Money, Money, Money

I don't blog or vlog for the money.  I'm not really all that interested in money.  But sometimes when I do get a check for some work I've done, it feels pretty wonderful.  Unfortunately, the money goes pretty fast (sometimes even before I get the check, ha ha).  

Check out what happened when I got a check in the mail this week:

(Click here to watch the video.)

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The Money Talk

Driving home from school the other day, I stopped to get some milk.  I meant to do it before all the kids were with me to avoid all the "can I have a...," "will you get me a candy bar and a...," etc.  

But it didn't happen, so I braved what the Berenstain Bears appropriately call the "gimmies" and headed into the convenient store with my four kids in tow.










"No one's getting anything," I informed them as we made our way through the front door.

"What if I pay for it, can I get a candy bar?," one of the older ones asked showing me a pocket full of change.

"Hmmm, I guess so," I replied.  "Where did you get the money?"

"Oh I found it in your purse," my child said with a satisfied smile.

"Um, that's not finding, that's stealing," I informed the smiling child.

My kids "find" money and fill their pockets.  They also ask to do chores.  They've even set up a store upstairs and sell old magazines and necklaces they've crocheted.  They are begging for an allowance.  

There are rules in my kids' store, know that.

As a good parent, it is my job to talk to them about money, to teach them about responsibility--they are screaming for it.  There's just one problem, and it's a big one.... I suck at money and oh yeah, consistency.  And my husband, my co-parent/co-pilot isn't much better.   Ugh.


When you know better, you do better.   Right?  I think I heard Maya Angelou say this on Intimate Portrait.  Do you remember the biography show Intimate Portrait on Lifetime?  I loved that show.

When Tim and I fell in love we fell fast.  He was still in college and I worked in nonprofit making less a year than what I now spend on groceries annually.  We financed our love with credit cards and dreams. He and I never talked about being wealthy.  I'm not wired that way.  No, we talked about living in an old farm house, making a difference in the world, having beautiful babies and staying together forever.

A couple of young late nineties idiots hippies in a way. 

Once we knew we were really going to make a life together, we tried to be more practical and smarter with our money.  When we were engaged, Tim and I signed up for a financial planning class.   But being the idiot hippies living on love that we were, we thought it would be more fun to skip the class and have dinner at Pizza Hut.  Not a great idea long term, but in our defense it was half off the all-you-can-eat salad bar night.

Over the years, we continued trying to be more practical and less impulsive, mostly failing and stressing and worrying.  

Finally, now we are feeling a little more in control, less stressing more accepting; less scraping together, more managing.  We can taste the freedom that comes with being smarter with finances.  For all of you non-idiot hippies, you've known all along that it's not about wealth, it's about security.  

We know better and we're doing better.  And we want to do anything we can so that our kids don't make the same mistakes we made. Duh, we want them to go get their own mistakes.  Sure they may move in with the wrong person and get their heart broken, get a piercing they regret, get stuck in a stupid job, but by god I hope they will have learned enough about money to have a f#&*ing savings account.***
***Tim is having a heart attack reading about what mistakes like piercings and living w/somones his kids might make.  Let's face it, I'm way more hippie than he really ever was/is.***

Allowance? Chores for allowance? How do they earn it?  What amounts are reasonable?  Ugh.

Tim giving his money talk to the kids, yeah we did a video presentation.

After a few days of research online and reaching out to a few mom mentors, here's what Tim and I came up with and presented to the kids last night:

• Allowance will be given to everyone (excluding baby Wade) twice a month in the amount of $5 per child.
• Twenty percent must be put into a savings piggy bank.
• Charitable giving is encouraged and will be analyzed/discussed at the end of each month.
• Allowance is given every two weeks no matter what.  Chores are separate and done as part of the responsibility of being part of the family (you know like a hippie commune).
• There is potential earning power.  If the kids want to earn more money for a particular item/goal, they can negotiate extra chores/projects/jobs to earn that extra.
• Fun piggy banks will be designed and painted. Creativity and imagination is highly encouraged (the hippie thing I just can't let go of it).

The older kids seemed interested.  The younger kids not so much. Wade was licking the couch and JT was pouting because he couldn't play on the iPad.  But they all paid attention when we mentioned they should all save up for a puppy.

So there's our plan.  I'll keep you posted on how consistent I/we can be and how it's working.  And of course I'll put up pictures of the cute painted piggy banks.

It's a start.  An intentional, thoughtful beginning to what is hopefully a life full of their own mistakes, no credit card debt and a savings account that actually has money in it.

What do you do with your family?  I'd love to hear how your family talks about money, handles allowance, etc.

We Almost Got It

Game time.  A matching game that 6-year-old JT was so good at, it reminded me of Rain Man.  Maybe I should take him to the casinos?

Uh-oh, someone's asleep at the wheel.  So cute! (And quite frankly, so much easier to shop.)

A little backyard baseball before school. Um, Lucy, how are you catching?

Sometimes I feel like a contestant on Dancing With the Stars.  Except my wardrobe sucks, I don't have a spray tan and I'm not famous--never have been.  Even though I'm not an aging child star, I still feel a little like a has-been.  Trying a little too hard to be relevant.  Trying to hard too pretend that I still got it.


This whole dance is wearing me out.   I feel like we (my good old dancing partner Tim, my husband) take two steps forward and then one giant sep back.  That's what the waltz is like right?  My dad and his wife tried to teach Tim and me how to really waltz years ago.  In our tiny kitchen they counted 1-2-3..."there you go, you almost got it" they said.  But we really never got it.


I think both Tim and I thought that when we short sold our home that life would get so much easier, instantly.  But of course, curing ten years of bad financial decisions is a process.  It's a long dance with all those steps forward and back.


It's frustrating.  And it's tiring.  Just when I feel like throwing a diva like fit and walking off the set, I see something a little wonderful.  Like my kids getting great report cards (braggy mom moment).  Or watching Wade fall asleep in a bean bag next to his big brothers' bunk beds to be closer (I guess worrying about having them be on top of each other in the same bedroom was silly).    


I love the sense of play, fun and love of life that I see in my children and family.  


They want to be together.  They want to play together. (Disclaimer: These are most of the time scenarios, they fight like hell all the other times.)And I couldn't be prouder, even if my checkbook would make most people have a panic attack.


Watching those good moments, remembering all the sweetness in life, all that I am grateful for and I start swaying to the music again. Back to the waltz. I mean, c'mon, we almost got it.

This is as close as we are to my favorite Eight is Enough style pose.  You remember right?  The whole pyramid?  Well, we are going with four is enough and I can't wait to do the pose.  Just have to wait until a couple of them are a little older.  Talk about two steps forward? Life really is good.

Powerful stuff

Times they are a changin....


The past few days have been amazing, weather wise.  The kind of days that make you stop in your tracks and really notice life.  The colors, the smells....it is fall and it is beautiful.

My kids (especially my five year old) and I have been enjoying being on the lookout for signs of fall--leaves changing color, acorns, leaves falling.  A fun little tradition I have done with each of my kids as the seasons change.  

But there are other changes going on in our house right now.  Not quite as magical, but still pretty powerful.  


We decided to put our house up for sale.  Our house is a 100-year-old home that is tiny, like under 1,300 square feet tiny.  It is the appropriate size home for one or two people, not six.  My husband Tim always said "Look this house is 100 years old, people raised families here, it will be fine."  


And we were going to go with that.  We weren't going to be the nicest house on the block, we were going to be the quirky, fun house.  And we were until the quirky, fun house ran into some financial woes.  So the house is up for sale.

A sign went up in the yard this week and we started showing the house a lot.  Ask me how this fun, but not so organized household of six is doing cleaning up for a showing?  It isn't pretty people.

Times are a changin...and even though it isn't the path I saw myself on, I am hopeful.  This is a new chapter, a new adventure. Right?
  

When we told the kids about selling the house it was a mixed bag.  
"Oh this is soooooo great!," squeeled Lucy.  "I have wanted to move my whole, entire life!"


"I have mixed emotions, I would like a bigger house with more room, but I would also like to stay here forever," said my ever-practical and sensitive Peyton.


JT said nothing and walked away, all about the denial.  However, I think I should keep an eye on him because I could see him pulling a house haunting escapade circa that Brady Bunch episode when Mike and Carol were thinking about selling their home.  Remember?  Not sure if JT could pull that off, but if the older ones turn it is possible.

It has been a mixed bag for me too.  I have complained about this house almost as long as we have lived here, which is 11 years.  But now that we are leaving (eventually) for real, I am getting very sentimental.  Just like when my dog died.  I complained about Al the dog for years.  "I just don't have enough love and time to give him with all these babies to take care of," I would cry to my husband. I would come up with why we should get rid of him all the time.  But when he got cancer and died, it was me who took it the hardest.  I actively mourned for two plus years, and am tearing up as I type this.  


Change is coming and in the words of The Fabulous Thunderbirds, that's powerful stuff.  Yup, I can find an eighties or early nineties pop reference for anything. I wish there was a game show where that would come in handy and I could win a million dollars.

This has nothing to do with anything, except I think everyone should watch a Tina Fey clip once a day.  So here you go...

Becoming the Underdog (not meant to inspire you to be one)

So many things to be grateful for, and I am very grateful.

"I have to drop out of running the bake sale because I have fallen off the wagon, I am shooting heroin again and am going back to rehab," the tall, nervous woman stood up and told everyone at a recent PTA meeting.  


The woman sitting next to her stood up and put her arm around her, comforting her.  Women all through the room were nodding their heads agreeing she was doing the right thing, a couple of them clapped.  One woman leaned over to another and said "she is so brave."


"Inspired by Sue's honesty, I must confess that I too am feeling overwhelmed and may not have time to volunteer.  You see, my husband is addicted to online porn and we are in major counseling three times a week," said a woman fiddling with her purse as she spoke to the crowded room.  


Again, the women nodded, one grabbed her hand and gave it a supportive squeeze.  Several women leaned over to others and said "been there" with a lot more nodding.


"I am so glad we are feeling comfortable talking about real things, real issues.  I have to admit, I am feeling overwhelmed because my husband and I made some big mistakes with our money, you know credit card debt, underwater mortgage and all that, and I am so stressed I think I might have an ulcer and I can't volunteer," I told the crowd with a big exhale of relief that it was out there.


No nods. Where were my nods?  The women looked down and avoided eye contact with me and each other.  The silence was deafening.  Until way in the back of the room a woman stood up, I was so relieved.  Until she unbuttoned her purple cashmere cardigan to reveal a McCain/Palin tee shirt circa '08 and started yelling and pointing.  "It is because of people like you that our country is in such horrible shape," she screamed.  "You mess up and we all have to pay!"   Her veins were popping out of her neck and she was spitting her words out.  She was irate, she was dangerously angry.


I was asked to leave the meeting and never come back.


Okay, that didn't really happen.  But it is the scary daydream I have about what people will think if I ever were to stand up and announce that I suck at managing money.  Understatement, I mean I might be the worst ever with money.


Can I blame my self-diagnosed ADD?  I think yes.  Can I blame my impulse control issues?  I think yes again.  But as usual there is more to this story.


When I first started this blog not too long ago I vowed never to blog about sex or money.  No sexy talk because my dad reads and that is just too weird.  No money because, well, it is embarrassing and personal.  But screw it, I am writing my truth and that includes tremendous struggles with money.  (Still no sex though, way too weird.)


You see my plan growing up was that my life was never going to be about money.  My mother (again with the mother, I am the poster child for recurring story lines) was always fighting with my father about money and she married her second husband after knowing him a couple months because my child support was going to dry up.  I watched as she lied and manipulated people to get more money, even using me in a couple scams to get money out of my dad.  


Money=evil and unhappiness to my simple, idealistic post-college mind.  So I made sure that I would never make any by working in the nonprofit service sector and writing.  Then I married a man (with no prior money=evil issues, but he wasn't/isn't much of a spendthrift) who also wanted to work in a field that wasn't extremely lucrative.  He picked education, specifically working with disadvantaged teenagers.  His kids at work are the kids society has pretty much given up on.


You see, we believe in the underdog.  But the irony of our feel-good do-gooder story is, somewhere along the way, we became the underdog.  And life became about money.  Because I can't stop worrying about "is it enough."


We made mistakes.  And I am not blaming all my crazy issues on all of our money problems, but boy they  sure do help explain why and how I let some of it happen.  Are we as bad as some of Tim's students?  Hell no.  We are not living in a car.  We are not without insurance.  And we are grateful.


But we are drowning in debt from medical bills, grad school student loans and those f-ing credit cards.  Our house is underwater because of the damn Michigan property values and we have a kid with a dietary issue which is extremely expensive.  We are not unique.  In fact we are the new American storyline, right?


I still believe that I don't want my life to be about money, but I do want my life to be about security for my family.  And we will work our way to that, I believe it.  I do worry a lot--how are we going to live the life we want, how are my kids going to thrive, etc.  


There is so much shame attached to money screw ups, I believe that people are weirder to each other about money than other human failures.  Especially women.  There is anger and judgement, just like so much of politics these days.  


But like Dr. Phil has said for years, "It's time to get real."  Yes, I do look for guidance from talk show personalities, who doesn't?  Seriously.  I must admit over the last few years I turn off Suze Orman every time she has popped up on screen.   Even though hell yes I could benefit from her advice, I am afraid of her, like I could feel her judging me through the tv.  


Now we're getting real, buckling down and moving on.  I am trying to keep the ulcer at bay by watching a lot of Real Housewives because they all seem to suck at managing their money too.  But I am not judging, no, no.  I sit, watch and nod.