Loser-Dad Home Economics
Let’s start with angsty teen cynicism and be partially correct when we say that mid-20th century home economics classes were scams to lure a new generation into grocery stores. By the way, previous versions of home economics educational programs were ways to teach young people (who were raised by farmers) to be urban consumers, using all of the domestic “mod cons” (modern conveniences) of the day.
My loser-Dad 21st century version of this cynicism says that the new home economics “class” (using real money) is a scam to lure young people (e.g. my children, specifically my youngest child) into the dangerous world of consumer credit. This world is dangerous primarily because:
- it is designed to maximize purchasing power over everything else
- it enables the meaning of “buying” something to change, masking financing something
- the tools provided to consumers to “help” them control their financing are also there to collect extravagant amounts information about consumers
Here in the rasx() context, this credit-card thing is the sequel to my Greenlight® Card experiment which also used real money—which strongly suggests that, by the time the child gets a credit card, they are already ‘trained’ for using real money correctly. However, when you are a loser Dad, you have no real choice: you have to move on to the credit card. Permit me to use more paragraphs to explain.
Firstly—getting back to my ‘trained’ remark—the number one lesson (I think) the child should learn from having something like a Greenlight® debit card is what MREs are. MRE stands for monthly recurring expenses. This is a primary metric of financial self awareness. I have asked my daughter since she was a little girl about her MREs. I am not going to share any specific details about her personal journey here publicly because now she is an adult.
Just as a reminder, a MRE is anything that formally bills you monthly. This includes:
- a gym membership
- Apple services
- Netflix
- Microsoft Office
These examples above show respect for this brave new world of online payments. This is why the credit card takes precedence over the checking account. These kids are in a different world.
Putting MREs on a credit card allows you to pay your bills every month on time but also allows you to not have to pay your bills in full every month, simultaneously. When the previous sentence is confusing to you, then help me write a better sentence (look me up on LinkedIn). When you use a debit card instead of a credit card to handle your MREs, this means you are not taking advantage of the information packed in the first sentence of this paragraph. Moreover, you are not taking advantage of your loser Dad stepping in at the end of the year (like some kind of black Santa Claus) to possibly pay off your entire credit card bill (see “how my ‘scam’ works” below). As an international young person of mystery, you might be moving too fast to appreciate the subtlety here.
The MRE information is important because it informs how the credit card should be ‘used’: in my Dad-world of loser squalor, there are only three types of credit card charges:
- MRE charges
- impulse-buying charges
- bank fees and finance charges
how my “scam” works
As a parent of an aging child, hurtling into adulthood, I can no longer be physically present for them, making purchases on their behalf like a dutiful soccer mom. So, as a loser, I retreat into the credit card as a placeholder for the physical presence I have had with my pre-adult children. Here is how my “scam” works:
- make the old kid apply for a credit card (ideally a card that is secured by cash or has a low credit limit)
- tell the kid to point their MRE payment methods at the credit card
- send the kid a fixed monthly amount of cash
- trust the kid to use most of that cash for paying the credit card bill (above the minimum payment)
- at the end of year, for the holiday season, send the kid more cash to halve or completely pay off their credit card bill
- trust the kid to use most of the holiday cash for paying the credit card bill
I can hear parents of adult children all over the “developed” world groaning. But remember folks: I am a loser Dad. The first, external, public opposing force out to make me a loser is the credit card company itself. All an evil company has to do is “reward” my child for her fiscal obedience by increasing her credit limit, tempting her to take on more debt. The monthly credit card balance will become too large for the monthly inflows sent by said loser Dad.
But the more insidious evil is how a parent (loser me) forces a child to confront the epic conflict between MREs and impulse buying. American youth are not famous for having massive amounts of impulse control. This is why a boomer parent (like my father) would never recommend getting into the weeds of the personal finances of his children. A loser Dad like myself would mistakenly see these financial exercises like any other academic subject a student must take with a certain kind of objectivity and detachment. A loser Dad would fail to see this matter as a multi-generational imbroglio of a deeper psychological struggle. A loser Dad would fail to understand that it can be considered cruel to effectively set up a child to fail and then (from the child’s instant-gratification-biased point of view) fail to help the child recover from that failure. Welcome to the world of parent-child estrangement.
step seven of my “scam”
When a “less intelligent” child is “tricked” by my “scam,” they will see the conflict between between MREs and impulse buying and do something constructive about it. This would be step seven of my six-step “scam” shown above. The most impressive thing they can do as a child of a motherfucking wage slave is to get a motherfucking job. However, when they cannot do that (because motherfucking America sucks) the other motherfucking thing they can do is just stop themselves from impulse buying too much and wait for the holiday season to effectively reset the credit card. Just stop impulse-buying things. Just stop driving the car because there is no more gas money. Just stop eating out because there is no more fast food money. Just stop. Stop! When you are living with your parents it is relatively easy to stop and face the agonizing boredom of self-imposed austerity, the bush of hungry ghosts. Do not find out how easy that “agony” was by waiting for your parents to die and becoming homeless. America eats its young.
Since I was too financially destitute to try my home economics classes on my eldest child, I can announce here that my two youngest children have been too ‘smart’ for my loser Dad “scams.” They are too ‘smart’ to take the money and use it according to my dark and brooding suggestions. They are using the money for other young-adult purposes which is mostly fine. Seriously. No loser-Dad sarcasm here. This youthful approach is almost-absolutely OK except for one catch: children (especially adult children) should be smart enough to not ask for money ‘shortly’ after they were sent money. Your loser Dad will regard almost all of your money “emergencies” as preventable. Welcome to the world of parent-child estrangement.
To me this shit is simple but to you “smart” kids, you hate this parasitic capitalist world and will effectively hate any non-charismatic loser trying to help you survive in it. This is the core reason why my father would never resort to the loser shit I pulled. I have learned, again, at the expense of my children, this shit is not a school. This shit is a real world of real emotional, multi-generational money!
skipping to the executive summary
Yes, I would like my children be executive people (and I am not talking about corporate executives)—so here are the “takeaways,” the executive summary:
- know thyself: know your MREs
- use a credit card (never a debit card) to pay MREs
- use inflows of cash to pay down this credit card debt (‘well’ above the minimum payment)
- develop impulse control so you can pay yourself (maintain savings from that famous 10% rule)
- refer to this document periodically until you replace it with your own, superior-and-relevant reading material
I have spent most of my life discovering that my father is right. Period. However, this time I must say that my father had about nine years of uninterrupted access to me, mostly during my formative years. So, yes, he should not be involved in my adult finances because I should have learned something from him during all of those years as a cohabitant. Sadly, I cannot say this was the case with my children. So I had to try something, proactively.