Are You Financially Better Off than Your Parents?

Put that house in Oklahoma, and I'm guessing it costs one-third as much.

This one went on the market two months ago in Beverly Hills. Don't know why @TigerVols hasn't jumped on it. It can be had for a cool $79,500,000.

 

When I was 30-35, we went to Sunday dinner at a fellow sportswriter's house, an old-timer. He had a nice little home in a wooded area, about five miles out of the city. He had raised two children there, and had a big yard.

He bought it in 1954. For $6,000.

 

Same here.

 

I am substantially better off.

My parents made some disastrous financial decisions (the old man's substance abuse and gambling issues certainly didn't help) and I was in dire straits financially for many years until I met my wife who is so good with money and was so well-prepared for our first meeting with our current financial advisor that he told her she should be a co-worker, not a client. Our house has been paid off for years (when Huggy Jr, who will get it all as an only child, decides to sell it he'll probably get at least 10-15 times what we paid for it 1997) and my wife has done a great job setting us up for retirement.

I have a date in mind for it (no idea whether I stick to it) but when I do decide to leave I plan to do something that would have been unthinkable for me at 18: I plan to get a degree in history from the University of Toronto.

 

My wife was paid off in 2014, and I’m still recovering from that financial hit (along with everything she did to our finances when we were married.)

My dad worked in a factory for 12 years. After he was laid off, he went to work as a restaurant manager and started doing reasonably well before being seriously injured in a car accident. (He was making a delivery in torrential rain because his delivery driver called in sick.) My dad’s brother and my stepmother negotiated a settlement with workers compensation that has allowed her to take care of my dad full-time, which she has basically done for the last 35 years.

I’m doing reasonably well — I was lucky enough to be reasonably well-paid during my newspaper career, and have done ok since leaving the newsroom 20 years ago to work in tech. I have a 15-year mortgage which will be paid off, if all goes well, the year I turn 67. I carry a shitload of consumer debt, though, because my savings was wiped out in the divorce. I likely will need to work into my 70s.

The aforementioned ex-wife used the nearly six figures in alimony I paid to put herself through nursing school. She now works as a nurse practitioner, owns a million-dollar house, several investment properties and a Mercedes convertible. I’m happy for her.

 

That looks like the house where Harry and Megan filmed the Netflix episodes A short term rental for wannabes... not really for sale.

 

Yes ... and no ... and it's hard to tell.

 

Day to day? Absolutely (I make more in a year than they did in a presidency plus), they (and my grandparents) busted their ass*s so I would have the opportunity to go to college and law school. I tell my boys about how dinner at Happy Steak was a huge deal, they never went out or spent frivolously. At one time they had accumulated 2 homes and 10 rentals (we’ve liquidated now). I’m so proud of what they accomplished with one HS degree between one immigrant and a HS dropout from Idaho.

I don’t have that many properties but am not complaining in the least. At the end I might catch them but I don’t know (kids out of college helps)..

 

Me too, with Micro Jr.

OTOH, he shares an apartment with two others and pays about four times the rent I paid to live alone.

As has been pointed out here, it's the high cost of housing that hurts the current under-35 generation. Denver seems ridiculously expensive.

Luckily we bought in 1989, because by about 2005 we'd have been priced out of Microville had we been looking for a house with our salaries at that time.

 

My Dad passed on December 2 at the age of 81. I miss him terribly and would've gladly signed up for 81 more years.

He worked 27+ years in NYC transit, retired at 50 (1991) and spent the next 31 years collecting about $4,500/month in a pension and once he turned 62 tack on another $1,800 in Social security.

I do well. Have to have a couple irons in the fire to make what I want to make, but I've been willing to do that. Still Dad collected over $6K/month for nearly 20 years for doing nothing but going on cruises and collecting coins. He was my hero in life and remains my hero in death. He wasn't financially educated in the traditional sense, but he had an incredible plan and executed it to perfection.

 

I was hanging out one day with my buddy who was paying, get this, nearly 7 figures in alimony and he was saying how his daughter asked mom for her half of the tuition (per divorce) and she said "ask your dad he's got plenty of money".

He had the all-time saying "I'd rather be her (alimony of $1M) spot than mine (having to earn that $$)"

 

That's true. But being young and adventurous, the under-35 generation also tends to want to live in the most expensive places. Our one must-have when we retire is at least a half-acre of land and a large, fenced back yard for the dogs. That ain't happening in Denver. Or in a lot of places.

We really need to sell our St. Petersburg apartment to be able to get the best place possible. But have no idea how to do that in today's political climate (can't go there; can't conduct any business).