" sum. Assume that your small sums are fake, then small sums they will remain...if don't immediately spend them.
Worse, if you do get a big sum of money, you either treat it like a small sum and spend it, or you treat it like a whole new animal with the seriousness it deserves. After all, it is a "real" sum of money.
And then you are stuck. How to handle it? After treating small sums miserably, you have no idea. Too conservative and it loses value to inflation, too wild and you turn it into a small sum and fritter it away.
Anyhow, grr. & Thanks for indulging me!
July 24th, 2007 at 03:01 pm 1185289260
I thought it was a good article. They have a higher than average income, but also big time debts with his med school education.
July 25th, 2007 at 02:58 am 1185332324
July 25th, 2007 at 02:15 pm 1185372911
July 26th, 2007 at 10:54 pm 1185490448
The only couples I know that can manage a stay at home parent are the ones who, yes, have a high wage earner AND have inherited money. Otherwise, everyone works. Especially if both are high wage earners!