Last week I realized that my parents have no idea how much money I make. I know I never told them, but still. For several years I was working part time, and living with a deadbeat boyfriend. So I did a lot of complaining about money, but managed to scrape by on what I made and the savings I had going into that relationship. Eventually I wised up and am now single and working another 10 hours a week.
So I was having lunch with my parents at Panera and my mother paid for my lunch as well. This led into a discussion of a woman I’m friends with (who is my parents’ age) whom I have lunch with once a month. Every time she insists that she’ll pay and I can pay “next time”. I was saying to my parents that I feel bad about this since I’m pretty sure I make more than she does. They responded by saying that she’d worked at her job for a while and was good at it, etc, etc. I named a figure and said “do you think she makes x? x + 5,000?” and they agreed it was probably in that range. My response “so I definitely make more than she does”. Parents: <open mouth stare>.
Hello, I have a house, a job that’s in demand that I’ve been doing for a bunch of years, and an employer that’s over a barrel because they’ve driven away just about every other employee who knows about the things I do. I know banks will extend a mortgage to people who cannot afford them, but I’m pretty conservative about financial things. Yes, my house was a dump when I bought it, but that was on purpose so I could renovate it. I paid that mortgage on time for several years while working only 20 hours a week and supporting a boyfriend who liked to go out to eat and who required a storage space among other monthly expenditures. I guess they just never thought about it.
I know I make more than my mom, but less than my dad did (job change Jan 1, so I don’t know now). I know they have credit card debt and a mortgage, and plan to pay both off before retiring (5 years or so). I don’t know how realistic their plans are. They have some retirement money, again I don’t know how much. Their first meeting with any sort of financial advisor was within the last few years. I’m really hoping they’ve got it figured out, because I really don’t want them to call me in 15 years and tell me they’re out of money.
As you can probably tell from the above, we don’t talk about money. I mean we talk in a general way, about interest rates and such, but not in specifics. I’m not sure they would tell me if I asked them to sit down and show me their retirement plans.