This morning, I opened the refrigerator to find a paucity of blueberries. This is all the more surprising because we buy 2-3 enormous boxes of blueberries at Costco every 2-3 weeks. What used to be arrive in a single delicate box presented like a Rolex when I was a kid now comes in economy size buckets.
I've developed certain morning rituals, and blueberries are a key part of those rituals, so it was an upsetting discovery.
It was more disappointing still to realize that it occurred because one of my dear children inhales blueberries like they were a cheap staple instead of the luxury food to be placed on a pedestal that I have always regarded them to be.
I am Californian. This descriptor is a universally understood manner of declaring I get weird with my food preferences, using terms that sound like religious denominations to convey what I do and do not like to eat. So it won't surprise you to learn that I start each morning with a bowl of muesli, chia seeds and blueberries soaked overnight in soy milk.
I chase this with a strong black espresso brewed in an 18/10 stainless steel Italian stove top espresso maker that looks sleek and sculptural (I purchased it for about $4 at a thrift shop a decade ago) and leaves the entire house aromatic. The juxtaposition of luxury and frugality embodied by the coffee makes me feel wealthy and simultaneously proud of my treasure hunting prowess.
When I pause to consider that my kids might regard blueberries as just another fruit (and not the way I see it, as the caviar of fruit) it makes me feel like they don't appreciate the finer things in life we are providing them.
Which got me thinking about exactly which financial milestones I'd really like them to experience on their journeys through financial puberty. Here's a list of touchstone events I consider formative that I'd love them to experience:
- Living in several crappy apartments, each slightly less crappy than the last, with a series of roommates who each possess a uniquely annoying character trait that manifests in a tragedy of the common(s) area.
- The tremendous pride of buying your first brand new sofabed, not at a designer boutique, but at a place like Sears. The great delight taken when other, equally broke friends come over and spend a weekend sleeping on that sofabed. How adult it feels to host someone.
- The first time you are invited to a birthday party at a restaurant where the cost of the evening completely blows your entire month's budget. The sting that it leaves. The curses you utter under your breath for the friend of your friend who liberally ordered a bunch of starters you don't eat "for the table" and then suggested everyone split the bill equally. The determination it sparks in you to never let this happen again.
- Going shopping for the first time and realizing that, on your budget, you can't afford to eat the same quality of food your parents provided in abundance during your childhood. Buying a single, tiny box of blueberries priced as if they were diamonds. Savoring each one.
Comments 9
I agree that children should experience some of the feelings of financial lows so they could appreciate some of the highs.
My daughter has gotten accustomed to eating sushi from publix or at a restaurant almost weekly now (and on more than one occasion several times in a week) not knowing that it is unlikely she can maintain that type of dining on her own for quite some time.
And her luxury fruit of choice is raspberries (which sometimes have to be thrown out if not eaten on time)
Author
Xray,
My heart goes out to you for the raspberries – it pains me to toss what I’d consider rich people fruit.
CD
The thing is I never had any of those experiences. I lived in a nice apartment when I moved to a new town to begin my new job after college. It was three minutes from work too. I had more money than I could spend from the very start since my favorite hobby was playing tennis for free at the city park with lots of friends. I got married to my fiancee six months later and we never lived in anything that wasn’t nice and in a year we bought our house, the one we are still in 42 years later. All of my kids graduated college with thousands of dollars saved that they had earned while in college and zero debt. Only one lived in what I’d consider a sketchy apartment but it was only 200 yards from the beach so you couldn’t really make that look like a bad deal. They are all doing quite well without any help from the bank of mom and dad. I’m not sure deprivation is a necessary step if you are already frugal and self sufficient when you graduate from college.
Author
Steveark,
You bring up a valid point, and I’m not sure how to respond – it might well be that I have a sadistic impulse to see my kids struggle financially in ways that may be excessive. Perhaps I hunger for hearing them express appreciation in a manner of my choosing, and because that doesn’t happen often enough (or I don’t detect it in the way they are capable of expressing) it gets my goat.
The kids are inheriting some of the frugal tendencies, but the self-sufficiency part has not yet kicked in – perhaps age appropriately in 11 and 13 year olds.
Maybe I ought to aim lower – off the payroll as young adults would be more than enough, as you point out.
Thanks for checking my impulses,
CD
I doubt your financial “lessons” will transfer to your kids. You can try but likely they will blow you off. You’re a gen-Xer and you were marketed the 4% FIRE DIY rule. You merely presume what you have been marketed is in fact real. I was marketed actively managed funds. In my day buying funds weren’t free. There was a load and a brokers fee. My parents were marketed pensions and annuities. My Grandparents were marketed CD’s and fixed instruments. Wall street is a sales force designed to sell you product. Government equally is a sales force designed to “sell” you product. Each of them recover a sales fee. Government however is coercive. Your children will respond to the stimulants presented to them. To survive the future you have to be forward looking in the analysis. The biggest thing you can teach your kids is to avoid debt.
My freshman year in college I was invited to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse with three dormmates. I hadn’t heard of the restaurant and hadn’t been to a steakhouse growing up. The menu arrived and my eyes popped from the a la carte menu prices. My buddies all ordered what you’d expect. I ordered an a la carte side-order plain baked potato ($12 ) and water. I don’t recall if we split the bill, but I’ll never forget the feeling I had that night that I wasn’t built like these other three and that my frugal ways were not tied to my ability to pay (I could easily have afforded to eat like my friends that night). Interestingly, I have a brother who wouldn’t have thought twice ordering like the others.
Author
FP,
I suspect the sandwich experience will end up being formative.
On their last foray, both kids used online pre-ordering and saved $5 on two meals using the honey app.
When I mentioned the adventure to my dad, he recalled with clarity the dismay I’d relayed to my folks the first time I had to subsidize an $80 dinner with high-spending friends during residency, and we had a good laugh.
I find it fascinating how the same family can produce siblings with vastly differing price sensitivities.
Appreciate your story,
CD
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