It was generally expected that I go to college. I applied to a few different colleges and ended up going to a small liberal arts school because it was the cheapest option after aid and scholarships were applied, even cheaper than the state school. I used a combination of need-based aid, scholarships, loans, and part-time work to pay for tuition and living expenses. My parents contributed around $5,000 and kept me on their health insurance. They also gifted me an old car of theirs. I graduated with a very manageable loan amount, around $14,000, which I mostly paid off with two AmeriCorps education awards.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent(s) educate you about finances?
My parents are both very debt-averse and savings-oriented and they instilled that in me and my brother. They took us to open our first bank accounts and encouraged us to save birthday money or any money we earned. They also taught us to be pretty thrifty and live well on less, which I think is an underrated financial skill. I don’t really remember them talking to me about investing or retirement, but we chat about that sometimes now. My dad is a Nervous Nelly about the stock market and is prone to making poor market-timing decisions with his retirement account, so he has been a bit of a cautionary example.
What was your first job and why did you get it?
I helped out on my family’s strawberry farm starting when I was maybe 10 or 11 and my parents paid me for it. This was… Semi-voluntary. It was expected that I would help, but I had a fair amount of say over how much I worked and was paid in accordance. When I was 15 or 16 I started my first actual job, working at a local after-school program for younger kids. It paid $6.15 an hour. I liked having more spending money and it was also an opportunity to hang out with friends.
Did you worry about money growing up?
I didn’t worry that much about money but I was certainly aware of it. I grew up in a predominantly working-class area and I felt well-off compared to many of my friends because we were very financially stable, but money was not exactly abundant. When I was very young both of my parents had unsteady income that came from selling crafts, small-scale farming and odd jobs. Though their incomes were low, our lifestyle was more self-sufficient than average: we lived in a rural area and grew or hunted a lot of our food, and my dad built our house. We always had food, medical care, and housing (though not always bourgeois amenities like running water or flooring. The house was built *while* we lived in it, and before the house was ready we lived in a tent and a pop-up camper on the build site.) We also had some generational wealth that smoothed the way: My mom inherited some money around the time that I was born, and my paternal grandparents had a comfortable retirement and would help us out occasionally. When I was older, my mom started working an office job and we had more of the trappings of a middle-class life, like summer road trips to see the national parks and money to pay for extracurricular activities. My parents’ marriage was always strained (they eventually divorced), and as I got older I understood how much money was a factor in that.
Do you worry about money now?
I don’t worry about money in a day-to-day sense. I do budget pretty carefully, but I’m more financially comfortable than I’ve ever been. If the car needs a repair, it’s not a big deal. If I want to go on a trip, I go. That said, like most people I have an anxious orientation to money that leads me to dedicate a fair amount of brain space to worrying about things like layoffs and recessions and lease non-renewals. In particular, I worry that I missed the boat on buying a home here in Providence. Real estate values have skyrocketed since COVID-19. Even if I were working full time, it would be tough to make the math work on buying a house. If I could get a do-over, I would have figured out how to buy in my early 30s, but at the time I didn’t feel a pressing desire to own a house and I didn’t know that a window of opportunity was closing.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
When I was in college, my parents contributed to tuition and covered a few bills for me (health insurance, car insurance). I used money from working part-time for any living expenses. By the time I graduated and started working full time in my early 20s, I was pretty independent from them but we still share expenses like streaming services from time to time. If I needed them as a safety net, I suspect they’d be able to lend me a bit of money, and in the worst-case scenario they both own homes outright and have space for me to move back in with them.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
Yes, I received around $20,000 in EE-bonds as an inheritance from my paternal grandparents. My partner K. also received around $10,000 in a life insurance payout when her father died about a decade ago. Though I don’t count on it, I may get a modest inheritance from one or both of my parents eventually. K. is very unlikely to get anything passed down to her.