If "Don’t do bad things with your money.” was the first thing out of our mouth you might want to put down the personal finance books and pick one up on parenting.
This week I had a couple of contract jobs finally end! Who-hoo freedom! And then I realized I'd been working so much from home that I didn't even know what to do with the free time !
While I am indeed a native Californian, I grew up as an Army brat along the east coast, south, and Europe. I an not insensitive to other regions having other issues to deal with that don't match our own. Granted each of our regions have issues that pertain to the region of the country we live in----perhaps the biggest issue in the western states will always be water and population.
It's no secret that I have children, right Lindsey? As we both write for ParentingSquad as well. And if people can afford more children and think their region can handle it , then blessed be.
But I spend a good deal of my day with 18-21 year olds with three-four kids pretending to go back to school to collect checks with no intention of graduating or going to class for that matter. I've had students who sign up, get the check, disappear until a week before the next check is to appear. In the parlance of northern California that's hella wasteful. We lock up marijuana smokers up here and leave the meth dealer next door alone. All that is wasteful and if we want to get serious about the budget we need to think about these issues a little more.
The elephant in the room of course is Prop 13.
And Lindsey---if I hadn't had a wonderful private school open up a few miles away, I'd be homeschooling too.
I agree with most of what this poster has to say as well, especially about how government should just stay out of marriage altogether. That's a hard lobby to get across because people just HATE losing something that, as has become extremely clear in these recent debates, they shouldn't have had to begin with (their religious belief of marriage explicitly recognized and supported by the law).
Unless you don't believe in religious freedom for all, of course, at which point you might be in the wrong country altogether.
I say if gay marriage opponents insist that civil unions afford gay people exactly the same benefits as marriage, then the government should bring everyone down to civil union status for their tax breaks and whatnot, and let your own religious affiliation (or none) recognize you as being married.
The voters would have to decide to eliminate the program put into place by the proposition. If they aren't even willing to move surplus funds (which the First 5 program currently has) to reduce the budget deficit, why would the voters be willing to eliminate the program?
I would whole-heartedly support #7. But I don't think it's going to happen. People like being able to "stick it to the government", which explains Prop 1F (punish the legislature by withholding their raises) passing, even though it doesn't do anything to help the budget crisis.
It's going to be painful over the next few years, since I can't see how they're going to fix this without more tax increases and making serious cuts to our sacred cows (education, health care, and prisons).
And just get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Leave marriage to the churches and let them decide who they want to marry.
can be a larger expense than many people can afford. Some online sources say the average funeral costs $7300; with the U.S. savings rate now just barely reaching into the positive percentages, many people don't even have $1000 in the bank. Add the costs of travel, unpaid medical costs (more and more people have high-deductible plans; we, for instance, have a $7200 deductible and not quite that much saved yet in our HSA), and the need to get therapy or take time off from work, and I think it is well worth it to spend $80 a year to have $15,000 of life insurance for my child.
In addition, while parents would not have future expenses, in some cases they would still have costs for a while. Many schools and camps contractually obligate parents to pay the full bill after a certain point. They might waive that requirement in the event of a child's death, but how terrible to be in debt for thousands of dollars to a school your child is no longer around to attend.
Our last house had central air, and so each room had those metal grate things on the floor. My toddler used to ALWAYS manage to find some change and it always ended up being put thru the grates of the kitchen floor. It was like his bank. When I took the grate out to clean it one day, I discovered about $8 in change inside!
I agree with you Tisha, I regularly gather up change from all over the house because it does have a tendency to accumulate in weird places. For fun after reading your article, I put the kids on the task - like a game - and we gathered up close to $60 in change. Surprisingly, there was change in the bottom of the toy box (I didn't think the kids ever even looked in the toy box let alone PUT THINGS IN IT!), and there was even money found under the bathroom sink.
I like that I can get the gift cards through coinstar right now without paying fees, but because my 6 year old is currently learning to count money I figured it would be good to have him help me roll it up and then we'll deposit it into his bank.
Thanks for the reminder to look for the hidden money :)
When my nephew and I had a hauling business sometimes we would clean out and haul away entire living spaces. Before taking the loads to the dump we would go through the many totes and boxes and there would ALWAYS be a handful of change at the bottom, almost as if it was a ritual to throw some in there before closing the lids! Two good places to look away from home are parking lots and the beach.
I agree with you on the whole downfall caused by liberalism thing. I'm not sure marriage is a "right" though. As far as I'm concerned the best way to solve the Prop 8 issue is to get the government out of marriage completely. No tax breaks no nothing for marriage. Marriage was and always should be a religious issue not a governmental issue.
Although I believe this nation was mostly founded on Christian religious principles and the majority (including myself) still believe in these, I would like to keep or instigate a separation of religion and government. My reason being a little selfish, that I would not enjoy a religion other than my own gaining power in government and then being able to dictate their beliefs to the people.
As far as the rest of the ideas given in this blog, they are good ideas. Number 6 maybe not so much, in that they have done the crime so do the time. I'm for the legalization of marijuana though. It just makes sense seeing it's basically like alcohol and tobacco anyways and if legalized then taxes can be claimed on the exchange of it.
I just want to comment about the tax credit issue. Taking away a tax credit is not the same as "raising taxes." Tax credits are just a method of handing out money - they are given to you regardless of whether you work or pay any taxes at all.
So California residents are PAID by the state to have kids - kids the state can't afford to educate or provide health care for or feed, in the case of poor families on public assistance.
That said, I'm not sure repealing the tax credit would actually impact people's behavior and result in less procreation - I don't think many people take the tax code into consideration when planning families (or failing to plan). The child tax credit is simply a form of public welfare - it's meant to help people who have kids make ends meet.
I'm very grateful for the death benefit policy my parents bought for me when I was a toddler. I guess I don't know what the return on the $2000 they paid back in 1975 would be by now, but I do know that I have relied on that policy
1) to take out a low-interest loan to cover half of my last year of college
and
2) to cover me while I was a stay at home mom. We would have had to buy term insurance for me, otherwise, and given the near-death experience giving birth was for me, I'm sure it would have been expensive.
The death of a child creates a huge emotional loss, but in most instances is not a large financial loss. Let's face it. Kids don't create income they consume it. If you have proper health insurance, then the financial burden of their death should pretty much be isolated to some funeral expenses.
As for establishing their insurability so you can pass that on to them later, I would recommend estimating what those premiums would accumulate to if you invested them for 18 or 21 years in 529 college plan or a Roth IRA. Make sure that the death benefit you are passing on to them is substantially larger than the investment growth you could achieve without the policy. Which would be a better thing to give to your child on his 21st birthday. A $100,000 death benefit whole life policy with $5,000 of cash value that he can start paying the premiums on or a Roth IRA with $30,000 that he can use or continue to grow to he retires.
My wife and I recently found $400 in bonds while digging through our file drawer looking for something else. There's a lot to be said for labeling your envelopes better. =)
California is a perfect example of what liberalism will do. The government tries to give everything to everyone and eventually you just run out of money. Liberalism has obviously failed in that state. I do not see why anyone would want to live there.
I'm not sure what "right" you are referring to with Prop 8. Nobody has the right to marry someone of the same sex. I don't and you don't either. So there was no "right" to begin with. This was all just gay people wanting to get a new "right" and now crying inequality because they didn't get it. They have the same rights as I do - to marry someone of the opposite sex. If they are gay, fine. I don't have a problem with that, but marriage is between a man and a woman.
Get the insurance. It's a rotten thing to think about, but do it.
I remember the discussion with our insurance agent, and he brought up the option. My wife & I decided that we didn't want to think about the idea, and declined, thinking that we might consider it later.
Two years later, my son (our only child) was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He passed on this last February after an 11-month fight. I'm thankful for the kind donations from family, friends and strangers, so that we could afford the medical and funeral expenses. However, you can't expect such outpourings of kindness. If people had not been so generous, then we would be in mourning and in debt.
I also wish that I had the financial freedom to take some time off. Once again, I had an extremely generous manager who made it possible for me to be home when it counted, but such generosity is not guaranteed in life.
There are other expenses that we would never have thought about. We have decided to stay in our home, but we would like to redecorate parts of it to try to avoid heartache. We would like to be able to be generous to others out of gratitude for what we have received. I would like for my wife to be able to stay home longer, instead of having to find a job in the middle of grieving.
Nothing can replace having my son with me. And, getting life insurance for children is not putting a price tag on their lives. It's a way to provide for yourself and your family during an awful season of life.
I usually find coins in the dryer. As the owner is unknown by that time it goes into "THE JAR", where it's combined with all other change (grocery shopping leftovers mostly). It's divided amongst the householders for vacation spending.
We use Commerce Bank as well, and their counting machine is free. Being very tightwaddish, I'd rather roll coins than spend 8 cents a dollar for a machine to do it.
>>>..."The grand secret is that children create prosperity. Societies that cease to produce children (or greatly curtail their births) eventually shrivel and die..."
I appreciate you answering my questions, Margaret. I'm sure it's obvious that we are from opposite ends of the spectrum on many issues (as I'm sure many Californians are, as well.) While I still contend that homeschooling can be more affordable as an educational option (even with books, supplies, and the college courses you mentioned added in), I'm also glad to see that CA is giving some concessions to that demographic.
Since many of your posts deal directly with personal liberties and freedoms, I'm sure you can understand how it may not be taken well by many when you start to mention "population" issues. Again, I appreciate the dialogue. Wise Bread writers are perhaps one of the most pointedly diverse group of bloggers -- the fact that we can keep it together in spite of our differences is what I love most about writing here. :)
I like to keep my personal and professional life as separate as possible. Doing so is the most important thing you can do to keep your leisure time intact. The other thing is knowing when to stop working and go have a little fun. The work is never over, but you have to know when to put it on pause.
My wife's best friend would be in a world of finanical hurt right now were it not for having life insurance as a child. She has been diagnosed with clinical depression, a thyroid disease, and a number of other things that would have made here uninsurable. Due my wife's own clinical depression and fibromyalgia she has been deem "inelligible" for long-term care insurance. Something she will definitely need in the later years of her life.
This is a really good article, I must say. I don't normally say that unless I really think the advice being given is legit and actually useful. I hope more businessmen stumble onto this and learn how to survive the recession.
It's not that you would pay more but you wouldn't receive the tax credit and childcare credit passed two. So you could take it for the first two. I would personally like the tax credit incentive to not be there because we do not need to be encouraging population above replacement level in my opinion. We live in a drought state with finite water supply. The population of our state is of course way more than Nebraska---and we are in the west and mostly desert (though people seem to think water will just appear for all these people).
In California the argument of homeschooling (I send my kids to private school) as a way not to be part of the system economically doesn't hold true because our homeschoolers are entitled to books and materials from the state--and are eligible for community college at a free tuition rate in their teen years (in fact in our area the majority of homeschoolers start community college around 15 and graduate from high school with an AA at the same time).
But keep the ideas flowing.....we are a state in crisis and about 5 counties in California (including mine) are now at a 20% unemployment level.
If "Don’t do bad things with your money.” was the first thing out of our mouth you might want to put down the personal finance books and pick one up on parenting.
This week I had a couple of contract jobs finally end! Who-hoo freedom! And then I realized I'd been working so much from home that I didn't even know what to do with the free time !
OMG Too much working.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
While I am indeed a native Californian, I grew up as an Army brat along the east coast, south, and Europe. I an not insensitive to other regions having other issues to deal with that don't match our own. Granted each of our regions have issues that pertain to the region of the country we live in----perhaps the biggest issue in the western states will always be water and population.
It's no secret that I have children, right Lindsey? As we both write for ParentingSquad as well. And if people can afford more children and think their region can handle it , then blessed be.
But I spend a good deal of my day with 18-21 year olds with three-four kids pretending to go back to school to collect checks with no intention of graduating or going to class for that matter. I've had students who sign up, get the check, disappear until a week before the next check is to appear. In the parlance of northern California that's hella wasteful. We lock up marijuana smokers up here and leave the meth dealer next door alone. All that is wasteful and if we want to get serious about the budget we need to think about these issues a little more.
The elephant in the room of course is Prop 13.
And Lindsey---if I hadn't had a wonderful private school open up a few miles away, I'd be homeschooling too.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
I agree with most of what this poster has to say as well, especially about how government should just stay out of marriage altogether. That's a hard lobby to get across because people just HATE losing something that, as has become extremely clear in these recent debates, they shouldn't have had to begin with (their religious belief of marriage explicitly recognized and supported by the law).
Unless you don't believe in religious freedom for all, of course, at which point you might be in the wrong country altogether.
I say if gay marriage opponents insist that civil unions afford gay people exactly the same benefits as marriage, then the government should bring everyone down to civil union status for their tax breaks and whatnot, and let your own religious affiliation (or none) recognize you as being married.
Margaret:
The voters would have to decide to eliminate the program put into place by the proposition. If they aren't even willing to move surplus funds (which the First 5 program currently has) to reduce the budget deficit, why would the voters be willing to eliminate the program?
I would whole-heartedly support #7. But I don't think it's going to happen. People like being able to "stick it to the government", which explains Prop 1F (punish the legislature by withholding their raises) passing, even though it doesn't do anything to help the budget crisis.
It's going to be painful over the next few years, since I can't see how they're going to fix this without more tax increases and making serious cuts to our sacred cows (education, health care, and prisons).
And just get the government out of the marriage business entirely. Leave marriage to the churches and let them decide who they want to marry.
can be a larger expense than many people can afford. Some online sources say the average funeral costs $7300; with the U.S. savings rate now just barely reaching into the positive percentages, many people don't even have $1000 in the bank. Add the costs of travel, unpaid medical costs (more and more people have high-deductible plans; we, for instance, have a $7200 deductible and not quite that much saved yet in our HSA), and the need to get therapy or take time off from work, and I think it is well worth it to spend $80 a year to have $15,000 of life insurance for my child.
In addition, while parents would not have future expenses, in some cases they would still have costs for a while. Many schools and camps contractually obligate parents to pay the full bill after a certain point. They might waive that requirement in the event of a child's death, but how terrible to be in debt for thousands of dollars to a school your child is no longer around to attend.
Tom, I am so sorry for your loss.
Our last house had central air, and so each room had those metal grate things on the floor. My toddler used to ALWAYS manage to find some change and it always ended up being put thru the grates of the kitchen floor. It was like his bank. When I took the grate out to clean it one day, I discovered about $8 in change inside!
I agree with you Tisha, I regularly gather up change from all over the house because it does have a tendency to accumulate in weird places. For fun after reading your article, I put the kids on the task - like a game - and we gathered up close to $60 in change. Surprisingly, there was change in the bottom of the toy box (I didn't think the kids ever even looked in the toy box let alone PUT THINGS IN IT!), and there was even money found under the bathroom sink.
I like that I can get the gift cards through coinstar right now without paying fees, but because my 6 year old is currently learning to count money I figured it would be good to have him help me roll it up and then we'll deposit it into his bank.
Thanks for the reminder to look for the hidden money :)
When my nephew and I had a hauling business sometimes we would clean out and haul away entire living spaces. Before taking the loads to the dump we would go through the many totes and boxes and there would ALWAYS be a handful of change at the bottom, almost as if it was a ritual to throw some in there before closing the lids! Two good places to look away from home are parking lots and the beach.
I agree with you on the whole downfall caused by liberalism thing. I'm not sure marriage is a "right" though. As far as I'm concerned the best way to solve the Prop 8 issue is to get the government out of marriage completely. No tax breaks no nothing for marriage. Marriage was and always should be a religious issue not a governmental issue.
Although I believe this nation was mostly founded on Christian religious principles and the majority (including myself) still believe in these, I would like to keep or instigate a separation of religion and government. My reason being a little selfish, that I would not enjoy a religion other than my own gaining power in government and then being able to dictate their beliefs to the people.
As far as the rest of the ideas given in this blog, they are good ideas. Number 6 maybe not so much, in that they have done the crime so do the time. I'm for the legalization of marijuana though. It just makes sense seeing it's basically like alcohol and tobacco anyways and if legalized then taxes can be claimed on the exchange of it.
I just want to comment about the tax credit issue. Taking away a tax credit is not the same as "raising taxes." Tax credits are just a method of handing out money - they are given to you regardless of whether you work or pay any taxes at all.
So California residents are PAID by the state to have kids - kids the state can't afford to educate or provide health care for or feed, in the case of poor families on public assistance.
That said, I'm not sure repealing the tax credit would actually impact people's behavior and result in less procreation - I don't think many people take the tax code into consideration when planning families (or failing to plan). The child tax credit is simply a form of public welfare - it's meant to help people who have kids make ends meet.
I'm very grateful for the death benefit policy my parents bought for me when I was a toddler. I guess I don't know what the return on the $2000 they paid back in 1975 would be by now, but I do know that I have relied on that policy
1) to take out a low-interest loan to cover half of my last year of college
and
2) to cover me while I was a stay at home mom. We would have had to buy term insurance for me, otherwise, and given the near-death experience giving birth was for me, I'm sure it would have been expensive.
The death of a child creates a huge emotional loss, but in most instances is not a large financial loss. Let's face it. Kids don't create income they consume it. If you have proper health insurance, then the financial burden of their death should pretty much be isolated to some funeral expenses.
As for establishing their insurability so you can pass that on to them later, I would recommend estimating what those premiums would accumulate to if you invested them for 18 or 21 years in 529 college plan or a Roth IRA. Make sure that the death benefit you are passing on to them is substantially larger than the investment growth you could achieve without the policy. Which would be a better thing to give to your child on his 21st birthday. A $100,000 death benefit whole life policy with $5,000 of cash value that he can start paying the premiums on or a Roth IRA with $30,000 that he can use or continue to grow to he retires.
My wife and I recently found $400 in bonds while digging through our file drawer looking for something else. There's a lot to be said for labeling your envelopes better. =)
California is a perfect example of what liberalism will do. The government tries to give everything to everyone and eventually you just run out of money. Liberalism has obviously failed in that state. I do not see why anyone would want to live there.
I'm not sure what "right" you are referring to with Prop 8. Nobody has the right to marry someone of the same sex. I don't and you don't either. So there was no "right" to begin with. This was all just gay people wanting to get a new "right" and now crying inequality because they didn't get it. They have the same rights as I do - to marry someone of the opposite sex. If they are gay, fine. I don't have a problem with that, but marriage is between a man and a woman.
Get the insurance. It's a rotten thing to think about, but do it.
I remember the discussion with our insurance agent, and he brought up the option. My wife & I decided that we didn't want to think about the idea, and declined, thinking that we might consider it later.
Two years later, my son (our only child) was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. He passed on this last February after an 11-month fight. I'm thankful for the kind donations from family, friends and strangers, so that we could afford the medical and funeral expenses. However, you can't expect such outpourings of kindness. If people had not been so generous, then we would be in mourning and in debt.
I also wish that I had the financial freedom to take some time off. Once again, I had an extremely generous manager who made it possible for me to be home when it counted, but such generosity is not guaranteed in life.
There are other expenses that we would never have thought about. We have decided to stay in our home, but we would like to redecorate parts of it to try to avoid heartache. We would like to be able to be generous to others out of gratitude for what we have received. I would like for my wife to be able to stay home longer, instead of having to find a job in the middle of grieving.
Nothing can replace having my son with me. And, getting life insurance for children is not putting a price tag on their lives. It's a way to provide for yourself and your family during an awful season of life.
I usually find coins in the dryer. As the owner is unknown by that time it goes into "THE JAR", where it's combined with all other change (grocery shopping leftovers mostly). It's divided amongst the householders for vacation spending.
We use Commerce Bank as well, and their counting machine is free. Being very tightwaddish, I'd rather roll coins than spend 8 cents a dollar for a machine to do it.
>>>..."The grand secret is that children create prosperity. Societies that cease to produce children (or greatly curtail their births) eventually shrivel and die..."
Well said.
I appreciate you answering my questions, Margaret. I'm sure it's obvious that we are from opposite ends of the spectrum on many issues (as I'm sure many Californians are, as well.) While I still contend that homeschooling can be more affordable as an educational option (even with books, supplies, and the college courses you mentioned added in), I'm also glad to see that CA is giving some concessions to that demographic.
Since many of your posts deal directly with personal liberties and freedoms, I'm sure you can understand how it may not be taken well by many when you start to mention "population" issues. Again, I appreciate the dialogue. Wise Bread writers are perhaps one of the most pointedly diverse group of bloggers -- the fact that we can keep it together in spite of our differences is what I love most about writing here. :)
Linsey Knerl
I like to keep my personal and professional life as separate as possible. Doing so is the most important thing you can do to keep your leisure time intact. The other thing is knowing when to stop working and go have a little fun. The work is never over, but you have to know when to put it on pause.
My wife's best friend would be in a world of finanical hurt right now were it not for having life insurance as a child. She has been diagnosed with clinical depression, a thyroid disease, and a number of other things that would have made here uninsurable. Due my wife's own clinical depression and fibromyalgia she has been deem "inelligible" for long-term care insurance. Something she will definitely need in the later years of her life.
This is a really good article, I must say. I don't normally say that unless I really think the advice being given is legit and actually useful. I hope more businessmen stumble onto this and learn how to survive the recession.
FYI--From Los Angeles. But what's a norcal attitude?
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
Does not eliminate the program completely.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh
It's not that you would pay more but you wouldn't receive the tax credit and childcare credit passed two. So you could take it for the first two. I would personally like the tax credit incentive to not be there because we do not need to be encouraging population above replacement level in my opinion. We live in a drought state with finite water supply. The population of our state is of course way more than Nebraska---and we are in the west and mostly desert (though people seem to think water will just appear for all these people).
In California the argument of homeschooling (I send my kids to private school) as a way not to be part of the system economically doesn't hold true because our homeschoolers are entitled to books and materials from the state--and are eligible for community college at a free tuition rate in their teen years (in fact in our area the majority of homeschoolers start community college around 15 and graduate from high school with an AA at the same time).
But keep the ideas flowing.....we are a state in crisis and about 5 counties in California (including mine) are now at a 20% unemployment level.
Margaret Garcia-Couoh