There may be no way short of plutocrat level wealth to cover potential medical bills. Books have been written about medical care price gouging and surprise billing (e.g. Markary The Price We Pay) giving examples where patients may end up with surprise bills in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Hopefully, our country will have the sense to make much needed changes to the healthcare system in the future.
It took dh a long time to get me on board to sell our family home. However, we knew that ds was not going to return to his home state in flyover country but rather stay in CA where he attended college. My dh simply did not want to maintain space that we would use, at most, twice a year. He also did not want to continue to pay state income taxes. We already owned a condo in Florida. It made the decision to sell and do the significant downsize a bit easier.
We only have the one ds, but among our friends who have multiple children scattered, I see with each passing year that the entire family all being together at the same time in the family home of origin is rarer and rarer. It just gets more infrequent as the adult children marry and have their own children who eventually move into all the busyness of childhood. I think this is why holidays become so fought over - it is the only time where everyone is all off work at the same time. Coordinating the work, school, and activities schedules along with giving equal time to the adult childrenâs spousesâ families increases the more adult children one has. At least, this is what I have observed among our friends who have older adult children than we. Especially when there are three or more adult children. Even if one sets a precedent of, say, âthe first week in August every year,â eventually that is not going to work for someone.
We are glad we did what we did. While I would love to be geographically closer to ds, I cannot imagine ever owning property in California. I donât know if people ever become âsettledâ anymore.
@IxnayBob, our bribe will be kayaking and heated saltwater pool and magnificent view. Riding stables next door. Quick walk to hiking trails. Paradise for road cycling. Not clear whether the bribe will be sufficient, because as @oldfort says, they are/will be busy building their careers and then layering families on top of that.
Plus as @oldfort says, it is far from impossible that ShawSon will do extremely well and might well be able to purchase a nicer place than we can afford. His proposal for us was to buy a place in the mountains in Wyoming or Nevada because he was sure heâd visit regularly (he was also thinking about locations that were favorable from a tax perspective).
And @Hoggirl, you are right that we should choose for ourselves, which is more or less what we are doing (though we are really choosing what ShawWife wants and much less what I want).
Agreed that itâs hard to cross back to academia. Especially now DH wouldnât want to deal with the stress of writing grant proposals to find fundings as young professors often have to. He wouldnât go that route now at this stage in his life. hence either a dean position or do his own research. Luckily his research typically involves pencils and papers at the beginning (lots of weird math), then endless coding (he does quantum/computational chemistry). So he doesnât need a lab to do what he wants to for the rest of his life.
@shawbridge, your job sounds really awesome!
Our kids are entrenched in the Pacific Northwest (or so we think), so we are staying put (unless Mr. lands a dream gig in CA). Our House2 has no pool or tennis court and is best described as âa new (to us) home with old holesâ lol - although baby kid always takes advantage of running 3-5 miles on the trail easily accessible from the house. I am a little worried that Mr. is too attached to the place⊠he really loves it here.
ââŠ(he does quantum/computational chemistry)âŠâ
My hat is off to him. Glad I am not doing THAT! 
BTW, a deanâs job is usually purely administrative⊠if he wants to do research, he might want to reconsider that path.
The dean position will tight him with the university as he likes to stay connected and collaborate, that would be the path that generates income. The other path he would just sit in a basement all day with his pencil, papers, and a computer :-). He knows what each path entails.
It is probably hard to do research when one is not in a community of researchers.
One son has his dream job, as his GF says: he has a 3 minute walk to work in NYC, dresses in a t-shirt, and does math all day. As I told him recently, every decent parent wants their kids to do better than them, I just had to wrap my head around the fact that it was happening while he is in his twenties. ?
Thatâs cool. And not to take anything away from anyone, but this could be the result of the âMatthew effectâ. I learned of this term for the first time when I read D19âs application essay. She attributed a lot of her achievements to the birth lottery, the result of the Matthew effectâŠI thought it was very insightful.
Itâs a good day when a post on CC gets me to Google a term. Thanks @Nhatrang ?
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@Nhatrang, very helpful term. Possibly accurate in that kids who do not accumulate lots of student debt probably feel freer to take career risks. The same skill set applied in different places may well produce different economic returns.
@Nhatrang Thanks for the new term. Did a bit of googling and I read some interesting articles.
We have structured our business and investments so that we should have a steady income in retirement. This is mainly real estate that generates income.
I also went to Mr Google, and watched part of a video explaining the Matthew Effect, and they used Tiger Woods as an example, and my mouth is still hanging open.
For those of us, too lazy to google or watch a video in it, could you summarize,arize why your mouth hangs open?
Actually, I googled the term. If I understood it right, I am not sure young kids doing well in tech is that. Tech is a booming field at the moment. Unless mainly the rich can get into the field, I donât see how it is related. If anything, tech could help leveling the playing field.
yeah, I donât get it either. Tech/CS is so hot now that grads from pretty much every college can get a good job. Doesnât matter if its HYPS (the rich getting richer) or Regional Tech U (the commuting poor getting richer).
No doubt that it is still true in Academia however, but then that is one area where pedigree matters, a lot.
In todayâs job market, tech/CS jobs at good pay are available broadly.
However, where the Matthew effect may come in to effect is in being able to start a firm at a younger age. I suspect that kids who are from well-do-do backgrounds that are more likely the security to start a firm (and hence have a very high income potential). But, I have no data regarding this. Access to top-tier VCs is probably easier from a good school (though not necessarily HYP but certainly S).
No doubt. As an example, Bill Gatesâ was at least upper middle class, as his dad was a big PNW lawyer. Itâs easy to take a flyer when the 'rents can backstop you if need be. Of course, plenty of new firms crash and burn!