I'm on my soapbox

Oprah got me on my soapbox the other day so here goes--money. If you ever want to experience awkwardness, there’s a topic to bring up. I think I read one time where it’s the number one cause of divorce, too. I was talking to a friend the other day about money. See in our mid-twenties we are all at different places in our lives—some friends are still in graduate school, some single, some new parents, some homeowners, some renters, and we all have varying salaries. Our candid money discussion came to consensus that some people spend a lot of money on things we would not spend it on (I wish I could go on, but I don’t want to divulge her chat with me). She has always been thriftier than me. I’m pretty good, if I say so myself.

Continuing on about money, I was watching Oprah this week about a woman who was in denial about debt. They had an adjustable mortgage about to increase over 2k a month and hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card debt. I don’t want to judge them, but it makes me so sad for that family. Here was the point of the show: people all over live like this. I also believe this is a generational problem. Take my grandparents…depression era folks. The mantra on money was that they always thought tomorrow could bring a rainy day. Everything was paid in full, in cash. Weary of banks, distrustful of the government and stock market. Take my parents; on the tail end of the baby boom generation…this is really a mixed bag of folks. However, many of people my parents age watched their parents take advantage of the G.I. Bill to complete higher educations, move to the cities, and provide their families with more. I am a product of Generation Y. I have been disappointed by a sense of entitlement my generation seeming to flaunt a "Thirty Thousand Millionaire" attitude. In fact, I have even heard a lecture or two about feeling something is owed to me by my own parents. I think parents want to give to their children what they lacked, but sometimes when you give and never make your children “own” anything you wind up with a lazy, ungrateful byproduct. Ownership makes you value what is yours. It makes you work hard and take pride in your hard work I could go on and on about this, but parents please stop, you are doing a disservice to you kids. Do you really want to end up with children going on the MTV hit "Sweet Sixteen" where teens demand luxury cars, celebrity entertainers, designer threads all with snarly attitudes?

Ownership can never come too late. If you need to own it by looking up your free credit score annually. I went to https://www.annualcreditreport.com. I recommend if you don’t have a clue how you measure up, take that step of ownership!

I'm hopping off the soapbox for some shuteye!

Much love,