My Daughter, the Hard Sell

When my daughter was young, we made the commitment to have someone (either my husband or me) always around, which required only part-time work on my end. I don't like the word "sacrfice." Call it a reasoned decision. It worked well for us, but it required me to be more thrifty than the average mom. It also required me to teach my daughter, mostly by example, about money management.

Well, it worked. By ten my daughter could squeeze the eagle til it wept. Since she became a gamer, that was often impressive to watch. She refused to buy new systems, or even request them of us. "New" did not impress her. She would observe as the gaming consoles came out, talk to kids who had gotten them about the pros and cons, and save her money until it became available secondhand. She bought most of her games used, saving more than half the price, and impressed me with her discipline.

A friend of ours turned me onto PREX (the Princeton Record Exchange) about a decade ago, and as my daughter developed her own taste in music, it became her wonderland. One day, she loaned a CD to a friend at school. Another young lady noticed the case, with the price sticker on it, and shuddered. "You buy USED CD's?" This amused my daughter, who is excellent at math. One new disc equals two, three, or even FIVE from PREX.  But the young lady's response baffled me. According to my daughter, her revulsion suggested that it was a used toothbrush.

NO, little girl. You are mistaking thrifty with unsanitary.

My daughter the gamer is also a dedicated otaku, meaning she loves manga, and the whole gaming culture. (Bet you didn't know they had one!) She finds components for her cosplay at consignment and thrift stores... for a fraction of the "ready mades." (And before you worry about her grades, Desi is an NJ Stars, National Honor Society student, now delivering Dean's List... no issues!)

She grew up watching me make a bee-line for the clearance racks. She watched me clip coupons, and drive bargains wherever I could... but refusing to sacrifice quality. She uses a cell phone on a pay-as-you-go plan, preferring to text rather than to eat precious minutes on conversations she can have from home for free. She knows where to go for free wifi for her iTouch, and is learning to cook basic stuff so that when she transfers for college, she can live without takeout.

My thrifty ways didn't damage her. When she got her first paycheck, she was careful about what she chose to do with it. Money gifts are quickly divided into "savings" versus immediate desires, and at 19 she has a goal in mind. She wants to buy her own house someday—and I have a feeling she will make that goal.

When she was considering college, she made the immediate decison to go locally for the first two years; her own choice. She had the grades, SATS, and advanced college credits to go anywhere she wanted, but since NJ Stars covered most of the cost if she went to Mercer, she reasoned that it would save us money. Even now, her transfer choices are based on schools that cost no more than NJ colleges would.  Yup... REALLY smart.

Her second financial goal? To get out of college with as little debt as possible. If that means no Spring Break in Cabo, so be it. If that means used books, she's got no problem. So I lucked out. I was fortunate enough to have a child who understood that MAC's are not magical money machines, and parents were not to be reported to DYFYS for not supplying every wish.

When she goes away, she'll know how to budget, how to live within her means, and how to survive "Life Light" without me or anyone else to interfere. She will do fine. I will be a mess, but she will be okay. I passionately believe that our primary job as parents is to makes ourselves obsolete. She will still need me for chats, for moral support, and other things I still can't imagine, but we'll both be grown ups. I may need to remind her that ramen is not a food group, but she will  thrive. And so will I.