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The Fear Of Screwing Up Our Kids As FIRE Parents

Published: 10/19/2017 | Updated: 12/14/2020 by Financial Samurai 92 Comments

There’s a fear of screwing up our kids as FIRE parents (financially independent parents). If kids grow up in a nice home and don’t see their parents working, it becomes easier for kids to take money, life, and work for granted.

As a parent, the last thing you want to do is raise a spoiled and entitled brat who contributes nothing to society. Taking away a child’s sense of purpose because he or she grew up on Easy Street is a terrible thing.

Unfortunately, I’ve observed a number of adult children end up aimless over the years.

The Fear Of Screwing Up Our Kids

Every other weekday, I walk by my 27-year-old neighbor playing catch in the middle of the street with his 20-something-year-old friend. He’s a nice guy with an intricate tattoo of a dragon on his right throwing arm. I saved his beat up Subaru Outback from getting a $120 street cleaning ticket one day, so he’s always super friendly.

Although Jake is a nice guy, it doesn’t seem like he has a job or any ambition beyond just having fun. When he’s not playing catch in the middle of the day, he’s off to Tahoe with his buddies for a week at a time. When he’s not snowboarding, he’s traveling for a softball match. It’s a great life. I just wonder whether his parents deprived him of his potential because he’s still living with them.

The truth is, I’m afraid my son will turn out to be like Jake or my other 26-yo neighbor who lives at home with his parents and wakes up the street every morning with the gurgle of his new motorbike. When I asked his mom what he’s doing now that he’s graduated from college, she shrugged and told me, “he’s still trying to find himself.” Fair enough. At least he’s got a sweet sports car and motorbike to take him wherever he wants to go.



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Adopting From Foster Care: Clarifying The Misconceptions To Build A Loving Home

Published: 09/04/2017 | Updated: 03/10/2018 by Financial Samurai 52 Comments

Adopting from foster care is much neededOne of the biggest benefits of financial freedom is the ability to spend more time helping other people. Although writing about building wealth is useful and donating money is good, adopting or fostering a child reaches a next level of kindness. 

Today’s post is from Jillian at Montana Money Adventures. She has adopted not one, but four foster children. People like Jillian are an inspiration. I hope her story helps you better understand the foster care system. I was going to write a post about what I learned at a foster care training seminar I attended, but Jillian’s post is so much better. 

On my very first date with my husband, I mustered the courage to ask him the one question that would be a deal breaker. “How do you feel about adoption?” His answer was encouraging, so I took a deep breath and asked one more question, “How would you feel about adopting from foster care?”

It might not seem like first date kind of conversation, but I’ve never been one to waste time. I was passionate about being a family for kids who desperately needed one, and any future spouse needed to share that passion. Three years later we adopted our oldest son, a teenager from foster care.

The need for foster/adoptive parents is enormous. There are currently over 100,000 children in foster care available for adoption and waiting for a family to step forward. Over 20,000 of those kids will “age-out” of foster care each year, never finding a forever family, and will go into adulthood alone. They are often ill prepared and lacking the support needed to flourish as adults.

The need for foster care adoption is growing rapidly due to increased methamphetamine use across the US. 10 years ago, most kids removed from their biological families were school aged kids. It was in school that teachers would notice the abuse and neglect. Now more babies are born addicted to meth.

The threshold for removing a child is extremely demanding (unlike 20-30 years ago), but meth addicted babies aren’t able to go home with their birth parents. Because meth is extremely addictive, and drug rehab resources scarce, many of those parents don’t sober up in order to be the parents their children need.

Over the last twelve years we have adopted twice from foster care. Our oldest son, Micah, we adopted when he was twelve. Then two years ago we adopted a sibling group of three kiddos. The two groups of kids who struggle the most to find families are older kids and sibling groups. Those are the kids that pulled on my heart the most. The kids that everyone had passed over, and might not get another chance for an awesome family. (I will use the term “family” but that doesn’t mean a married wife and husband. Any adult willing to come alongside these kids is “family,” and the states won’t discriminate based on age, marital status, gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. And “awesome” doesn’t mean perfect!)

There are some common misconceptions when it comes to adopting from foster care. After adopting four kids from the foster care system, speaking to foster-adoptive groups, and my husband’s former work of licensing adoptive families for hard to adopt kids, these are the most frequent concerns we have heard.

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Diamond Engagement Ring Buying Tips For Couples

Published: 07/21/2017 | Updated: 11/27/2020 by Financial Samurai 56 Comments

Top 20 diamond engagement rings

A diamond engagement ring is usually a must-buy whenever there’s a marriage. The question many men have is figuring out how to buy the right diamond engagement ring and how much to spend. There are so many diamond engagement rings to choose from!

If you are like most men, you will have no idea what to look for when buying a diamond engagement ring. I’ll share with you the specifications necessary to buy the best diamond engagement ring possible for your money. For reference, I got married in 2008 and bought a diamond engagement ring from New York City.

One of my good friends is getting married, and he asked me, “Sam, what on earth am I supposed to get her for an engagement ring?” What a question, that’s not easily answered. Generally, the right answer is “whatever she wants!” However, as we all know, sometimes ladies are harder to read than a children’s book in large print!

In the spirit of personal finance, let’s discuss some tips for buying a diamond engagement ring.



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Why I Wanted To Build A Real Estate Empire

Published: 06/23/2017 | Updated: 12/30/2020 by Financial Samurai 87 Comments

Why I want to irrationally build a real estate empire

In 2002, I was one year into my new job in San Francisco when I decided I needed to build a real estate empire. The dotcom collapse was traumatizing and I wanted to own real assets with more stable cash flow.

After a couple years, my desire for real estate increased. I want to own a real estate empire so I could retire early and live off the income. But then the housing crisis hit, ruining my confidence that I would one day be free.

Now things are lollipops and roses. Rental income is strong. Valuations are at all-time highs. Mortgage rates are now at all-time lows.

Yet, rental income has dropped to below 10% of my overall income. At the same time, owning physical real estate has become my main source of stress. As a father of now two young children during a pandemic, the last thing I want to do is manage tenants and deal with maintenance issues.

To maximize lifestyle and profits, I should rationally sell all rentals while valuations are at all-time highs and focus my attention on building an online business since it’s more fun and profitable. As we’ve seen through the pandemic, any business that can’t be shut down has dramatically become more valuable.

Despite the logic, I refuse to sell my entire rental property portfolio because of one main reason: insurance against a difficult life for my children.



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Confessions From A Spoiled Rich Kid

Published: 07/20/2014 | Updated: 01/15/2021 by Financial Samurai 160 Comments

The following is a guest post from long-time reader, Samurai Marco. It’s nice to grow up rich. But here are his confessions as a spoiled rich kid would had everything at his disposal.

When Sam first mentioned that he was accepting guest posts from his readers, it made me wonder what, from my financial journey, I could share. After all, you’re already all a bunch of financial samurai’s yourselves, right? Is my journey interesting enough? At 43 years old, have I made enough mistakes?

I grew up a spoiled rich kid in Cupertino, California, about an hour south of San Francisco. My father was a one of those, and I hate to use this term, “Serial entrepreneurs.” He started a lot of technology companies, a couple went public, some were acquired and, of course, a few failed. I remember my Dad, back in the early 80’s, bringing home the first prototypes of the Macintosh and Compaq computers and even the first cell phones.

His summer parties were filled with the “who’s who” of Silicon Valley. I remember, in particular, one Christmas party in 1997, Gil Amelio and Steve Jobs made the deal for Apple to buy NEXT that night at my Dad’s house. The Forbes reporter, who was there, leaked it the next day I’ve gone flying with my Dad and Larry Ellison. I’ve talked stocks in the swimming pool with Eric Schmidt. So yes, I was surrounded by a lot of money and power and got a lot of attention for being my father’s child.

To say I grew up spoiled really is an understatement It’s taken me a long time to realize how “out of touch” my reality was back then. We flew first class to Italy every summer, sometimes twice a year, to visit family. We lived in a big house with a swimming pool in a “safe” neighborhood. My parents bought us whatever we wanted.



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The TOPMOM Program: Single Mothers Can Make The Best Employees

Published: 09/20/2013 | Updated: 10/06/2017 by Financial Samurai 18 Comments

The TOP MOM Program The following is a guest post by freelance illustrator, designer, and writer Colleen Kong-Savage. There’s nobody more adept at getting things done like a single mother and I’m very pleased to read her point of view.

American society doesn’t think very highly of mothers. Only five nations in the whole big fat world do not have a national law mandating paid maternity: Liberia, Lesotho, Papua New Guinea, Swaziland, and the United States.

After seven months of tossing my cover letters and résumé into a black void, my boyfriend took a look at my cover letters. “Why do you mention that you’re a mother?!” he commented, wondering at my naiveté. I have been freelancing here and there as a graphic artist, and my sentence had been, “Now that my eight-year-old is in school, I am ready to take on more work.” I wanted to let prospective employers know what I’ve been up to the past eight years since I can’t list “parenting” under work experience. Another friend said, “You don’t want to say you’re a mother because employers wonder how often they will have to accommodate your child care situation.”

Are you kidding me?? What is up with this bias against mothers? Don’t American employers realize that all those required skills that they list in their help-wanted postings on Craigslist and LinkedIn have been honed to a lethally fine point as the primary caregiver of a new human being? It’s the TOPMOM program: Training Of Professionals, Multidisciplined Officials, & Managers.

TOPMOM PROGRAM INITIATIVE

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My Fear Of Becoming A Father

Published: 09/15/2013 | Updated: 11/12/2018 by Financial Samurai 89 Comments

The Kiss At Bay 2 Breakers SF

“The Kiss” At Bay 2 Breakers SF

Some of you have privately inquired what’s gotten into me lately, writing so many relationship type posts. The simple answer is that I’m petrified about being a father. More specifically, I’m worried that I am going to be a horrible father to a daughter. Women are complicated enough. To add a daughter into the mix is absolutely terrifying.

I can imagine my teenage daughter coming home one day crying because her boyfriend dumped her for another girl. I turn to her mother, “Honey, I’ll be right back. I need to go break some bones.”

No matter what I say, she won’t come out of her room so I begin to wonder whether she’s OK. Her heartbreak is my heartbreak. And as a father, I know she will tell me that I just don’t understand what she’s going through.

All I can do is be patient and be there for her when she finally opens up. In the meantime, I pray to God she’s doing nothing to hurt herself. I also pray these are the times when her mother will be able to calm her soul and ease her pain. Feeling helpless to help someone you love is horrible.

I want my daughter to find the love of her life early on and never break up. I want her to be brilliant, beautiful, and happy. By the time she graduates from college, I hope society treats men and women perfectly the same. Let there not be arcane tax laws, pay differentials, and old boys clubs with glass ceilings. I hope she never experiences tremendous loss.

Perhaps I overanalyze things too much. There are millions of fathers who manage just fine. But I’m the student who never believes he’s smart enough to finish an exam with 30 minutes to spare so I check every single answer twice over. My friends say that nobody will ever truly be ready for fatherhood. I know they are right so I continue to write and hope that one day I will better understand.

Related: Man Up Dads! Time To Be Better Fathers

For those of you who are fathers of daughters, or parents in general, how did you prepare? Where were expectations about parenthood different from reality? What were some things that really came out of left field which left you completely dumbfounded? For those of you with multiple kids, how do you do it?

Thanks,

Sam

Don’t Have Children If You Can’t Take Care Of Yourself

Published: 04/19/2010 | Updated: 01/11/2021 by Financial Samurai 209 Comments

In “How To Dramatically Increase Your Job Security For Life,” the article suggests managers are more inclined to fire those workers who have nobody to support but themselves. As a result, one should strategically at least hint at the intention of starting a family to protect oneself from unemploymentville. Clearly I’m being somewhat flippant. My goal is to make people realize that relationships and emotion play enormous roles in shaping work success.

Whether you work for a small family business or a large corporation, hiring and firing is a very personal decision that comes down to one or only a handful of decision makers. By tugging at their souls, and increasing their guilt factor, you’re well on your way to dramatically higher job security for life.

Let’s say you’re not particularly wealthy, nor make a particularly impressive amount of money. You still have loads of student loans and consumer debt to pay off. In essence, you’re the typical American! Shouldn’t you be putting on your air mask before helping others?

Child raising is estimated to cost anywhere between $250,000 to $1 million from birth to after college. If a family can’t even have the discipline to save 20% of their paycheck after contributing to their 401K and IRA, how can one consciously start a family?

$250,000 ISN’T A LOT, YET HOW MANY CAN SAVE THAT MUCH?

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