By Mrs. Xennial
There seems to be a trend about unrealistic gift to receive for Christmas lately. From having others know and respect your boundaries, to unstigmatizing mental health. All of those are important too, but for this blog in particular… it’d be:
Can we honestly talk about money already?
This could be in a variety of scenarios…
Can we start with educating the next generations about money, or start building the financial literacy for the next generations?
Growing up, neither Mr. Xennial nor I have had conversations about money with our family. If you remember from the previous post, Mr. Xennial didn’t know about the extravagant Christmases they had until much later on. On my end, the only thing I remember from my parents was “stop spending so much; make sure you save money too.” It isn’t completely wrong, but no one ever talks about Roth IRAs or retirement. Sure; maybe this isn’t something you’d bring up to a 7 or 17 yo. But really though, why not? Heck, that’s how J. L. Collins got the idea to write The Simple Path to Wealth, isn’t it?
I really hope that my mom had taught me about her investment strategies. All I could remember was that she fought with my dad a lot when I was maybe between 5 – 7 years old. Sometimes it was about loaning money to her side of family, and sometimes it was about her “gambling like her family.” Turned out, my mom is a stock market genius. I still don’t know exactly how much she has under her name, but this woman paid for a house in California in cash 20+ years ago (sure, it wasn’t 1.25m medium price back then, but still). I also know that she has side quests providing loans to other people (I have no idea how that is done, and I think it’s a very Asian thing), and she doesn’t work. She hasn’t worked for 20 years at least. I used to joke about “if I grow up and I start making money, I’m gonna have my mom invest it for me.” Or I’d say “I want to grow up to be my mom.” Part of it was the “mom as wonder woman” thing, but really, I truly believe she’s that good with her money.
I just don’t know much about what she knows. I still wish I do.
Not to say that I want her to share her numbers with me; but if I were to learn more than “stop spending so much money,” I feel like my FI journey might have started much earlier on. I don’t know if I could have “FIREd” had she taught me anything, but I feel that the conversation would have been more helpful and informational than “stop spending so much money.” Can we not make money a taboo amongst us, between friends, family, and colleagues?
Also, going back to the holiday reflection post for the American / Christmas-celebrating folks: why can’t we be honest about gifting around Christmas, too? Instead of piling up on the credit card debt and spend a good chunk of the year after sobbing about it, why can’t we be honest about the holiday and its meaning instead of falling into the marketing trap?… Honestly, even if you can afford it, the sheer fact of having the “how much we love each other = how much we spend on each other” mindset is very non-FI to me.
Can we stop getting sabotaged by companies by beginning to post the salary for each position?
I saw this the other day on Instagram, that most companies, without posting the salary for each position, get to sabotage (or “negotiate”) the interviewees when they accept the offer, and they could offer different levels of pay for the same level of position. Most of that contributed to the gender pay gap, but also more often than not, tricked people who literally don’t know the pay grade to step into the trap. For example, a friend of mine, female in her early 40s, has a Ph.D. in Biochem, had just recently found out that another person in the same company, white male, similar position with similar credential, was paid at least $30k more. If there’s competition that companies are afraid of, then set the bar straight! I still feel like the theory behind their reason of doing so (avoiding competition within the company, or avoiding competition within the industry) was simply excuses, excuses, excuses. So far I know Colorado has required companies to post salary range to each job posting, but that needs to be more widely available nationwide in my opinion.
Can we stop treating money as a conversational subject as taboo?
This might backfire in my Asian family, as I think how much you make also determines how successful you are in life. I’d say sometime, sure; an executive director who makes 6-figure salary may just be that successful. I doubt anyone who makes good money is skill-less… unless you’re born in a filthy-rich family that ultimately “gifted” you the position right out of college because they can.
I think this is why I like FI community in general. We talk about how to make money do things for us; rather than focusing on how much we currently have. Most people I met (RE-d or not) were all very helpful in sharing what they know, and none was very judgmental about each other… unless you’re a dick, then there’s no excuse… whether you had FIREd or not. LOL
Anyway, here’s hoping that everyone has a stress-free (or stress-less) holiday season. No matter where you are physically, mentally, and financially, know that regardless of how this holiday seasons go, we can always reflect on it and make changes for the next year. Happy holidays everyone. 🙂
Xennials on FI/RE 
Leave a comment