Context:
- I just found out that the student loans I’ve been saddled with for the past 19 years were completely avoidable because my parents are wealthier than they ever let on
- Something is wrong with my boomer parents—I don’t understand their relationship with money (or life in general). I think they may be seriously mentally ill
What happened
In 2014, my girlfriend and I moved into a rental home in a big city for about $1,500/month.
She later lost her job and it became unaffordable. The stress ended our relationship.
I struggled to stay in my home for the next seven years, until I finally declared bankruptcy and moved out in 2020.
I spent at least $120,000 on my rental home through those years. All down the drain. I liquidated all $30,000 of my retirement savings to try and stay afloat.
What could have been
2014 was a low point in the housing market. There were HUNDREDS of houses available in the ~$150k range, many of them nicer than the one I rented. All I needed was ~$10k for a down payment, and I could have been paying $800 for a mortgage instead of $1,500 on rent, and all of that money spent would be retained in the form of equity even if I still had to move out. It probably would have saved my relationship too (my parents complain about not having any grandkids, BTW).
What my parents say
When I mentioned this to my parents recently, they just said “we had no idea you wanted to buy a house”. NO, I JUST LOVED PAYING MONEY TO A LAND LEECH! I never even thought to ask for help with a down payment, because we were “broke”. My dad gave us grief over every dollar we spent. We never ONCE took a family vacation.
The truth
Today, my parents have $2 million in retirement savings, and no mortgage or car payments. They live in a rural area with a rock bottom cost-of-living. In 2003, they had HALF A MILLION dollars in cash, entirely separate from their retirement plans.
I accept my mistakes and agency. I’m mostly upset by the lack of communication in our family. Until very recently, my parents have been relentlessly secretive about money due to my dad’s deep-seated insecurities and shame (he didn’t share what his income was with his own wife for decades), which I view as a problem separate and discrete from his poverty trauma about spending money.
It seems like you’ve at least had an accurate perception of your parents’ wealth. After my parents rescued me from homelessness, I spent two years unable to get out of bed due to depression, because I thought I had brought financial ruin on my entire family and that we were a week away from living on the streets.
The only thing I knew was that we had $50k in credit card debt. I knew nothing about their $300k in stocks and $2M in retirement savings. I assumed they had maybe $200k in retirement savings, at most, one or two mortgages, and were living paycheck to paycheck (because that is the only sane reason to have credit card debt IMO). It was only after hearing my lamentations for years that my mom finally shared their true status. The removal of that weight from my shoulders is the only thing that has allowed me to get my life back together.
I have a friend whose parents bought an investment home and rented it out to their son after he graduated college and started working. He never asked. His parents just did it, because were smart enough to know that that would save him money while also making money for themselves. If my parents had been as open about their financial situation as I was to them, we could have planned intelligently and done something similar and saved at least $200k together. But they are social basket cases in addition to being financially illiterate. I still love them though.
Yeah, I wish my parents were better with money too. I don’t think it makes them bad people or that they made me poor or that they were being selfish.
The fact that you thought you made your family poor and you were to blame says a lot about the manifestations of trauma in your life. I didn’t feel that way with my parents, but I never knew their income or savings or retirement until they went through their divorce.
I’m sorry you went through what you went through OP. It sucks. And if it helps to blame your parents right now, I can’t stop you. I would say that the problem is the society and not your parents or you. Society impoverished you. Your parents are likely still true believers in liberal capitalism. They don’t understand the mechanisms. They are operating mostly ritualistically, and so are most of us, just kind of hoping a better life comes from the behaviors and emotions and beliefs that are drilled into us by our society and replicated by our extended family and social network.
The family that bought an investment property for their child have completely different relationships with money, completely different beliefs and emotions. My family was much closer to your family than your friend’s family.
That doesn’t make my parents shitty people or selfish or the root cause of my poverty. My parents were fucked by the same system that fucked me. They managed to get a step up on the ladder, it sounds like your parents did too. My dad’s only communicated financial thought during the divorce was “but how am I going to leave anything behind for my kids”. That’s his prime emotional directive and it informs everything.
If your parents cut you out of the will, then I would say they’re shitty. But I have a lot of empathy for the people in your story. Including you. You didn’t deserve whatever fucked you up so bad that you went through 2 years of depression feeling like you were to blame for financial troubles of your family. I am sure your parents had no emotional ability to understand what you were going through. I know it’s easy to think that they ought to have, but eventually we have give up the idea that our parents know what we’re going through and are aware of the causes and the solutions and realize that no one has that objective perspective and least of all our parents who are as much responsible for passing on the shit as they are deep in it themselves.