money

Readers of The Wall Street Journal

~ MaryG ~ 9 Comments

How does your mindset affect your financial success?

One thing that people who are on the other side of the political spectrum from me (my father for one) love to say is that there’s no other country in the world where people can just “have an idea” and make millions of dollars. They say that’s a uniquely American thing.

Here’s an article from the Wall Street Journal that doubles down on this idea that America is great because anyone who works hard can get rich. I’ve also noticed that these same people tend to say Europe is poor and declining. “They don’t even realize how poor they are,” I heard one Conservative acquaintance (another white man) say.

I’m all for people working hard and doing well as a result, but this idea that everyone should just “have an idea” (like opening a hot dog stand) and through sheer grit and a positive attitude make a fortune seems…naive. And also, given who tends to espouse it, the height of privilege.

Supporting parents over non-parents?

~ MaryG ~ 24 Comments

Sharing financial resources is a zero sum game. Someone’s gain or increase is going to be someone else’s loss.

Do you think parents of adult children have an obligation to financially help the ones with children of their own more than the ones who do not have kids? Or do you think parents should always maintain total equality in the ways they divvy up their support to adult children?

I have been on one end of this dilemma for over 30 years. I’m the one who stayed married and raised a family. My sibling had a lavish wedding (in two locales), but quickly divorced and had no kids. She never found a career she enjoys and is frequently unemployed, despite being very highly educated.

Now I am temporarily (hopefully) on the other end of it. My son currently only has himself to take care of and my daughter is building her family.

Hypothetically, if you had 10K to share at Christmas, would you give each one 5K? Or would you take into account the selflessness and outrageously high cost of raising a child through college and tip the scale towards the parent?

I think maybe you can tell which way I lean, but I know that there are strong counter arguments.

If you’re childless and found out your parents gave your sibling more money than you in their estate plans, how would you feel? Would you feel as if they didn’t value your life as much as theirs? Or would you understand that grandchildren were factored in?

What about an opposite situation, where parents support a single, childless adult daughter more than another one who had the benefit of a husband’s income? Do singles deserve more support than those who married and raised children?

Curious for your thoughts.

Rejection

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments

I left my full-time career in late 2023 with the thought of potentially retiring early (at age 58.5) and devoting more time to working on the 2024 election and other volunteer work. We were all done paying for our kids’ college educations, our investments were looking good, and Trump was safely out of the White House with many pending criminal indictments.

My how things can change in 18 months.

On the very bright side, I became a grandmother. Nothing is better than that.

BUT, everything else is looking very scary and one way to try to protect myself and my family would be to start earning money again. I mean who knows what the hell is coming next with this Mad King in the Oval Office—World War III, a deep recession or depression, another pandemic, civil war—any damn thing can happen with him in charge. Money won’t stop the fall of democracy in the United States, but maybe it could help protect my own family. And maybe that’s all any of us can really do.

Anyhow, I opened up my LinkedIn profile to recruiters and immediately got several interviews. One job looked perfect for me and I made it to the final round of interviews. I absolutely loved the organization. I was sure they were going to offer it to me.

Whelp, I found out yesterday that they decided to “move forward with a different finalist.”

OUCH! How dare they?? I was perfect for the job and I really wanted it!

So much for a great job just dropping into my lap. Am I really up for a protracted, arduous job search? I don’t know. I may be too old for this shit.

Related:

Are you retired?