Growing Up and Keeping Up

Koo pointed out in her introductory post that how we're raised affects many of our attitudes about money. I thought I'd chime in with some notes about my own childhood. 

Both of my parents worked outside the home. My father was in finance, and he was the CFO of a dot-com for most of my adolescence. (I sort of knew that he "worked with computers", but I didn't find it very interesting.) My mother was a realtor when I was very small, and then became an elementary school teacher. From the time I was in school, she was in her own classroom in the same school. Before 3rd grade or so, I'd go to her after classes were done, until it was time to go home. After that, I walked or rode my bike home after school; it was less than a mile to the grade school, the middle school, and the high school (although by 9th grade I preferred to take the local bus instead of biking or walking, because I could sleep in). My grandmother often babysat me when I was an infant, and then I had a sequence of two or three in-home daycare situations and one after-school center (when I had half-days in kindergarten). I don't recall what arrangements were made for my younger sister in the couple of years before she went to nursery school during the day. 

My needs were all provided for, and many of my wants (plus several things that I wouldn't have thought to want, but that my parents provided for me anyway, like swim club membership, scouts camp, and more clothes than I ever was interested in). In fact, our family was quite well off, but while we lived in a very wealthy town, I never really felt like we belonged to that set. We lived in a modest house down the block from a mechanic's garage and the DMV. We didn't spend nearly as conspicuously as some of our neighbors, and I can't recall minding that, or feeling resentful as a child or teenager that I didn't have the same toys and things as other classmates. We had two cars at a time, though, like most of my peers, and they turned over fairly regularly when I was small. The station wagon was the same from when I was 5 until after I graduated high school, however. :)

Koo Here

So, like Boo said, we've been at this long distance thing for a while now and to be honest, it hasn't been easy. It's hard enough to try and make a relationship work when you live in the same general area but when you're an 8-plus-hour drive away and you need solace or something and it can't physically be given, yeah, that's tough.

But before you go thinking that this is more of an emotional pull to move up there, let me explain why the move is even happening.

1. School up there that can get me not only to finish my bachelor's degree, but also score me a teaching credential under one roof in the exact discipline I want without giving me a runaround or making me jump through hoops in fields I don't need to be jumping in? Give it to me.

2. My job as a CSA for a theatrical effects company has not been as fulfilling as I had hoped. There had been and has always been talk of moving me into sales; never amounted to anything. I speak two languages fluently, work with our German and Italian/Spanish distributors (and am the only one who can!), and it still gets me $12/hour. I take on tasks in our warehouse (I'd started there as a 1099 contractor) and now can handle shipping our products as well as building some of them (yes, I'm a girl who can solder) and what does it garner me: still $12/hour. I recently said that I love my job because I have it and in this economy, that's not saying much.

3. I wouldn't be lying if I didn't say that being near her would be a bonus. But she and I discussed the possibilities and we came to a "what better time than now?" opinion.

She and I have very different ideas on how to handle and discuss money. Being willing to share this much is going to be a challenge. Money was never discussed at home: Dad made it, Mom made it, and they both paid bills and groceries with it. Which isn't to say that it was plentiful; bellies went hungry in our home on occasion. We learned to stretch top ramen like no one's business and to this day, I consider having a loaf of bread and a jar of mayo a very big luxury.

Still, as my mom would say, sin pelos en la lengua.

Hey, there! You can call me Boo.

I have been in a long-distance relationship for more than a year, and my girlfriend (Koo) will be moving from Long Beach to San Francisco to live with me in January/February 2011. We're excited about planning a life together! We are planning out many practicalities of budgeting once we share a home: how we will divide costs based on our unequal incomes, how we will save for our joint projects (vacations and home improvements), how we will pay for grad school, how we will secure our futures in retirement.

Right now we're planning a budget using a spreadsheet template provided by Galia Gichon of DownToEarthFinance.com, as featured on DailyWorth.com. The focus is on Q4 2010 (pre-moving saving, holiday gifts, paying off my student loan, and starting my 401k contribution) and Q1 2011 (moving in together!, her finding a new job, starting to save for grad school, budgeting daily and monthly expenses for 2 instead of 1).  We're going to be completely transparent about how much money we earn and where it all goes.

We DO exist, we responsible young people. We want to do it right (without going into crazy credit card debt!). Koo and I want to do it together -- handle our income, savings, and debt -- and we might as well share the story.