[UCGal]

Thanks guys. I won’t be driving fancy cars or flying first class anywhere – but I can do my errands during the day when things are less crowded… I’ll have time to do a proper job coaching my kids FLL robotics team.

Yesterday was my first Monday not going in to work. I dropped the kids at the Gateways bus stop then took my dog down to La Jolla shores for a walk on the beach. It doesn’t get any better than that!

[UCGal]

I know it’s a bit of a hike for you, but Longfellow has a Spanish immersion program. It’s K-8. It’s part of San Diego Unified and in the Clairemont area.

Birney Elementary has Mandarin immersion. It feeds into PB Middle (an IB school) so PB is going to start offering Mandarin in addition to Spanish and French. At least that’s what I heard.

But those school probably are too far west for you to commute to daily, Russ.

[UCGal]

[quote=CA renter][quote=UCGal]I’m going to agree with CAR on this, which is pretty ironic. Ironic because I bought the house I’m living in from my dad (and have the low property taxes that BG and CAR hate so much.)

[/quote]

Just want to clarify that I am not opposed to an inherited Prop 13 tax basis, but only as long as the heir is using it as their single primary residence.

It’s BG who is opposed to the inherited tax basis, while I’m opposed to the corporate loophole and Prop 13 protection for second homes and investment properties. Basically, I think Prop 13 protection should only apply to a single primary residence.[/quote]

I guess I’m still in doo-doo on that one too. We built the granny flat – so we’re technically multi-family not SFR… and the granny flat is a rental property. If it helps – our property taxes went up to triple what they were when we built the granny flat. They charge current rates when you add on new square footage or extensively remodel.

[UCGal]

Russ – that is awesome that your boys are bilingual. It will serve them well.

I’m starting with Rosetta stone for the summer, but their middle school has a foreign language requirement – and I’ve got them in Spanish. I’m hoping they are reasonably fluent by the time they get out of high school. The goal is to have them pass the IB advanced 2nd language test.

[UCGal]

[quote=CA renter]This has been studied for generations, and many people who’ve studied it for decades will disagree about the causes of IQ differentials. I’m no expert; just stating what’s out there and what the effects of these differences are on our educational system.[/quote]

One of the reasons San Diego Unified uses the Ravin test for GATE testing is because it takes out cultural bias, native language bias, etc. It’s basically pattern recognition in a purely visual basis.

I can tell you that my kids’ seminar classes were ethnically mixed. Part of that is because they were at a school in a hispanic/vietnamese part of Clairemont. But the seminar teachers have such a reputation that kids literally choice in from La Jolla, Coronado, UC, and Point Loma. (Those are the white kids in the class.) All of the kids are super smart – but some come from challenging backgrounds. I would say the class was less than half white… so clearly there is ethnic diversity among cream of the smart kids.

In other districts that use a more typical IQ test – the factors mentioned above probably play a role of keeping non-english speakers at lower scores.

http://www.raventest.net/raven-test.html

[UCGal]

[quote=CA renter][quote=UCGal]
I’ll be a taboo breaker here –

This week I retired. (If I live cheap, I’m done working forever.)
The week before I paid off my mortgage. (Public record anyway).
[/quote]

Hooray!!!!!!!! 🙂

Congratulations on both paying off your house and your retirement! I thought you still had a year or so to go. You’ve certainly done your research and worked hard toward your goals. Nicely done, UCGal!

What’s awesome is that you get to spend time with your kids when they are still young-ish. Didn’t your DH retire recently, too? Travel plans, or?

I am so very happy for you![/quote]
Thanks CAR. Market gains moved it up a little. (I didn’t plan for last years go-go-go market. Plus I found ways to tighten my budget up a little, so I needed less.

My kids will not know what hit them. I’m going to do my best to embarrass them every day by give them big public kisses when I drop them off at school. LOL.

[UCGal]

I like kids. My BFF does not. Actually, that’s not true -she’s ok with them, but never wanted her own, and prefers to arrange her life around a more adult crowd. But she says she enjoys my kids. (My kids are from lake wobegon, where my kids are exceptional. LOL.)

I think it’s smart that she recognized she wasn’t naturally maternal and didn’t bow to cultural pressure to have kids. Too many people who *shouldn’t* have kids because they don’t enjoy them, have them anyway because parents, churches, friends all expect them too.

So I’m ok with someone not liking kids as long as they don’t expect me to hide mine away if they choose to visit me and aren’t rude to them.

[UCGal]

[quote=bearishgurl]

The 75+ yr old demographic that I’m seeing have Tricare for Life at very little cost out of their military pensions and/or: union pensions, plenty of savings and rentals and other comm’l property which one or more of their children are managing. They don’t need to worry about “being put into a home” by one of their children. [/quote]
Tricare for life is only for military. And, if I’m not mistaken, it also becomes secondary/supplemental to medicare when the person reaches 65.
Medicare does NOT pay for nursing homes except in a limited way for max of 100 days if they transfer to the home directly from a hospitalization. Medicaid does pay for nursing home care – IF you spend down all the assets. So there’s no leaving assets to your children AND having the government pay for the nursing home. (And that is how it should be.) There is a 5 year look back – so perhaps the more savvy elderly folks you’re seeing have already transferred title to their grown children – in hopes of having it in place longer than 5 years- to beat the lookback.

[UCGal]

.

[UCGal]

Money is very much taboo. And it’s a hard taboo to break.

I’m trying to teach my kids some of my money “values”. (saving early to capture compounding, saving for long term goals, paying down debt will give you more cash flow later since you won’t need to service the debt, etc.) It’s hard to have these discussions without getting into specific examples. Yet it’s ingrained culturally that you don’t tell ANYONE, even your kids, what your income or net worth is.

My husband is dealing with the finances of his aging mom. She has years of paranoid asset hiding that he’s trying to unravel and uncover. The taboo about money is directly impacting his ability to settle his dad’s estate and get her affairs ordered. If she hadn’t felt so strongly about “money is private” then it would be easier.

At work, you’re not allowed to know what others make. This wasn’t the case when I first started out. It gave me aspirational goals – Hey – if I work for 5 more years – I’ll be making close to double what I’m making as an engineering intern – I could buy a house!!! Now – NO ONE talks about salary. This is imposed by management because they want us all competing with each other – not encouraging each other.

On the end of life issues – very taboo. And you need to consider the case of physical health but cognitive issues. (aka dementia.) Have a plan for that – tell your kids, siblings, trusted people.

Other taboos. Politics is taboo in many circles.
Religion (or lack thereof) is taboo in many circles.

I’ll be a taboo breaker here –

This week I retired. (If I live cheap, I’m done working forever.)
The week before I paid off my mortgage. (Public record anyway).
I’m a lefty liberal for social issues, fairly conservative for fiscal issues.
I’m agnostic.
I have advanced directives and a written plan for dementia.

[UCGal]

Congrats, CE. You and your lovely bride will make awesome parents.

You’ll give up sleep for the first bit. Especially if you have more than one within a few years… the term “sleep like a baby” is a cruel ironic joke. Sleep deprivation is a big deal – and I read that if a marriage survives till the youngest is 5 – it will survive anything – because it survived the sleep deprivation years, the terrible 2’s (that run from age 1 to 4), and you finally get the kid launched to kindergarten.

I totally agree with scaredy- give up soda. I can’t control my kids diet 100% – but not keeping soda in the house- and encouraging them to drink water is one of the things I am giving them. (Even fruit juice is mostly sugar and junk.)

You’ll be giving up going to theater to see movies for a while. But that’s what streaming and redbox are for. You’ll want the ability to pause what your watching. Even when the kid gets a little older – the cost of babysitting on top of the high ticket prices makes it much more attractive to wait for the movie on video. This was a big deal for me. I had a hobby side job working a movie club, and it wasn’t unusual for me to see 3-4 movies on a weekend – until I had my son. Now it’s 3-4 a year in the theater – if I’m lucky.

You’ll give up some of your freedom to spend odd hours at work – I found myself turning down bosses asking me to work extreme hours after I had my eldest. So did my husband. We found ourselves organizing our lives around our son(s).

Obviously – if you smoke, you’ll want to give that up.

I sincerely wish you and MA all the best in this new adventure!!!

[UCGal]

I’m going to agree with CAR on this, which is pretty ironic. Ironic because I bought the house I’m living in from my dad (and have the low property taxes that BG and CAR hate so much.)

My neighborhood is very much a neighborhood of more than average “original” or “near original” owners. At least 5 homes on my block are original 1960’s owners who are now in their 80’s. Another 10 or so bought in the 70’s…. so the homes have been paid off for a while, and the owners are retired. Additionally I’m one of 3 owners that bought from parents. You’d think that would make me agree with the argument that BG put forth.

I don’t. My block is very atypical. I do NOT see it repeated elsewhere. The blocks around me are mostly owners of 10 years or less. I’ve seen several drawn out estate sales. The kids did not want or couldn’t agree which child would get their parents house when the parent died. Part of it might be that the children of the original owners are all in their 50’s and 60’s – and have homes of their own that they enjoy… they’re not starting out with young children… most enjoy low property taxes because they bought well before the bubble in their own homes (not parents homes).

Oh and the second generation of owners on my block are all nearing retirement or already retired… and their kids are too young to buy them out.

[UCGal]

[quote=scaredyclassic]Harold and maude was a big formative movie for me. I assumed everyone in the USA had seen it because I did.[/quote]
It had big impact on me to.
If only for how he turns a jag sportscar into a mini-hearse. Awesome!!!!
He was goth before goth was cool.

[UCGal]

Can you imagine that world.

Able to arrange errands for times that let you avoid traffic.

Able to have time to source the best deals.

Able to become a power user at the library – having all the books you want at your fingertips because you have the time to reserve them ahead of time.

A friend was telling me he got an ingredient for a dish he makes at Ranch 99. I shuddered in horror, and he asked why. I said because the crowds and parking were a nightmare. He laughed and said he forgot that people who had to punch a clock couldn’t go at 10am on a weekday, when it was less crowded. (He’s self employed and works from home.) The daytime midweek crowd has the advantage over the worker bees.

[UCGal]

[quote=Blogstar]My kids have to kill and skin and cook a rattlesnake. Change the brakes on the truck and grow and can some okra. It will be just like a 1920-1930’s depression and we don’t have to leave it to the whims of central bankers as to whether they are spoiled or not.[/quote]
Interesting.

My dad made sure all three of us kids had the following skills:
– Able to cook well enough to feed oneself without going to a restaurant.
– Able to sew well enough to mend clothes. (My brother turned his sewing skills into money in college – making climbing gear and backpacks and selling to friends.)
– Able to change oil and filter on a car, gap a sparkplug, do basic car maintenance. He even made me do a valve job on my old honda.
– Able to do yard maintenance.
– Able to do laundry without turning everything pink or size zero.

I have the same goals for my kids.

[Author]

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