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Some of a family's most difficult conversations are about money — especially when that money talk crosses the generations. How do you tell you mother she can no longer carry a checkbook? Or explain the importance of debt management to your broke twenty-something? This show will be all about talking about money around your kitchen table. How do you do it?
Note: This show will be broadcast in front of a live audience of Foreign Service Nationals who are visiting Portland on a week-long trip through the U.S.
GUESTS:
- Lisa Bahadar: Certified Consumer Credit Counselor at Apprisen Financial Advocates (a division of Consumer Credit Counseling)
- Joyce Demonnin: Director of Public Outreach for AARP Oregon
- Susan Halverson-Westerberg: Associate Professor of Counselor Education at Portland State University
For more on how families talk about money you may consider attending the special taping of Marketplace Money this Monday, November 9th, at 7 PM at Portland's Winningstad Theater. The show will focus specifically on talking money with tykes, tweens, and teens.
Tagged as: debt · economy · finances · senior
Photo credit: Oblivion9999
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It's very difficult to hold family discussions about budgets, the state of the economy (and the economy of the state) even with college-age kids who aren't earning their own living, when the media presents stories on the economy that indicate "consumer confidence" or "lack of consumer confidence" is what is keeping us in deep recession. The media does not seem to GET that the REAL ISSUE is that people are broke. B.R.O.K.E.!!! People are broke because the cost of living is prohibitive. They are broke because they lost their jobs - recently or years ago. They are broke because if they are lucky enough to have jobs their hours may have cut back or they are partially furloughed as happened recently with state employees here in Oregon. The media really seems to have this la-di-da attitude that if we all just stopped being volunteer tightwads the recession (DEPRESSION) would simply go away. THe media says we broke people aren't really broke we're just hanging on to money which we "really" have and are making bad choices by not funding a recovery. So the kids we are trying to have honest financial discussions with? They just don't believe us.
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Heck, I can't even get myself to use money correctly, much less have a meaningful conversation with others about it. My problem: too many wants and not enough work. I have gotten rid of a lot of my wants.
- Too many couples don't come to terms about money and its best use.
- People fail to pay themselves first.
- People fail to live within their means.
- People fail to prepare themselves to live a higher quality life.
- People blame others for their problems.
- People buy more stuff than they can pay for with cash.
- People are not educated how money and debt really work.
Common sense doesn't have much to do with reality does it?
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Did you ever stop to think while engaging in your virulent victim blaming that maybe SOME people don't earn enough money to meet basic needs? There is a huge population living at or below the poverty level. You can't "pay yourself first" if you are choosing between paying the rent so you don't join the homeless ranks and buying food - a lot are choosing paying the rent and hitting up the food banks which predictably are overrun with requests and underfunded at the same time. I am not talking here about people like my landlord or my boss who are taking expensive vacations and buying Big Toys on credit and then whining about how they are too "poor". I am talking people struggling on minimum wage. Don't suggest that people take a second job because most people working in low-wage positions can't find a second job or in many cases the job their existing employer forbids "moonlighting." Pre-recession there might have been ways to earn extra money. Now, not so much.
For the working poor who are so often completely ignored by the canting prating "experts" are very well acquainted with common sense, thank you very much. And daily "reality" for the working poor is terrifying indeed.
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@ sunvalleysally
Yes, agreed. If there is one thing I have noticed, it's mostly people who have money that do not know how to handle money and need an education in personal finance.
However, I think you and trurl9 are really agreeing. I don't really see much "virulent victim blaming" in his/her post since he/she is talking about people with money, not the working poor.
@ trurl9
Common sense has been shown again and again to be a poor decision making skill.
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Life (Part 2) had a show called Money Is Love, an episode that covered how difficult it is to cover the taboo subject of money with family members. Here's a link: http://www.pbs.org/lifepart2/watch/season-2/money-love
I work at a nonprofit, Life by Design NW, and am often surprised how many times couples come to our programs and complain the other hasn't shared vital money-related information with them ... like plans after retirement, including travel or where to live. Scary!
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I agree that money which can be the vehicle as to how you express your values, desires and needs is so tied to relationship dynamics. Life energy is expended in obtaining money and how that person who expended the energy wants to convert it is very personal.
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Money is an awkward beast. Sure it makes our world go round, but it doesn't have to and it didn't always. We rightly approach talk of money with suspicion and trepidation, because they are its inherent characteristics. Money is the ultimate possession, the ultimate symbol of ownership, or the ultimate concept of our potential. It is the title or deed to all kinds of doors. Yet, it is conceptually and physically worthless.
If you walk out the door, in the modern world, money is generally the one thing you depend on and need more then any other. Because, money is on one hand ultimate power, and on the other a meaningless placeholder, it makes it hard to talk about and easily ignites conflict. Money is greed, power, love, philanthropy, ownership and possession all boiled down to the most minimal acidic reduction. Its potency burns in the smallest droplets. It is the preeminent human tool. We guard it with our lives. With guns and metal rooms. With armored cars. Money is hard to talk about because it has become who we are.
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Sure it makes our world go round, but it doesn't have to and it didn't always.
I don't know about that. If you go back far enough in history, you can probably find a point in time when humans did not trade with each other...but, I'm guessing the time span required would be measured in tens of thousands of years and our quality of life was, say, less than what it is now.
Money is greed, power, love, philanthropy, ownership and possession all boiled down to the most minimal acidic reduction.
Come on, money is none of those things. Money is either a gun or a screwdriver depending on the person holding it; it is a tool that can be either destructive or constructive.
We do not want to talk about money because, if money does anything at all, it reveals something about ourselves...our real motives, our real emotions, our real priorities, our real prejudices.
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slakr007,
Maybe it would be better not to choose one sentence and decide that is the literal meaning of my comment. I wasn't being explicit---because in my comment I contradict myself many times. Money is obviously different for many people, but it can transform from a stable substance to a volatile substance in an instant, because it is the blood of the modern world. It has all the power in the world, and at the same time none at all. Your last paragraph says essentially the same thing as my last sentence, 'it has become who we are.'
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I chose the sentence because it was a summary of how I read your post. And, you are right. I missed your last sentence. I stopped reading, that's my fault. The danger of posting and working at the same time...
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slakr007,
Even if you looked only at that sentence, quite frankly, it says exactly what you say: money can be good or bad depending on the use or the user---the 'love' and 'greed' (et al) shows that contrast. You say it is none of those things, and THEN go on to say it can be a gun or screwdriver, depending on the person holding it. Unless I am not reading things correctly these thoughts seem to be synonymous. You just looking for a ruckus, slakr007? Just kidding.
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No, I'm not trying to start a ruckus. I'm trying to get out of one now. Jeez. I had a lapse in reading comprehension...I swear...
When you said money has not always made the world go round, it just colored my comprehension. I just read everything, including the summary sentence, as: "Money is the cause of evil, greed, etc. The world was better, and would be better again, without it."
That's just the way I saw it.
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skakr007,
I was just joking! I have the utmost respect for what I know (read) of you. Maybe I shouldn't say that, it tarnishes my misanthropic brand. Maybe I shouldn't talk in the first person, sometimes I think it makes me sounds like a total tool (can you believe it? who? me?). I go back and forth on that, in some ways it is more personal, but then it also seems like you take yourself so seriously. Maybe I am just that crappy and that is what comes out, the real me. Tissue? Weird.
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In discussing finances with an aged relative, do your homework first!
Individual rights are rightfully protected and a relative cannot just take over the finances based on their assessment of inability.
Public conservatorship is very difficult to obtain and private conservatorship can be risky and expensive to obtain. I just discovered that even a notarized and recorded complete Power of Attorney is just the start of being able to write checks for my mom.
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Speaking of talking with an aging parent, the Multnomah County Library has a series (free!) that helps aging parents ... and one is directly related to discussing money! http://www.multcolib.org/events/lifebydesign.html
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How do you tell you mother she can no longer carry a checkbook?
Boy, that's a much larger question. When making those kinds of decisions, you are not just telling your mother she can longer carry a checkbook or telling her that she can no longer drive or telling her that she can no longer live alone.
You are telling her that she can no longer be a self-sufficient person.
That could be a whole show on its own. Actually, that could be a really interesting show.
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My Dad talked about what “you” should do with your money, but not very much about what he did with his money. However, after my Dad’s battle with Parkinson’s got worse, he had trouble signing his checks and this made it difficult for him to pay his bills “the old traditional way.” So last year I told my 77 year old Dad that he should use on-line banking and bill pay. He was good with computers, but he didn’t trust on-line banking. After repeatedly telling him how much I use it, he signed up. It was a little confusing for him and sometimes he would either pay the bill on-line and forget to record it in Quicken or he would record the transaction in Quicken and then forget to pay the bill on-line. He asked for my help and so every Sunday I would go to his house and help him with his bills. This as an insight into his finances that I never saw before since my parents never really discussed THEIR money, only what you should to with YOUR money. I felt awkward knowing how much money my Dad had, but it turned out to be a blessing, because when he died somewhat unexpectedly in April of this year, I knew exactly where in the process his bills were at and where the money was located. It was one less headache to work through when settling his estate.
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A very difficult thing about money is when your partner sees no value in saving, and if they have it they spend it. very frustrating to disagree over how to save and spend money.
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regarding a Power of Attorney -- my mother named me as her POA many years ago; prior to her death I found that some financial institutions refuse to recognize a POA that is more than 18 months old -- meaning that she would have had to regularly renew that POA for me to be able to transact financial business on her behalf. This may be a good idea (to prevent abuse) but no one gave us this information ahead of time -- it ended up causing unfortunate complications for me.
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I grew up in rural Oregon and my parents had very little money. As a result, I find it very hard to save now as an adult. I really have a hard time saying no to warm clothes like coats and sweaters and as a result I overspend on these. I also find I worry a lot about the maintenance of our house and do more than I should.
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What worked for me, when I was living jointly was that we both put half of our income into a joint account, that was used to pay bills and any other incidentals. If that money ran out or one of us wanted something above the regular bills and beyond our budget, we would negotiate. Cable TV - I didn't want it and didn't want to pay more than half the cost, but he could not afford his half because he was a student at the time, and he could not convince me that it was worth the extra money to me, so we didn't get it.
If there was extra, we would decide what to spend it on, but we each had half our income to spend as we chose.
katied -
When my partner and I (two guys) moved in together 14 years ago (and moved across the country), I had insisted on keeping all our finances separate and all expenses shared equally. This proved to be a huge mistake as once we landed in Oregon 10 years ago, my partner was making 5 time what I made so I was never able to contribute in equal amounts to our spending.
About 8/9 years ago we combined our finances, credit cards, checking accounts. I think that really saved our relationship as we took on the attitude of OUR pile of money regardless of how much each of us contributed. I didn't have to feel inferior any longer with regards to keeping up. I no longer feel like I have to keep up and I don't have to accrue credit card debt to help with expenses while my partner establishes large amounts of savings. We pay OUR bills from the pile and save together.
Money still becomes an issue from time to time as my income has diminished due to the economy - but the problems are ones we solve together.
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I feel very uncomfortable discussing finances with my partner. He is self-employed and constantly struggling with finances. He would rather have the utilities turned off than try to get a stable job. I earn more money than him and am worried that I will have to front him rent money or pay so that utilities do not get turned off. This is puting a lot of stress on our relationship and if we can not discuss it and compromise I think it will hurt our ability to be and live together. I have never had bad credit or not been able to pay the bills. He is my opposite in this regard.
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I'm fortunate in that I had parents who knew how to save (and had money to save), they taught us by example how to use money as a tool to get what you want or to make more money.
So how do you explain the importance of debt mangement to your broke 20-something? You do it long before they are a broke 20-something.
My wife and I agreed to continue that tradition. Now that the kids have mastered basic math and under the agreement that family finances are kept strictly within the family, we have bi-monthly family budget meetings and open the books.
Showing them where the money goes (taxes, mortgage, credit cards, utilities, food, etc.) has prompted some interesting discussions on the basic concepts of things like taxes, loans and how to best spend whatever is left (e.g., short vs. long term gratification). It's not perfect, some concepts I take for granted are bloody hard to explain and we don't always leave the table in agreement, but the kids generally like having their interests heard and considered.
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We had been a two-income couple that went to one-income when we had our two children. I stayed home for 10 years. We had to restructure our thinking from wants to needs.
Much of what people think they need is just in their minds. We babyboomers and our children have grown up feeling very entitled. I think we all complain far too much stemming from that attitude of entitlement.
My parents grew up in the Depression and also in WWII London. Times were tougher than they are now. My mother had to leave school and work at age 14 yet they survived. My dad used to say "the world does not owe you a living." Very appropo these days.
My husband and I did trade some harsh words about each other's spending habits but we did get on the same page, after all, no one was going to bail us out - we were adults and expected to behave so. We determined a weekly grocery spending list. I took only cash and a calculator with me. Once I got to within $5 of my limit I checked out. We chose to go to cash or debit card basis only to keep better track of spending. No more writing checks and the one credit card was locked away, to be used only when travelling.
We whittled down our "hobbies" spending by buying only what would benefit the whole family: we outfitted the house w/computers from Goodwill. I purchased plants and gardening supplies on clearance. We bought secondhand on most everything else. To this day I refuse to pay full retail unless I know I cannot get an item anywhere else for less.
We chose to live beneath our means with house and cars. Banks kept telling us we could buy bigger but we stuck with WWII era house in a cozy neighborhood and older cars. We don't need all the bells & whistles. We are able to go out to eat, attend a concert and do fun things. While we are mindful we aren't necessarily spendthrifts. We just refuse to become a slave to debt. It's a liberating thing.
I really enjoyed watching our debts be paid off: smaller ones first than the larger ones. We are pretty much debt-free except for a modest house payment and car payment. We pay cash as we go for kids' college courses and other expenses.
I am holding my breath with anticipation with the available income we'll have once these kids finally leave home.
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From my perspective, I am bad at talking about money, because to me it seems inconsequential or superficial. In some ways this stems from the often cynical way I view the world, or perhaps in some respects I feel entitled, or perhaps I feel everyone is entitled. Money is neither here nor there---but it does often define what is mine or yours. Sometimes I like to share, and talking about money can often seem authoritarian or like you are creating that definitive line between you and them. Perhaps I am too dreamy, but money is literal, talking about it is like dividing the contents of a dead human's home among relatives. Maybe, I just lack experience. Or maybe this view by proxy gives more power to money then it deserves. I am not sure about any of it.
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:-) I felt the same way until I realized that money represented hours and days of my life... and that not understanding it, not respecting it, not putting it to work for me was disrespecting the work I put in to earn it in the first place.
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Back in 1980 to 1984 my mother loaned me $40,000. Under the Regan with double digit interest rates I was able to spend the interest tax free. May 13 1984, graduation day, my mother asked me to pay her back the money. I paid her back and she handed me a graduation card in return. Yes there was a promisory note.
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You know, all the philosophical discussions are fine. But--love it or hate it, think the world would better without it or no, the hard reality is money saves lives. It does this by paying for things that are needed to keep people alive. Such as food. Such as medical care. And keeping alive family members who aren't human but still deeply beloved, such as a pet.
Regarding parental loans, I had one of those myself when the UW would not student-loan me enough to finish the last two quarters of my senior year because I was the "wrong color" (I am Caucasion, but these were the early 80's with the backlash in full swing). Although I was working full time at night tuition was so prohibitive that without assistance finishing college could not happen. I paid my dad off early - even before the other "regular" student loans I had which I also paid back early.
However from that day forward til the day he passed, my dad never let me forget for one moment that if it hadn't been for him "bailing me out" I would have "failed as an educated adult." The negativity of that constant reminder always hung around my pride in my very difficult for me college education and negatively affected my relationship with him for years.
My point I guess is that parents and children don't often "get it right" and there needs to be some non-family-based education going on - life skills relating to money and knowledge of how to earn, what to spend, delivered at all grade levels, with mandatory attendance. Sometimes the messages are better received when they don't come from a family member.
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Money matters are big deal among the family. During these tough times we need to stretch our tight budget. Proper personal finance and debt management might help. Figure the amount of money you have coming in each month and the amount that is going out. This will give you the amount that you have to play with each month. Apparently, no one in Ohio is smart enough to get that payday lending (supply) is created by a demand (fewer middle class jobs, therefore more poverty) but apparently intelligence is illegal there too, and they've restricted any loan to 28% APR. Legislatures, even in Ohio, apparently aren't smart enough to know the difference between a financing charge and interest, but whatever. They're fine with driving out the jobs that are created (most paying over minimum wage) created by payday lending businesses in Ohio, and now more people are going need payday loans that they can't get – therefore making things worse.
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How do we do it?
We caught ourselves using credit cards a little too much so we locked the cards in the safe and we now pay cash for just about everything. If we can't pay cash for something we don't buy it. Only exception was house and car. We do use a gas card and pay that off in full each month.
Also took the Financial Peace University course which really helps one adopt a disciplined look at one's finances.