Observation #12: What the hell happened to us?

There comes a weird point in your life when your parents become real people. You can have conversations with them. Talk as equals. Although I’m sure my mother still wouldn’t hesitate to grab a wooden spoon. She is tiny but she is mighty. I had a discussion with my folks about how they afforded to build my childhood home.

When you are a kid you are oblivious to the nuts and bolts of the operation. Food appears on the table and you just play soccer. You don’t know how it all gets financed. The one thing you do see is the effort. I know my parents worked hard. There is no question. How did my parents afford to build a house on their salaries?

My parents were not doctors and lawyers. I make more money than they did and yet I don’t think they would have ever carried as much debt as I do. They come from a generation that did not use credit. They bought it when they had it. It seems so simple. Make the money, spend the money. My generation does it ass backwards. Spend the money, make the money.

They are very conservative. They much prefer to invest their money in vehicles with guaranteed return. I would always say to them, “Mutual Funds, live a little”. They looked at them as voodoo. By doing so, they missed all of the market volatility of recent years that would have hurt their retirement nest egg. 

Despite their conservative investment strategy, they did one thing that seems completely contrary to their personalities. They bought a rental property in the 1980s. They bought it for cash from someone trying to quickly unload it. They cleaned it up. Rented it out. Sold it. They made crazy money. Enough money to be mortgage free when they built their new house. 

Not sure I would have the cojones to pull that off. More sadly, if I did and made my ass like they did, I would have surely bought many more rental properties. They didn’t. They didn’t re-up. They took the money and ran. That is discipline. That is what I lack. Not to generalize but I think my generation is in the same boat.

What happened to us? Did the success of our parents create a comfort level that killed our desire? The safety net always being there allowed us to take a university degree that wouldn’t lead to a job. Racking up debt because we always had what we needed as kids without seeing behind the curtain. Needing it now. Getting it now. We can complain all we want about demographics and how the baby boomers f**ked us. Instead of complaining about their lousy driving, instead of resenting them, let’s learn from them. Discipline.