3 Important Adulting Lessons I Taught My Daughters This Summer

September 22, 2017

A few years back I wrote about my daughters’ experience with having college roommates and the perils that can come along with that. Well, they did learn some valuable lessons about reading a contract before signing it and that it’s not always good to live with friends!

I’m super proud to say that one daughter graduated from The Ohio State University in May and accepted a nursing position at a local hospital. Her twin sister is in the home stretch and will finish in December so they decided to move to a smaller place and eliminate the roommate drama.

Letting them figure it out

I purposely took a step back during all this transition because it was time for them to handle the tasks I normally would do such as arrange the movers, help pack, and review the new lease – what my daughters call “adulting.” Their move was stressful – what move isn’t? – but fairly uneventful. And they learned a lot.

Teaching them to adult

But there are still some areas of adulting where they need my guidance before I’ll feel comfortable just letting them figure it out. Here are three that I focused on this summer:

1. Read and understand ALL your employee benefits. My daughter accepted her full time position in June and had thirty days to review and enroll in her benefits. Luckily she has a mom who works in financial wellness and can help her decide what makes sense for her.

For instance, she declined her medical insurance because I will continue to carry her on my company’s insurance (thank you Financial Finesse and the Affordable Care Act), and she would have stopped there if I hadn’t spoke up.

I suggested she read all the benefits and think about what else is important for her. She eventually enrolled in her 401(k) (10% at my insistence) and pet insurance for their 14 year old dog Cosby. Smart.

2. Think about the longer term. I really don’t like nagging, however it’s necessary sometimes when the outcome is important. My newly hired child learned that the hard way when she received her 1^st paycheck and realized that her 401(k) election hadn’t been processed. She emailed HR about the mix-up, got no response and gave up. That wasn’t going to work for me. I nagged her until she went to her HR department and had a representative correct the issue.

Why did I stay on her about this? Most new hires have 30 days to make benefit elections then must wait until open enrollment later in the year if they want to make changes. My daughter could have missed out on six months of 401k contributions plus the employer match – that’s $3,250. But over 40 years at a 7% return, that could grow to over $48,000! Now she understands why I pushed so hard for her to follow up.

3. Use your phone for more than texting and social media. Mind you, I appreciate the convenience of texting and using apps to stay connected, but when did talking on a cell phone become taboo? Maybe in 15 years when the Millenials and Gen Z’s are running the world this won’t be quite as important but for now, it’s sometimes necessary to call a person.

After their move, my daughters needed to update and pay their home and auto insurance. Somehow wires got crossed and the insurance was cancelled. My daughter emailed their insurance agent once she realized they had no auto insurance but didn’t get a reply.

She happened to mention this to me and I asked, “Did you call them?’ Her reply, “No.” My not-so-calm response was, “What?? This is urgent for you, so call the agent, leave a message if they don’t answer and get some insurance!” That did the trick.

What it means to adult

Adulting means taking responsibility for your actions and more importantly, the outcome of your decisions. Experience is teaching my daughters the importance of these lessons and thankfully they didn’t suffer any negative consequences.

Now if only my daughter would realize how much she spends on lattes, but that’s a lesson for another day. Perhaps Doug can help me when I’m ready to tackle that one…

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The Top 7 Reasons Saving is the Most Important Part of Adulting

June 01, 2017

I recently celebrated my 38th birthday, which I guess officially puts me in my late 30’s. As I reflect on the past couple decades, I find myself thinking about how the effect of saving money early on really made an impact on my life and helped me to “adult” better. For all those lucky kids just getting started with adulting, here are my top 7 ways that saving money from day one will help make it easier:

Saving money = more life choices

“Finding yourself.” You may still not know what you want to do when you “grow up” and that’s okay. In fact, I didn’t either — my first job interview after college was to sell newspaper advertising. Your early career years are a time to explore different career options. That means you’ll make a lot of mistakes. Having savings gives you the freedom to say “no” to a job or boss you hate in order to pursue something you’ll love.
Security. You may land a great job but find that sometimes things don’t work out on the employer’s end. As the last one hired, young people are often among the first to be let go. Think of your savings as the lifeline keeping you from mom and dad’s basement. Having what our CEO calls “FU money” also means the freedom to walk from a job when you need to.
Travel. One of my closest friends from college took a year off to travel the world shortly after graduation. If you’d like to do something similar, now is the time to do it before you’re tied down with obligations. Having money in the bank will make that a whole lot easier.
Marriage. Unless you plan to elope, weddings are expensive. And even if you do plan to elope or not marry at all, the cost of attending other people’s weddings can really add up too. Having money set aside allows you to make the most of these happy occasions.
Buying a home. An Australian billionaire recently stirred up controversy by blaming millennials’ inability to buy a home on their fondness for expensive avocados and coffee. He has a point. An increasing number of young people are putting off buying a home because they don’t have enough money for the down payment and closing costs. That means continuing to pay rent and helping someone else build equity instead of yourself.
Starting a business. Even the most brilliant business ideas aren’t typically profitable right away. In the meantime, you’ll still have bills to pay. That pressure for a quick buck could lead you to short-term thinking at the expense of the long term growth of your business.
Financial independence. Don’t think of it as “retirement” but as getting to the point where you work (or don’t work) as you want to. The sooner and the more you start saving, the sooner that day will come. Some people have even taken this to the extreme and retired before 40!

Don’t think of saving as deprivation. Think of the money in your bank as representing freedom. The more you have in there, the more options and freedom you have to live your life the way YOU want to.