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I don’t think I realized university was optional schooling until freshman year of college. There were at least two summers where I went to SAT camp, and pretty much all of teenage self-worth was tied to my GPA. I got into MIT though, so that part paid off — but I was burnt out when I got there and struggled. My parents paid my tuition and living expenses while I got my bachelor’s, so I was lucky not to have that stress weighing on me as well. Then a few years ago I got my master’s while working. My work covered a portion, and I paid the remaining $20,000 out of savings.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s)/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
There weren’t any conversations about financial planning or how to budget while I was growing up. My parents have always avoided discussing how much money they have. I remember my mom working late into the night with QuickBooks, so I had this nebulous sense of it taking a lot of time and effort to do “money things”. But I had no idea what those things were! After I got my first job out of college, my dad would sporadically drop knowledge about why I needed an IRA or how owning a home could help with taxes, but a lot of my learning was through the internet.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
In high school I was an assistant for an after-school tennis program for younger kids. Honestly, I think I got it as a way to beef up my college applications.
Did you worry about money growing up?
No, I grew up as an expat kid in western Europe. Our housing and school was covered by the company, and my dad had a great salary plus income from renting out our home back in the US. I have vague memories of my mom trying to be cost conscious every once in a while, but my dad has always had a “just buy it” mindset.
Do you worry about money now?
Before having a second child, my husband C. and I acknowledged that we’d need to burn savings while they were both in daycare and still decided we wanted to do it. But living it has been more stressful than I anticipated. Our monthly housing costs jumped up by $2,000 between me getting pregnant and actually having the baby, and then we had a lot of costly repairs to our heat system last year. Before buying a house, I really didn’t understand how much home maintenance actually costs, and thinking about the cost of some needed repairs stresses me out. Based on last year’s spend, my countdown clock has us running out of cash (not including our retirement accounts) in 38 months, and we’ve got 30 months until the older child is out of daycare. So this year I’m making a bigger effort to course correct (but at the same time, I’m not worried enough to stop contributing to our 401(k)s and lose the employer match?). We’ll see how 2025 goes.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
I was financially independent from 22 until 28. Then we started renting a house from my parents for $2,550 a month. They’d bought it for $550,000 and at something like 3% interest, so we were getting a discount because our rent covered their expenses but didn’t make any profit. A little over a year ago they needed to sell the house. I was seven months pregnant with kid #2 at the time and really, really didn’t want to move. My parents offered to help with the down payment if we bought from them, which I’m grateful for, since we didn’t have enough to hit 20% down by ourselves unless we moved a lot further out. So we bought the house from them, and now we’re back to supporting ourselves. That being said, in the back of my mind my parents are our safety net. Especially now that we have kids, I’m confident they’d loan us whatever we needed if it came down to it.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
My parents gave us a $100,000 gift of equity towards our down payment. Also, they covered all of my undergrad expenses (about $220,000), and gave me and C. $30,000 to pay for our wedding.
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