<p>My D was shocked at the price of steak at the grocery store near campus. She wanted to buy the cheapest cut and I told her she’d have to stew it if she wanted to be able to eat it. She said, “Wow, meat and food is SO expensive!” I agreed and knew that she was FINALLY paying attention. LOL! When we or S are in town, we try to take her grocery shopping, as she doesn’t have a car. Now that she has a Costco card (courtesy of brother), she can probably get friends to take her shopping as well. :)</p>
<p>My kids have a lot of friends who are trying to minimize debt and are not trying to impress anyone. Really like their low-key friends. ;)</p>
<p>cobrat, I didn’t tie myself down. I spent the year after I graduated from college travelling around the country on a grant and the next three years on opposite coasts from my husband to be. I certainly didn’t go to college looking for a mate. A good portion of my friends paired up in college, but many found partners later.</p>
<p>My son was shocked to find out how much it cost to make a blueberry pie - he sticks to apples when it’s his money!</p>
<p>OP, bravo on ratcheting things up over time for your son. He’ll figure it out. I have many friends in the music business and they know they need to get gigs to make ends meet, and they do in order to do what they love.</p>
<p>Wow, Mathmom! Your S is more ambitious than either of mine in cooking/baking. Guess they never saw me bake a pie and haven’t taken it up either. Don’t believe either of them use their ovens much at all.</p>
<p>For our family, folks ranged from 22/23 to 40+ when they got married. We’re all still happily married. We all met a lot of different folks getting our grad degrees–some had piles and piles of family money while others had even more modest means than our family. Half my family really loves “bling” and “flash & dash” while the rest of us honestly do not care and just like being “comfortable.” Not quite sure why, but I find it interesting.</p>
<p>OP, kudos to your S if he (singly or with a spouse) can bring in $150K-$200K/year. That would be great money indeed. Don’t believe either of my kids expect to make such money & we consider S to be doing VERY WELL bringing in less than 1/2 to 1/3 of that sum for his starting salary.</p>
<p>OP, every challenge presents our young adults with lessons. When your son complains about what he wants that you cannot afford or will not pay for, you can give him a hug and tell him he’s a man with a special appreciation for some very fine and expensive things. You, on the other hand, are not a bottomless well of $$. Now that he’s determining his values (as opposed to yours), he should consider carefully how he plans his career path. He should not ignore his apparent need for new phones and might have to take jobs that will make that possible.</p>
<p>Kids react differently to school peers who seem to have all the $$ in the world. Some people do seem less influenced by wealthy lifestyle items, while others place value on material things. It’s a good thing to know about oneself, which is exactly what OP’s son seems to be finding out.</p>
<p>My son attends an OOS on a National Merit ride (includes tuition and housing, among the other goodies). Every once in a while, we hear about so-and-so whose parents give him or her anything that he or she wants – from new cars to cruises to expensive closing to unlimited spending money. Does he become annoyed with us, because we are not in that position? Sure, and then he realizes that he is better off that he needed to work for everything he wanted. Some of his friends expect the National Bank of Mom or Dad to continue to pay everything forever, or at least it seems that way. The reality check for them will be harsh.</p>
<p>This thread has been pretty eye opening for me… </p>
<p>Simplelife, I think once your son is out of school he will come back to that down to earth kid that you sent off to the “Bubble” a few years ago. As his friends will all be in the same boat just starting out and the financial support from the parents will be cut back.</p>
<p>Please don’t let it bother you. Many kids say all sorts of mean/entitled things to their parents at this age. He has no idea he is being as much of a jerk as he is. He probably won’t even remember all these things he is spouting off. </p>
<p>Tell him his comments hurt your feelings. </p>
<p>The son you knew is in there…he has been dipped in a vat of “brattiness” and it will wear off with the abrasions of living life.</p>
<p>I think most 18-22 year olds (whether in the bubble or not) have a poor understanding of money. We were hugely transparent with our kids growing up about what we earned, how much things costs, why certain things were not in the budget even if we had “enough money” to pay for them (i.e. would have had to sacrifice other things) and even then, my kids were shocked to discover how much of their salaries were taken out for taxes, health insurance, etc. And the first time the new grad had a routine doctors visit and discovered what a co-pay was… oh my god.</p>
<p>So a lot of this settles down within the first year after graduation if you don’t enable them. Let your S know that you will always love him unconditionally but that your financial support ends on X date. By then he will need health insurance, a roof over his head, car insurance and all maintenance expenses, etc. and if he likes eating, there should be some cash allocated to food as well.</p>
<p>He’ll figure it out. The hourly wage that sounds so huge when multiplied by 24 (after all, there are 24 hours in a day, right?) starts to get cut down to size after graduation. My kids who could earn $100/hour as tutors quickly learned that the pool of people who want to pay that is extremely small… i.e. 4-5 hours a weeks worth. And doesn’t provide major medical either. And out of that $100/hour comes taxes and social security.</p>
<p>Your son will also discover that the life of a freelance musician has its trade-offs. Whatever hourly wage he can earn gets knocked down to earth once he realizes he has to pay for all his benefits out of pocket, plus estimated taxes, etc. And then reality sets in.</p>
<p>You can continue to remind him that you are doing him a favor by not upgrading his phone, thereby saddling him with technology and a data plan that he won’t be able to afford once he’s on his own!</p>
<p>To the OP - I think that a lot of young people go through this. I also think that eventually most of them “get it”.</p>
<p>In our case, we live in a very affluent area and both of my kids have been exposed to people who have ( or appear to have) a lot of disposable income. S seems to be more influenced by this than D. OTOH, she now attends a very expensive college and was surprised to find that most of her friends there are on FA and /or have loans. We are full pay, no loans. Her friends from school who have visited us talk about our “large house” which is only an average house where we live. So she gets that we are very fortunate.</p>
<p>“Perhaps that may have to do with politics seeming to be getting nastier, with less willingness for each side to see the other’s point of view or make any compromise.”</p>
<p>As I wrote, my opinion is that colleges kids have become less empathetic because they are taught from an early age to be less empathetic. (I see politics as the effect, not the cause, but of course there are other possible interpretations.)</p>
<p>I appreciate what the OP shared with us. I will take that into consideration as my younger kids consider colleges. I just wanted to share what turned my D around: a year as an exchange student in S. America after her sophomore year of high school. We are a frugal family- gotta be with 6 kids - but she still wanted the same clothes and “stuff” that her classmates had in middle school and beginning of high school. That all changed after her exchange year. Her priorities completely changed. She now lives for experiences rather than things. While some of these experiences challenge me as a parent (such as her desire to volunteer with a Unitarian organization on the U.S.-Mexican border this summer and provide water and food to people trying to cross the border illegally), I still am grateful that priorities have changed.</p>
<p>Some of these comments are so wise. I especially loved the “vat of brattiness” My own D who is about to turn 20 has only very recently started to shed her brattiness about money, frugality, and our specific family circumstances. She now appreciates that we are paying her way(she has a 1/2 scholarship) without loans. Girls mature slightly sooner than boys, so hopefully your day will come!</p>
<p>I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope it’s not an oncoming train…</p>
<p>ucbalumnus: My DD was told we would give her $300/month for expenses which she saves for summer travel; and even though she doesn’t need a job, she gets one to pay for incidentals during the school year and to have more $$ for summer travel. She agrees “experiences ARE better than things”.</p>
<p>I just returned from 3 days out of town. Can’t wait to catch up and read what all have had to say! I was able to quickly skim these 3 new pages. I can’t wait to fully read it all. I saw some snippets of good stuff while skimming! But for now, I must attend to chores. Rats.</p>
<p>I did see the comments about the money ($150-$200K). Yeah, I hear you. I know it’s a lot. Especially for a musician. I know it far exceeds the national average for anybody. I don’t think of it as “filthy rich,” though. But maybe I’m wrong.</p>
<p>My son IS (fortunately) aware that this will be nowhere near a starting salary. He says he knows there will be a starving artist stage. But he knows a handful of people in their 40’s and older who make this much doing what he wants to do. If he ends up being very good, he can make that too. But, like all music majors, he’ll have to wait and see. It’s definitely a gamble. With what he wants to do, it is possible (as long as he’s good enough). </p>
<p>I do appreciate what you’re trying to say, though. And I think that he would agree with what you’re saying as well – even now. But he’s going for it. If he discovers that he’s not one of the best at what he’s doing, he says he’s going to get out of the game (aside from gigs and the pleasure of it all) and do something else.</p>
<p>SimpleLife For your son, to make that much money is NOT simply a matter of being good enough – LUCK will also be needed. Plenty of “Good Enough musicians” have not cashed in to the tune of $200,000/year. I hope he has a back up plan.</p>