This is a guest post by Anna Ivey, more on her at the end of this article.

The working world is a completely different beast from the college world, and the transition can be a bumpy one. There’s been a lot of talk about how Gen Yers demand meaningful responsibility on the job, and I’m all in favor of internships and starter jobs that offer opportunities for challenge and increased responsibility. However, you have to earn those things, and prove you can handle them.

I’ve also noticed a fundamental lack of respect by many twenty-somethings for the people they work for. That lack of respect can manifest itself in something as small as addressing an email or consistently refusing to follow — or even acknowledge — instructions. (And even if your boss is a drooling idiot, it’s in your interest not to reveal your contempt.)

The following eight tips might seem completely obvious to some people, but I’ve seen this behavior often enough that I’ll list the most common issues here, as simply and bluntly as I can.

1. Respect the English language.

If you can’t be bothered to spell properly when you’re writing to your boss or a customer, what does that say about you? We all fall victim to typos, and there are certainly different standards for text messages or wiki postings (or blog postings!) and more formal kinds of communications. But… ignoring the “shift” key altogether, when you’re writing to someone you’re supposed to impress? Not good. Same goes for proper grammar and precise vocabulary. Language is power. Don’t believe me? Read Orwell’s Politics and the English Language (“the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts”).

2. Banish “hey.”

Banish “hey” from your written communications (and spoken communications, for that matter).

Your colleagues are not your BFF’s (“hey dwight”), or even your MySpace/Facebook friends. They might turn into friends, but don’t impose that casual familiarity unless and until the relationship warrants it. Posting a message on someone’s Facebook wall and writing an email to your boss are two completely different things. (I remember calling someone a few years back to offer him a job, and thinking how badly I wanted to retract the offer when he told me how “stoked” he was. Argh.)

3. Follow directions, and don’t make your boss ask twice.

If your boss asks you to put the customer name in a header for all of your project documents, don’t send him a document without the customer name in the header. Simple, right? And if your boss has to remind you, don’t make him remind you again.

4. Don’t ask for clarification of perfectly unambiguous instructions.

If you’re asked to get the TPS reports on your boss’s desk by the afternoon, don’t ask him, “When do I need to get you those reports?” Or if you’re asked to restrict your report to 5 pages, don’t send him an email asking, “Is that a hard limit?” Your boss’s time has value, and stupid questions tend to waste his time. (Contrary to the brainwashing you’ve received in school, there is such a thing as a stupid question.)

5. Just OK is not enough.

Every day that you show up at work is another day you need to justify your employment. If you’re not doing your best, why should they keep you? Your job is not pass/fail, and the job interview never really ends. Don’t wait until your first performance review to shape up.

6. Tell your parents to butt out.

Don’t ever — EVER — let your parents contact your employers. If you want to be respected as a mature, independent professional, act like one and leave mommy and daddy out of it. Expecting your employers to deal with your parents is beyond lame. They hired you — not your parents — and it’s not a package deal.

7. Get used to grunt work.

I don’t care how smart or “entrepreneurial” you are, or how impressed you are with yourself, or how great your parents think you are. When you’re starting out in the working world, you’re going to do a lot of grunt work. It’s the only way to learn the ropes, and nobody is above it. Nobody. If you think you deserve to be entrusted with matters of importance in a starter job, you have delusions of grandeur. Plus, true entrepreneurial types do plenty of grunt work, and they don’t complain about it, because they know it needs to get done if the overall project or venture is going to succeed.

8. Understand your role.

As long as you’re reporting to someone, understand that your job is to make her life easier, not the other way around.

Anna Ivey, a recovering lawyer, decided the fates of thousands of applicants as former dean of admissions at a top-ten law school and now works with high school students and twenty-somethings to help them make smart choices in school, at work, and in life. Anna has appeared on CNN and Fox News Channel, and has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Business Journal, Fortune.com, Smart Money, and Marie Claire. Anna speaks at colleges around the country and publishes The Ivey Files, a blog for twenty-somethings, the parents who love them, and the bosses who manage them. Learn more about Anna at www.annaivey.com.

I am proud to present the third and final installment of the discussion between Saladdin and Tim with regards to gifts, which was spawned from a post I wrote about ideas to solve the 20% down payment dilemma. Tim and Saladdin come from two different schools of thought. As we’ve read in prior parts, Tim argues that one should not judge the gifter and simply be honored to be receiving the gift. Whether the gifter is a parent, relative, or someone else; one should accept the gift graciously instead of rejecting it out of hand. Saladdin comes from the perspective that one should not accept charity and one should work for their share in life. Both perspectives are powerful and both are certainly understandable. In this final chapter, we tie up some loose ends.

Part 1 and Part 2 are available if this is the first time you’ve seen this discussion.

Saladdin: Just as I do not think you are running around with your hand out yelling give me, give me you shouldn’t think that I am running around murmuring under my breath “Those lucky rich bastards. I really pity them driving dad’s car.” I don’t lose sleep over others. Yes I think about this stuff but in a way that I try to learn what really makes me tick. I want to understand my thought processes while maybe fixing some loose wires.

I would like to answer the question about being a parent to my girlfriend. (All the sex jokes aside here since we are just a couple of friends talking over a few beers.) I just don’t see the reasoning. It is a give and take relationship. I never consider the help a gift because of that reason. It is no more a parent relationship then with your marriage. Do you not help her? Would you stop helping her? Can she not leave you also? I just don’t see the difference. I guess you are a parent to your wife also. Maybe I just did not explain myself well enough.

I lived in Japan for 2 years. I never knew that such an importance was placed on the color of envelopes until then. Of course I was just a kid who had never been out of my home state except to see some Cardinal games.

Maybe I am getting too philosophical but off the top of my head I can’t think of too many things that do not have strings attached. Isn’t an obligation a string? As a parent, brother or husband do you and I not have obligations that are automatic and come with the territory by birth alone? Are those not strings?

The definitions of pity and jealousy, I think, separate us. They are both legitimate, human emotions and I have them both. I’m not jealous of my friend or you for that matter. As an adult I can’t recall whispering “Boy I wish I had that instead of him…” I have another friend that last week won 100K in the lottery. His wife was laid off work just last month. When he told me the thought of jealousy never entered my mind. I was actually happy for him. Of course I had to bite my tongue when he told me his spending plan. But that is another story.

But again, what is wrong with having pride?

I think we are closer then you realize in our opinions. You mention your friend and the parents buying them a house and the difference in values. Also to me it is not the gift itself but the values behind it. I think I phrased it as the way the gift was received not the gift itself.

I would like to ask do you think it right to solicit for a gift. Is it ok for someone to go to their parents and ask for 20% down?

Tim: There is nothing wrong with soliciting the 20% down payment either. If your friends and family can afford to do so and chooses to do so, why not. They in fact do have the ability to say no. We have no qualms about soliciting money from a bank, yet we somehow have an issue with soliciting money from family.

Perhaps it is the way you are explaining your relationship with your girlfriend that makes it seem you are acting the parent. We already know you acted the parent for your brother. Your expectations for her out of your assistance. It isn’t a mutual sounding relationship. We also know that she doesn’t need the assistance as she comes from a family of means.

I guess you could wax poetics all day long about pride. Many philosophers and writers have. There is nothing wrong with pride,
whether it be a proud parent wanting to continue supporting his children, or earning everything on your own…only when it turns to
hubris does it interfere with rational reasoning. I use to have the mentality that I was going to do everything on my own. Then I realized, sometimes it is ok to have others help you.

Money isn’t the end all, and it doesn’t define us. To say that somehow getting 20% from family and friends is wrong or somehow defines you and your legacy as a person, is putting an importance on money that does not exist.

With that, this epic three part introspective, for Tim and Saladdin, was very eye opening. Tomorrow I’ll write up a post in which I share my thoughts on the matter, which may or may not be of interest to you all. Again, if you have thoughts or points you want to mention with regards to what these gentlemen have said, the comments are open.

This contest is now closed.

The fine folks at FSB Associates send me two copies of Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman’s Negotiation Genius and I’m giving them away to the fine readers of Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. If you read my review of Negotiation Genius, you’ll remember that I thought this book was excellent, which isn’t surprising since it’s finds it origins from the Harvard Business School.

So, in order to win you simply need to leave a comment with your one best negotiation tip. It can be a tip when you’re sitting at the negotiation table, it can be a tip about research and preparation, or it can be something pointing to the psychology behind negotiation. I will select one commenter at random and the one comment that I feel is the best negotiation tip of the bunch. The one I feel is the best is entirely subjective, so by entering you agree to the rules as I’ve explained and agree not to contest the results.

This contest will end on 31 October with the ghosts and the goblins and I’ll draw a name the next day.

I have a confession to make… given the limited amount I’ve written about making sure your investment assets are properly diversified, you’d think that my assets would be diversified right? I write about it often enough that I can’t possibly claim that I just didn’t think about it. In reality, I’m actually pretty lazy and lax when it comes to making sure I’m totally diversified but luckily, and I know this only because I did the math yesterday, I’m actually properly diversified – except it’s not entirely by design, which makes it bad nonetheless.

Last night I started wondering if I actually was properly diversified across all my investment accounts because I have a relatively complex retirement account structure. It’s not incredibly complex but I have a Roth IRA, a SEP-IRA, a 401(k), and a Rollover IRA. It’s more than the vanilla and likely more common configuration of just a Roth IRA and a 401(k), or similar deferred taxation employer sponsored retirement account; but ultimately the point is that I have four accounts. That’s four accounts with four interfaces with four asset distributions. If you abstract away the accounts and just look at the funds, I have around eleven securities. I have four custom ones inside my 401(k), two different Target Retirement Funds (Vanguard’s 2045 and 2050), a Total Market Index mutual fund, an S&P Index mutual fund, and three stock holdings.

Does Diversification In One Account Mean Diversification Across All Of Them? Potentially, that’s what I did and I got lucky. The problem is that your funds will grow at different rates so after a year or so, unless you’re rebalancing, your diversification will be out of whack. If you have target retirement or lifecycle funds, those allocations will change under you without your knowledge (this is why they warn not to use it with other funds, because the allocations change). A lot of factors come into play so it becomes important to double check your allocations at least once a year, when you rebalance.

I Lucked Out. After looking at all the funds and doing some math, I plugged it all into a speadsheet I made, I was pretty surprised to learn that I actually had 92.23% of my assets in equities (stocks), 5.55% of my assets in bonds, 0.86% in cash, and 1.36% in an “other” category. Is that correctly diversified? According the 120 rule, yes. It says that I should have 120% minus my age (27.167) invested in stocks, the rest in bonds. I should have 92.83% in stocks, compared to the actual of 92.23%, that’s pretty darn close for being completely by accident.

Consider Other Diversification Rules Too. 120 minus age only refers to the stock/bonds mix, it doesn’t consider other lines of diversification such as small cap vs. large cap (within equities) or domestic vs. international exposure. I don’t know any of these rules off hand, I don’t think there are any, but you’ll want a little bit of exposure in those dimensions as well.

Ultimately, you want to be on top of your retirement assets because it’s one of the most valuable assets you’ll have as you age. While it was easy for me to just let it fall to the wayside, confident that since I was diversifying my individual accounts, it wasn’t the right thing to do and it’s something I’ll have to review once a year when I rebalance.

This is Part 2 of a piece that began when Tim and Saladdin began debating in a post on ideas to help solve the 20% home down payment dilemma, continued on through email, and Part 1 is available here. Here is the continuation of that debate.

Saladdin: You are only the second person in 15 or so years who
recognized the username. I devour history, especially military history. After 9-11 I waited for some comment on the name but it never came.



You say a gift is a gift but would you not feel some sort of obligation to help the gifter out if they fell in to some financial troubles. Would that not be considered “strings attached” although it is unsaid? Could you turn down your friend who handed over 10K for a down payment now that he is broke because all his sugar futures are worthless ?(I know a guy who lost his shirt in sugar).



I am not married (and not a believer in it either but that is another conversation) but I do not see what I do for my girlfriend as a gift. If a gift has no strings attached then this would not qualify. I do expect something from her. I expect her to take her education and better our life, together. So I do have stake in her success and failures. There is give and take, not just giving. I am financing our betterment. So since I am receiving something from this, I do not see it as a gift. But honestly, it does feel good. I do understand the swelling of feelings inside when someone helps out another person. But for the most part I am not boastful about it. I never say to her “I am the reason you are able to do this.” She is doing it for me also. That is where I think there is a difference.



My best friend of 25 years and his wife live in a house given by his parents. This is not a mansion or newly built house. Just a simple 85K house (Tennessee home prices). He drives for UPS and she is a nurse with no kids. But yet they stay in the house rent free when they can afford to it alone. I thought about what you said about “looking down” on others. It’s not that. It’s pity. I pity people that do not care for themselves when able to do so. This doesn’t mean I dislike them or hold them in disgust. It is just my feeling about the situation. I am human and have these worthless feelings no matter how hard I try. And I know pity is a wasteful feeling and not helpful in any way, I admit that. I thought for the longest time that it was jealousy ( in regards to my friend and wife). But he is a 30 year old man who still carries his parents checkbook (and I mean an actual checkbook) with him in case of emergencies. How can I be jealous of that? I save jealousy for anyone with Angelina Jolie.



I am legitimately curious, if the gifter returned and said they needed that money back if you would return it by selling the house? Maybe this is a stretch but do you see my point. There are always strings of some sort attached, either said or unsaid. You said your wife has a hard time with these gifts. Maybe you can sleep at night but it sounds as if she doesn’t.



If it doesn’t make your wife feel “right” then should that not be a sign that something may be wrong with accepting the gift?



When are parents done taking care of their children?



See if this makes sense. It is not the actual item that I feelings about (for example jealousy because someone has a new car and mine is crappy) but the way that item was achieved. What do you think? That make any sense?



I would love to be a cliché. I was born the son of a poor sharecropper (where’s that from?). I try to live my life in a way that I can sleep easy at night. Sometime’s I do, sometimes I can’t. I am a good friend and good brother. So much so my brother named one of his sons after me and even my sister named her daughter after me. So I must be doing something right (my philosophical side shining).

Tim: Again, a gift in of itself is simply that. If you continually choose to look for the strings attached to it, then no, you will never consider a gift for the sake of a gift. Sometimes it isn’t a matter of if you can do it alone either.

Again, it isn’t always about you. You’ve mentioned several cases, all with strings, all with the condition that reverts back to reciprocity if the person now becomes stricken by poverty. I don’t feel there is an obligation of reciprocity simply by virtue someone gave you a gift. Presumably the person is a very good friend or family in which case, I would do all I could to help them out, but never on the condition that we received a gift in the past. You either help them out because you have compassion for your family and friends or you don’t.

My wife’s feelings were based on stubbornness, too. Her parents genuinely do not consider anything they give to her as continued support for their daughter. They give because they want to, and she accepted this. Since when did charity or gift giving become a condition for caring for someone and an expression therein? I for one would refuse a gift if there was such a great burden of expectation hanging over my head.

What happens if your girlfriend doesn’t succeed, or succeeds then chooses to leave you? Surely it is no longer for the betterment of both of you. Do you pity her as you do your best friend, because your girlfriend’s family does have the means to support and educate her? You might consider yourself feeling pity, but it is condescending to think that just because people are generous, they are not acting out of purely benign reasons. Pity isn’t when someone who can afford something but doesn’t have to pay for it, it is jealousy. It’s jealousy, because you have had to do it on your own all your life, and you expect that others should have to live life the same way. If it really is pity, do you think someone far richer than you really cares that you pity him for being wealthy? Conversely, if you are giving a gift (there have been many posts on the subject of financial gifts and/or loans to relatives/friends), then there should be clarity in the gift in of itself without reciprocation. Really, it doesn’t matter if a gift is $1 or $1million, because the value of the gift isn’t what is important: it is the act of giving and receiving.

Talking about giving house down payments as a gift. We have friends who just married. The girl’s parents had planned on financing a down payment for the house ($300k on a $1.5m house) as a gift, while the guy’s parents were going to pay half the mortgage payments every month through his work as part of his pay package. Because there was a minor delay in transferring money from the parents’ bank accounts to theirs for the down payment, the girl’s parents simply decided to pay for the house outright. With them, there was no hesitation or second guessing in receiving the gift. My wife and I talked about this on several occasions, not because of the gift, but because of our friends’ values. They still have their parents’ credit cards, have gotten expensive cars from their parents (porsche, mercedes), and their salaries are essentially spending money. They are in their late 20s. We realized our values are not the same.

The parents’ credit cards were not renewed after we were married, no more free cars, and our salaries are used for our budgeting goals. Now, we are in a similar situation where we’ve been promised a house since our siblings each have received houses (each over $1m). We are on the fence about this and have had many conversations about it. We didn’t accept red envelops at our wedding (Asian Wedding), because we wanted people to enjoy the celebrations and despite the fact that not accepting red envelops is considered a bit arrogant (considering we had 1200 people at the wedding, the money would have been quite substantial). We are still planning on buying our own house and saving for one on our own, but the gift offer is still out there. I don’t know if we will accept it, we both feel that we can do things on our own. At the same time, we do understand that the gift is out of generosity and our parents seeing us, no matter our age, as their children and wanting to continue helping them out.

If we do accept the house, we will undoubtedly put the money towards our children (when we have them). Our fathers have earned their lives from nothing to means. They did so, because they valued their families and wanted a better life for them. We all on some level want to think that we have earned our life. This doesn’t mean that we can’t accept gifts. To go around all your life pitying others for their means, is no way to live your life nor is going through life thinking someone is only giving because they want reciprocation in the future. We also want to do it on our own, but we aren’t naive to think that our parents’ gifts cannot make our lives easier as well as our children’s lives, no matter our means. When does being a parent end?

Whenever the parents decide they want it to end, because sometimes parents want to continue being parents and you simply have to let them. After all, you are the reason they earned a better life in the first place. How can you take away from them what they have worked their entire life to earn? Of course, your situation is different and earning your life on your own is what you know. At the same time, you are being the parent between you and your girlfriend. Are you at some point going to stop supporting her? Highly unlikely if you plan to stay with her. I don’t know yet if we will accept a house or not. We surely aren’t living our lives as if we are going to accept it.

Whew! Still here? Share your thoughts below! (I’ve turned on comments this time!)

Yesterday I was telling one of my friends that the futures market for the Nasdaq and the S&P were down. He remarked that while he understood the idea of futures on a conceptual level, he didn’t really know what it meant when it said -14 or -12 S&P futures vs. fair market value. As I tried to formulate a response, I actually didn’t really know what the difference was. I did a little research into what those values meant and while I’m not 100% confident in my response, I wanted to put it on the site and hopefully you all can tell me I’m right or wrong.

S&P futures vs fair value: +4.8. Nasdaq futures vs fair value: +12.3. .

A futures contract is it’s an agreement to buy or sell something at a particular price on a particular date in the future. So in the case of the S&P futures, it’s a security pegged to the S&P’s performance and that’s what’s up for sale. A future is a lot like an option except with an option you have a choice in whether you want to exercise the option. With a future you are obligated to exercise it, so you are obligated to buy or sell that security on the particular date.

What does it mean when the future is priced at 5.0? I believe each futures contract is for 100 units (option contracts are like this) and the price is specified in units, so that means to buy the futures contract you would need to pay $500. When you say that the S&P futures are trading at -14 to the fair market value, that means, after you factor in interest and dividends, a contract is selling for $1400 than the fair market value of the contract.

Ultimately, what can I do with this information? I’m not entirely sure other than the general notion that investors believe the market will go down. If they are trading for above fair market value, then in general investors believe the market will go up. I don’t think you can read anything other than a general notion from those values, even if you compare them, because there are so many other factors. For example, pre-market yesterday (Monday 22nd October 2007), the futures were down in the negative low teens and the market ended up for the day after being down to start.

If you have an experience or information to share, please do, I’m a complete novice in this and would love to hear from some more experienced folks out there.

I haven’t written a Devil’s Advocate post in a while, the last one was about how you shouldn’t move from job to job (and that one was a month away from the DA post before that), but this one is a doozy and quite appropriate given our current home and mortgage climate. A lot of folks now are in trouble because they bought too much house. They were able to buy too much house because credit was cheap and lenders were greedy, so a lot of riskier ARMs, no credit down, no documentation-type loans are now impacting the rest of us.

This is about the time you say: “Woah woah, Jim, slow down. You’re going to give us a post about how we should buy more house than we need after just telling us that people’s live have been beaten down because of unscrupulous lending?”

Yes. Now, here’s where I pull out a bit of a wordsmith on you, I’m recommending that you consider buying more house than you need, not more house than you can afford. Ah ha! I’m sure you all can appreciate the subtle distinction between the two and it’s the latter that got people in trouble. Here’s why you should buy more house than you need…

You Will Grow Into Your House

I’m engaged and I live in a house with approximately 2400 square feet, four bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms (one of the bedrooms and full bathrooms is in the basement, so it’s a bit of cheating in the listing). Two people don’t need 2400 square feet of space, they could easily live in a 900 square foot apartment and many do. The fact of the matter is that the townhouse we’re in is much bigger than we really need, but the idea is that you grow into a house. Since the transaction cost of a new home is so high, you want to look a few years into the future and consider how much house you’ll need in the future instead of just how much you’ll need now. 900 square feet is fine for two, but it’s not so good if you have more.

Happiness Is More Important Than Money

Some would argue that it’s more important to save your money, buy only as much as you need right now, and plan for the future. I would argue that that’s a bunch of crap. Retirement is very important but your happiness right now is just as important, there’s no sense needlessly suffering now just as there’s no sense in ignoring the future and blowing all of your money today. In that middle ground you’ll find that if having a larger home, enjoying the more luxurious features, and living a little in the now makes you happy then by all means get a little more house. I’m extremely happy in my home right now, it’s more than we need, but it’s not so much that I’ve leveraged the future in order to buy it. It’s not a mansion, it’s not ridiculous, but I’m happier in this home than I would be in a 900 square food condominium.

Transaction Cost of Changing Homes Is High

As I mentioned earlier, the transaction cost of changing homes is extremely high. After you consider all the fees, taxes, and other costs related to the selling of your home and the purchase of a new home, you’re talking thousands and thousands of dollars just to change your address. So, you would like to reduce the number of times you need to do this by purchasing a little bit more than what you’ll need right this moment. Ask any mother (or father, whoever buys the clothes) you know and ask them how they purchase clothing for their young children. If her kid is a size X, she’s buying a size x+4 because that little tyke is going to grow out of that size in about five minutes. It’s the same idea, but on a larger scale.

Higher Priced Home Means Greater Appreciation

If your home appreciates at 4% a year, then wouldn’t it be better to have that 4% be working on $300,000 than on only $100,000? Well of course it would be! The higher the price your home commands, the greater is appreciable base is. While you do have greater costs associated with a more expensive home, the fact of the matter is that the nominal dollar amount of the appreciation is going to be so much greater with a more expensive home.

In closing, it’s important to note that when I say, as a Devil’s Advocate, that you should buy more house than you need right now, I also want to recommend that you keep within your budget as well. I mean you might want to consider stretching a little bit but don’t leverage your future just because you “might” need it one day. Consider buying more house than you need, but don’t buy more house than you can afford.

In my post about ideas to solve the 20% home down payment dillema, I suggested that one turn towards gifts from parents and relatives to help lighten the burden of coming up with a 20% down payment. In the comments, Tim and Saladdin started debating the issue of these large monetary gifts and the issues surrounding it within the comments. I asked both if they’d be willing to continue the debate on email and if I could capture it, I was thrilled when they agreed. Both have been commenting on BFP for quite some time, as of this writing Tim has 111 comments, and both are very smart and quite eloquent writers (based on their comments and their emails). What you’re about to read is extremely long (and it is only Part 1 of a multi-part series) but it is incredibly passionate and insightful to both sides of the issue.

One thing of note, while the conversation does have personal elements and both use strong language, this never got personal. I pulled out some parenthetical text and some opening and ending statements (mostly to the effect of, ‘hey this isn’t personal,’ etc).

I asked Saladdin to go first.

Saladdin: To me it is simple. Why would an adult need to take the money? This is not money to feed your kids or keep the electricity on. To me taking the 20%, and lets admit this is not $200 but someone’s hard earned money, is akin to begging. Whose responsibility is it to save for a house? Haven’t mom and dad already struggled enough?



I was thinking about this on my hour drive home from work. I am 33 and graduated high school in 1992. I am probably the only person ever not to send out graduation invitations because he thought it felt too much like taking a handout.



Just to back up a second. How could I look at myself in the mirror knowing I was taking someone else’s money that they had saved for years to put back. It would take a strong parent to turn down their kid asking for money, even if it was their only savings and would put them in a bind.The parent would never admit it caused them financial harm. Should this not be a variable? How many save in their 30′s so that they can pay for their kids house?



I graduated from high school and raised my brother until he was 18. I did this with no help from parents. When he turned 18 I enlisted in the military and saved every penny I could. Once I separated I went to school full time. From my first semester of college to my last was 10 years. I am the middle of 3 kids and the only one to graduate high school much less undergraduate and graduate degrees. Now I admit I took grant money and that was a hard decision. But I rationalized it as my tax dollars anyway. What is your opinion on that?



Do I feel as if I have earned my life? Hell yes I do. I know without a doubt what’s mine is mine and I earned it. Whatever happened to that feeling? Do people not believe in that anymore? Earning your own way…Buying your own house.



My girlfriend of over 4 years is fully aware of my opinions on this. Her family has a business that
grosses 500K annual. They employ only 6-7 people so you can see the money floating around. Her two sisters have their hands out all the time because of cars being repo’ed or house’s being foreclosed on. And are always being bailed out of money problems. I pay for her school (among most all things) even though we do not live together (her dad died and her mom took it
very badly so she stays with her mom). Ok, you may look at this as giving her a handout but like
marriages (no, we are not) we are a team and it is my job to give her a better shot at life. As she would with me. Again, I am talking about supplying money/support for education/life not a lakeside view on a beach. More rationalizing I wonder?



When my girlfriend questions some of my money motives (for example I refuse to accept Christmas presents from her mom but not out of dislike or birthday presents)I tell her “I slept 13 miles from the Iraqi border with a loaded M-16. I can take care of myself.” Yes this is overly dramatic and has now become an inside joke for us. But she realizes I mean it. That I can take care of myself and her. I’ve proved it. I did not have to run for help from grandma.



Maybe it is because of pride or ego. But what is wrong with that? What is wrong with wanting to be proud of accomplishing something on my own. Of saying, “Yes it is not the best house on the block but it is 100% mine, not 80% mine and 20% dad’s.” How can I sleep in a house that was partially paid for by my parents? How can that house be called “mine”?



Let me end with this. If you sold the house would you give that 20% back? What if your parents came back to you and said they needed that money back for retirement. Would you sell the house? All I know is that I wouldn’t have too. I would have bought my own home.

Tim: Sometimes a gift is a gift. If someone has the means and the desire to provide a substantial gift, then why not? It is truly an ego and pride thing, if one cannot accept a gift in of itself. Your history suggests that you have a difficult time accepting gifts without thinking there are strings attached. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to “earn” your life; however, there is also nothing wrong with accepting gifts.



Sometimes it isn’t about you: people want to give gifts, because it makes them feel good to do so. My wife has a hard time accepting things from her parents, because she feels that they have done enough to raise her; however, I remind her that it isn’t about her, it’s about them. They want to give her things, because they can and they feel good about doing so. Part of it is cultural. The premise that you’ve had to work for everything that you have ever earned is admirable, but it is again also a pride issue. It helps you justify not having. Again, nothing wrong with this. However, everyone needs help or charity at some point in their lives (as you mentioned you accepted grants). If you refuse it, because you want to “earn your life”, then, yes, it is a
pride issue. If you can “earn” it on your own, then more power to you. If you cannot but are still unwilling to accept charity or a gift, then it is simply born out of stubbornness.



The great thing about gifts is that there are no strings attached. I’m sure you are happy to give gifts and consider yourself generous: you are paying for you girlfriend’s school on the premise of giving her a shot of a better life and being a team. She is over 18, her family does have the means to support her (company earning over $500k/year), and you aren’t married are you not? So why is it alright for you to give a gift, but not to receive one? Do you now own an x% of her life that she needs to repay, because you paid for her education? Can you sleep at night having financed her education and life? What happens when you don’t get married? Don’t take it wrong, but your life is a cliché for the poor kid who looks down on people with means, and struggles for inclusion into the group because you want to prove and show them you earned it all on your own.



Are wealthier people that much happier (obviously not as you’ve mentioned your girlfriend’s family)? Do you really want someone far wealthier than you saying, oh look at poor [Saladdin], he can’t even afford a nicer house because he didn’t accept a gift that could have gotten him into a nicer house? What was the premise for not accepting a gift again? That’s right you look down on people who receive gifts because it is a handout and they didn’t earn their life. Do you think the same of your girlfriend? It is in fact the same. Again, no arguments about wanting to earn your own way through life; however, there is something condescending about someone who gives charity and gifts, but cannot accept them in return.



It is interesting that you chose (Saladdin) Salah al-Din as your username. Salah al-Din was a
great, fierce warrior. He died penniless, without a dime left to pay for his funeral. He had given all his wealth away by the time he died.



It took a gift to pay for his funeral. Sometimes a gift is a gift.

The comments are open and waiting for your opinion, experiences, and impressions! I originally was going to turn off commenting and have you read all the parts (there are a total of four) but decided against it. I want you all to not make it personal, as in this isn’t about Saladdin or Tim, but keep it to the topic at hand – whether or not accepting gifts is acceptable. If things turn into comments about the two participants and not the topic, I’ll shut down the comments and go with the original plan. Thanks!

I made the mistake of not turning comments back on after changing my mind! Sorry!

Part 2 to follow…