Fairport Women

Rebuilding Home: The Three R’s

By Deborah Feldman

Do you have any family, friends or acquaintances who lead a life of purposeful ignorance when it comes to their financial lives? Do they spend with wild abandon because it is fun to buy whatever they want without boundaries? I met Jeannie one Saturday afternoon at the request of her father who wanted her “off of his payroll.” She had been living with her parents for 8 years when her father approached me about conducting some financial counseling sessions with her. He mentioned that he was paying for her health insurance; she had difficulty getting a job because of her “standards;” her expenses were way out of control as she gradually wanted to resume her former lifestyle; and she had begun to make additional monetary demands on her parents for luxury items that they could no longer afford to provide to her.

I remember driving to their home thinking that this was going to be an interesting meeting. His daughter was raised to be an absolute princess. At one time, the family had been very wealthy and accustomed to life with a live-in maid, a chef who cooked all family meals, designer clothing, expensive vacations, expensive private schooling, expensive cars, etc. Unfortunately, the family’s financial situation had changed over the years, and while they were well-off, they were not able to afford the luxurious lifestyle they had once enjoyed. Jeannie moved back home when she was 32 years old, after her husband died in an automobile accident, and she was completely devastated. She agreed to “temporarily” move back home to heal with her loving parents and after 8 years her parents were becoming concerned for her future well-being, possibly without them, as they aged.  

Our first meeting was what I would call a “data gathering” meeting. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Jeannie was eager to meet with me. I thought “she’s more open-minded to the subject than I would have anticipated! This is great!” My excitement to be the financial guru/educator to this young woman was quickly quashed when she began telling me how unreasonable her parents were about the $150,000 car that she wanted or the new winter coat that she was looking for (“How can anyone find a winter coat for less than $3,500?” she casually mentioned to me). At this point I was becoming concerned about exactly how successful my counseling sessions might be…then she began to tell me how she was being pressured to get a job. I asked her what type of employment she was looking for and she said that she graduated 12 years ago with a major in communications from an ivy league college. She said that she was looking for an interview at a television station. I knew she hadn’t had any experience in this area and suggested that we knew a station manager who might consider her for a job as an intern. It would give her the opportunity to get her foot in the door. She dismissively told me that she wasn’t looking to be an intern, she was looking to be a news anchor!

I remember driving home thinking about how lost in the world she must have felt when her husband was suddenly gone from the earth, how she quickly moved back in with her parents and became their “princess” again and pondered how to even begin to broach the subject of attaining future independent living for her. She was ill equipped to live within a budget, but we had to start somewhere, so the next step for Jeannie was to identify her expenses, ranking them by importance by assigning “nice to have” or “want to have” or “need to have.” We had some serious discussions on how spending $3,500 for a winter coat wasn’t a “need to have,” but eventually she agreed to a monthly amount of money that she could live on. Her parents agreed to financially support her in stages if she kept up her end of the agreement, which was to get a job with health insurance, live within her means, and eventually achieve financial independence. 

Money rule number 30 was actually created in response to Jeannie’s situation. She needed to learn to respect the money she made; she needed to make responsible choices on what she spent her money on; and she needed to learn how to regulate her spending and start a savings plan.

Jeannie was able to meet all her goals within 4 years. She found employment with health insurance (and no, not as a news anchor!), she was able to live on her salary, she became financially independent of her parents in year 3, and then again in year 4 when she met Prince Charming and remarried. In her own inimitable way, she became a princess again…

For more insight from Deb, you can read the previous issue of Rebuilding Home here, or stay up-to-date on new issues by following Deborah Feldman’s blog on LinkedIn.