How many home computers does it take to toast a router in 7 months? Apparently 3. This week has been plagued with connectivity issues which is a killer when you have Vontage and work from a home office. What’s worse is that I didn’t even suspect the router at first because it was still so new. The good news is that it was still under the regular mfg’s warranty and I got my money back. Hopefully this latest router will last a little longer. I even bought the extended warranty at Best Buy because it seems that we go through routers like cheap shoes around here.
Babci’s Favorite Money Sayings
Today, I thought it would be fun to recall some of Babci’s favorite sayings about money. Here they are in no particular order.
- If you talk to yourself, that means you have money in the bank.
- Never tell anyone how much money you have.
- If someone goes to church with long painted fingernails and lots of jewelry, look behind their fingernails to see how much dirt is there.
- Potential inheritance + multiple siblings = Trouble. No money = Nothing to fight over
- Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
If you talk to yourself, that means you have money in the bank.
This has got to be one of the first sayings I remembered hearing as a kid. The gist of the saying was that having money will drive you insane because it means you have something to worry about and protect. Being wealthy will inevitably make you crazy in some way because there was always some bandit or unsavory friend or family member that will try to figure out how to take it from you.
I suppose that since no one in my mom’s family has ever been wealthy, it was easy and comforting to convince ourselves that money is evil and leads to no good.
Never tell anyone how much money you have.
Babci thinks that there is no good to sharing your financial situation with people. The reason is that people fall into 3 categories. They either don’t care, they are better off than you and feel superior, or worst off than you and feel jealous and resentful.
People have certain expectations about what your generosity should be and scrutinize your spending and/or lack of it if they know you’re financial status. If you make six figures and drive a beater, they assume you’re a miser. If you’re near poverty level but lease or buy a new car, people think you’re a blooming idiot.
If someone goes to church with long painted fingernails and lots of jewelry, look behind their fingernails to see how much dirt is there.
This is the classic, don’t judge a book by it’s cover analogy. Not everyone who is outwardly well off, is actually that way in reality. I know I personally have made assumptions about people’s income based on their spending habits and I was way way off.
Babci also has this impression that people who try to look rich and aren’t are dirty. She hates perfume for that fact. Whenever she smells strong perfume, she instantly suspects that someone is using it to cover their BO and gets offended that they are violating her personal space by stinking up the joint. She’s like “how inconsiderate that this person is giving me a headache because they were too lazy to shower.”
Potential inheritance + multiple siblings = Trouble. No money = Nothing to fight over
Unfortunately Babci and I have witnessed this more times than I can count….even well before someone is worm food. This one is self explanatory. Potential inheritance should be considered a windfall and not your personal retirement savings plan. One of my biggest pet peeves is the sense of entitlement people feel towards their parent’s money. I for one would prefer that my mom stays healthy and keeps her money for as long as possible.
Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
Like with an inheritance, there are many kids who bank on that money while their parents are still quite alive and kicking. It’s dangerous to assume that money that is not yours won’t be used for something that the money earner needs like medical bills, long term care, a dream vacation, charity, etc.
Where do I stand?
I have actually talked about my financial status to people I feel close to. I love talking about saving money, budgeting and finding deals, but that’s not the same as sharing your net worth. In general people seem to be more receptive to listening to people crying the blues about money, than talking about growing their nest eggs. There are a number of blogs I can think of where the readership lost touch with a writer when they transitioned over from being red to black on their financial balance sheets. Not everyone is inspired by their life changes.
I have picked up a lot of my mother’s habits in this regard. The casual clothes I wear when I’m not working are very basic. My kids wear patches on their pants. In fact, I was loaning some kid clothes to my neighbor and all but one pair of jeans in that tote bin had patches. I didn’t give her any because most people would be ashamed of that, but I really feel it’s fine. Plus, it seems a whole lot easier to give a pair of jeans to babci to mend than it does to go clothes shopping. Clothes shopping is such a time suck. I swear my patched clothing is less about money savings than it is about time.
I don’t think I’ve gone so far as trying to hide my socioeconomic status. I still feel like I’m a poor person at heart and that there’s nothing wrong to being frugal so that I can enjoy other things in life stress free.
What about you? Do you act your income?
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