First, as to my parenting feelings (and those that object to them can skip to the next quote):
I wanted to clarify for my own sake in response to @7w5's story about the little girl and her daddy. Becoming a parent is complex with myriad ways to think about it, describe it, approach it, etc., so I won't attempt an exhaustive survey of its complexity, but I will say this: to the extent becoming a parent is a choice and not merely the fulfillment of the purpose of life, which is "to hydrogenate carbon dioxide", I did not make that choice - at least not maturely or wisely. Like many parents, I fell into parenthood. And I absolutely, 100% regret falling into it. It wasn't for me. Like my own father, I never should have procreated. Maybe that's sad, maybe not. Maybe it's abhorrent, maybe not. But it's just an emotion, so like any emotion, I think it is neither good nor bad, it just is. It can convey meaning; it can provide enlightenment; it can provide future direction, but all of those things are reactions to our emotions and are things layered on top of the emotion, they are NOT "what the emotion means".
I wish I'd known that about myself before I did procreated, but I didn't, and now I'm a parent. Being a parent is a different choice from becoming a parent. Once the becoming has been accomplished, you can feel however you feel about that process, and you can feel differently about your choice in what kind of parent you will be. Now that I have children, I can not imagine my life without them. Kids are the ultimate distraction, both good and bad. It's almost like choosing a hobby...except that it's almost impossible to un-choose it for 20+ years (@7w5's and similar stories aside). Better damn well know that you want to parent (ski, scuba, fish, etc) every day for hours a day for the next 20 years! So, anyway, now I am a parent. I love my kids; I'm frustrated by my kids, often at the same time. I want to spend time with my kids and I want distance from my kids. To use @7w5's terminology, I want to be engaged in my kids' lives, but I also want to be engaged in my own life. Finding that balance and grappling with the emotions that it raises is each a process, and ones that I'm currently working through.
I don't really care too much about market moves. I'm "buy and hold" in my personal account. I'm stable value in my 401k. And I trade like mad in my HSA ($50k) since May. Made some nice realized gains on 3 round trips on TUR's fluctuations. Bought in again at $25 and then it cratered, but doubled up today at $19.5, so if/when Turkey gets its shit together, that should be a nice gain, and I'm ambivalent about the rough road ahead. Have a merger arb in the works. Bought T and FB on their dips for some nice gains. EWW was a nice trade too. All of those are ~5% gains over days or weeks (my target return and holding period), but each on only $5-15k, so fairly small absolute dollars. But it's kinda fun and tax-free, so it gives me an outlet to play day trader.Mister Imperceptible wrote: ↑Mon Aug 13, 2018 6:03 amIf you want a distraction from sinking US futures this morning, you might find this entertaining:
https://nypost.com/2018/08/06/inside-th ... aire-exes/
Ha, war of the roses. I'd kept up with some of Bill Gross' weirdness over the years (like his monthly/quarterly letters), but since his PIMCO divorce, things just got too weird for me.
Given the initial conditions (she is who she is now and she will be a different she in the future; I am who I am now and I will be a different me in the future; we are married; we have children), the only thing I need to be happy is to choose to be happy. Focus on the good, minimize the bad.
Depends on the day. Years ago it was 50/50 or worse. For the last call it 2 years, it's been really good. Like, say, 90/10. Fights are still fights, but they are more amusing than threatening to me now. Once after a fight years ago, I literally tore the banister off the stairs while yelling "Why do I have this fucking life!?!?!?!" That was a mistake. Not because I'm ashamed of my feelings or behavior or anything, but because re-installing a banister was a giant pain in the ass. Not recommended. But fights now are no longer an existential threat to me. They're just the natural result of two different people who have lived together for almost half of their lives trying to get along. At this point, I've lived with my wife longer than I lived with my parents, so disagreements are to be expected. With any luck, the maturity with which we handle those disagreements will grow over the years, and it has, but there is still a ways to go.
Since there's only one condition, given the initial conditions, same as above.
Funny enough, the ATM got a surprise bj, so your hunch was a bit off. And I didn't even have to pay $9k for it (ha @ek)!ThisDinosaur wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 11:44 amI predict she will not like this idea. Like, *very dramatically* not like it. Then you may be tempted to say something like, "If you're not going to negotiate, then I won't either." Then the ATM won't see any action for a couple days. Call it a hunch.suomalainen wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:20 amif she can save money from the food or whatever budget to buy her chairs, whatever.
But, a week or two after that, I did raise the budget with wife and we agreed to try the following:
She will control 100% of the family budget within certain agreed parameters (she can give no more than $100/month to the church and I can object to purchases relating to the kids on a parenting basis) in the amount of our old budget, so $60k/year. She has to cover everything other than taxes, health care, alcohol, ski tickets and any personal trips I want to take to ID or VT to ski/mtb/hike with my friends.
It's obviously a much bigger budget than probably anyone else here, but here are some thoughts and reactions around it:
- I thought it would be an easier sell to use a prior budget than to come up with a tighter budget.
- It's better than what we've done the last two years, so it's "tighter" from that perspective anyway.
- I thought the structure would be an interesting exercise for both of us, even if the amount is (and always has been) outside my comfort zone.
- From her perspective, it would give her a sense of control, even if I'm still the sole earner, which would benefit her psychologically and it would benefit us as a couple by condensing multiple sources of friction (each "frivolous" purchase) to one source (the budget number)
- From my perspective, it gives me a sense of control (there is a parameter around the budget) without having multiple sources of friction (trying to control or fight the feeling of a loss of control at each "frivolous" purchase)
- Reactions:
- She remarked that she had felt somewhat teenagery (like @clarice and @7w5 had discussed once) and that it felt like I was the "dad", so she was excited to try it.
- She remarked that she thought it would be good that she would be responsible for all of the decisions because previously she felt like "what was the point" since I would think she overspent no matter what she did.
- In this way, if she wants to save instead of spend it all, she is incentivized to do so since she maintains control over the saved money rather than it going into the black hole of my retirement bucket, never to be seen again.
- It will be interesting to see how *I* react to this since my personal expenditures will now be directly tied into savings. If I spend a dollar it's not just "Oh well, wife spent ten so my one is a rounding error", it'll be "that's one more dollar I'll have to work for". I have already experienced twinges of reaction, so it'll be interesting to see where my personal spending shakes out since I will be accountable solely to myself and won't be able to hide behind or within another's spending.