day off!

Today is a great day, if only for the fact that I don't have to work! hooray! I needed a day off. my immediate supervisor really ticked me off on friday. I need some more time to let the steam release. :) There was a big party last night for one of our retiring chiefs. He had been with the office 23 years and the military before that. He truly was an inspiration and I hope the office will have many more like him. Although, to be honest, I don't think the office will. :(

I have noticed a great many bloggers have started posting their pre-blogging life history. MEG started off and herevercentcounts did it too. Vixen gave me a shout out this morning, which was really exciting!! Hi! ::waves::

Hereverycentcounts made some generalizations about what makes a PF blogger. So I thought that I would share my story. Maybe I fall into the generalizations, and maybe not. My parents are planners. wait, maybe I should phrase that a different way: my parents are PLANNERS. They plan when they are going to plan things. I was planned, my approximate birthday was planned, my brother and his approximate birthday were also planned. My parents planned to have 2 children and no more. Although our sexes were not planned. They planned to send us to college and pay for it. My parents planned for my mother to take off several years of work (4, I think) to raise us and then go back to work part time. I come from a family who plans everything. Around the holidays when we are all home, we sit down and plan out the day. "mom and I will do this, while you and dad do that. Then we will meet up for lunch and go play golf." This is comfortable to me. I like knowing what the day holds (unless its work, and then I already know). This has transcended into my married life: if BF and I don't plan something for a weekend, then we probably won't do anything outside what has to be done (i.e. the grocery shopping and laundry).

Both my parents came from mostly poor families. My dad's family is from North Carolina and they were VERY poor. Fortunately, my dad is extremely smart and was able to get a scholarship to undergrad and a scholarship for his Ph.D. My dad's parents could not afford to pay for college for either him or his sister. My mom's family was also not well off, although had a bit more money than my dad's family. My mom's family was from Oregon and they paid for her and her sister to attend a state university. College did not cost what it does these days, so it wasn't that expensive for their parents to pay for. But after college my mom's parents bought her a car, not a nice one, just a car so she could get to her new job.

I am from a fairly affluent town in central california. The cost of living in that area is high. My parents got into the housing market at just the right time in order to capitalize on the (relatively) cheap morgages prices and to also capitalize on the re-sale value about 15 years later. My dad has worked for the federal government for 29 years, so he doesn't make a HUGE salary. and my mom is a reading teacher in the district.

Although my parents have more than enough money now, they didn't have as much when we were growing up. Our family never rented a house and wondered where the next meal was coming from. But, I knew the reason I never got a candy bar in the checkout isle at the supermarket was because we couldn't afford it. I read a post, that i can't find at the moment, who said at the end of month her mother wouldn't eat, to make sure that she had enough. Things were never like that for us. Money was always something we talked about, but didn't have an endless supply of.

My parents gave us music lessons (until we were 18), ballet lessons (for me until I was 12 or so), golf lessons (until we were 18), we also played a lot of sports like baseball and softball. I played field hockey my freshman and sophmore years of high school. And any school activity that cost money was covered. Also, my parents paid for our college tuition, housing, and spending money. I think there is some sort of tax write off for this, but it was nice not having any debt from undergrad. My parents said that if we went on to higher degrees (like law), we would be on our own for tuition, but they would help with housing and spending money. They did this so we could see the value of our schooling, not because they couldn't afford it. Education was always number one for our family, so they wanted to help and encourage us to get higher degrees. And as if I didn't have enough already, my parents bought me a car as a graduation present from undergrad.

So I suppose, my brother and I lived a fairly charmed life. But the most important thing I learned from my parents was planning. Sure, they could have had kids as soon as they got married, but they waited until they were 33 for me and 35 for my brother. They waited and planned so they could have more money and be able to raise a family the way they saw fit.

I have definitely learned this from my parents. My husband and I are going to wait until all our student loans are paid off to have children. I will be about the same age as my mother (32/33) when all this debt is gone. I don't want to bring children into the world who might have to hear about "student loan bills." I think this is one reason my parents marriage has been so strong and lasted so long. They say the number one reason people fight is over money. My parents never fought over money. I guess its easy to say that they never fought over money because they always had it, but the point here is that they waited to have kids until they DID have money. They both had basically nothing when they got married (they each had a car, I think). but they both worked hard and saved for a down payment on a house and then had children.

Also, my family talks about everything. They have always talked about money and any problems we were having at school, etc. If I had questions about money, they were always there to answer them. My parents also want to help future generations, like MEGs grandparents. They will likely set up a trust or 529 for my children and my brother's children's education. As I said before, education is the most important thing in my family.

phew, that seems like a lot, but I could have gone on about my family and their monetary choices. I feel like my parents did the right thing from the get-go, always pay off credit card balances every month and the only debt they had was a mortgage (gone now). BF's parents did things WAAAY differently. I will post on that sometime. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away!