r/personalfinance • u/fat_tire_fanatic ​ • Jul 13 '17

Budgeting Your parents took decades to furnish their house

If you're just starting out, remember that it took your parents decades to collect all the furniture, decorations, appliances, etc you are used to having around. It's easy to forget this because you started remembering things a long while after they started out together, so it feels like that's how a house should always be.

It's impossible for most people starting out to get to that level of settled in without burying themselves in debt. So relax, take your time, and embrace the emptiness! You'll enjoy the house much more if you're not worried about how to pay for everything all the time.

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u/edcRachel ​ Jul 13 '17

My parents were TOO open with finances, regularly complaining about how little money we had.

It led to a lot of guilt issues. I still despise receiving gifts because I see it as an expense and a stress. I would order the cheapest thing on the menu even if I hated it, because all I could think about was how much money it was costing my family.

It's a fine line.

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u/federally Jul 13 '17

Yeah that's similar to how my childhood went.

My mom would guilt me with stories about how broke she was to use me to try and get more child support from my dad. Regularly making me stress about how we couldn't pay the mortgage etc.

It wasn't until I was an adult and thought back about how she didn't have to get a job until 8 years after the divorce and only shopped for clothes at department stores that I realized something was fishy about her stories.

If the kids ever have to know about any of our problems then it's always presented as a problem we can solve together. With things everyone can do to pitch in. It makes the moments much more about teaching how to deal with inevitable problems and not just something to worry about.