haha yea.... I told her that Like we went to Houston for vacation and stayed in Galveston. IT was awesome. I was like ok maybe being in a red state isn't so bad. Then we went to an amusement park and all the high School kids had Bush/Reagan hats and shirts on.... it's like wtf none of your parents were even born at that point
Shit, it's been 16 years? I'm 51 now and have two kids, one of them going to high school in August. Daaaaaaamn...
Well, you're "things hurt a little and I cannot eat the same things as before without gaining weight" old. I'm at the "everything hurts and everything makes me bloated and sick" old. Stay active, don't get too overweighed, look the shit you eat since you're in your 30s.
im super conservative so wouldn't be an issue for me, im actually trying to move to North Carolina at some point relatively soonish depending on whether I can find something Ive been to texas a few times very briefly, Houston imo is ugly af and even inferior to Miami which is saying something I remember Austin being lowkey pretty nice in certain areas and having some cool stuff so would maybe like to try Austin again at some point. when I was younger I used to really want to move to the area you live in, like New England area, maybe New Hampshire or Boston or Connecticut but my interest went away when I saw how terribly expensive it is up there and now Im more interested in living in a smaller maybe more rural area away from the massive cities
is kendall really a little colombia? perhaps many many years ago, like early 2000's. Right now its full of annoying cubans and crappy cars, same as almost everywhere else in miami
Austin is pretty liberal though.. although political preferences is not really a major to moving. I do agree on the Houston part, been here for over 17 years, Boring city and expensive, plus alot of Crime and rude people. The food is good though here, and some of the culture is can be fun at times. So its not all bad. I personally didn't enjoy Miami when I went and found it a lot more stranger than the other florida cities I've been to.
strange is definitely the word I would use for Miami, so you're spot on. Texas food is vastly superior to the food here, actually the food here generally sucks ass.
ha! thought I was the oldest around here (turned 50 in Dec)! I've got my 1st going to College this Fall. Hope you saved plenty of $$$.
no kids for me, maybe ever. I also have a rule for kids, need to be consistently making at least 80k a year before its even considered we'll see
My son has autism so idk if he will go to college but he the happiest person in the world so I’m not worried about that but yeah. I like being in my 30s and having teenagers. We can do so much together, I understand them and relate, I have energy, and I can do a lot of things still not being tied down to having “to watch the kids” obviously it’s hard being a young parent, financially and missing out on freedom, but I’m still young and in shape and can now enjoy life even more since I actually have enough money to do things and the kids are independent. I wouldn’t change it tbh. I have friends in their 40s with toddlers and I say, HELL NO lol
Meh I’ve had kids when I was making 36k I got kids now making 300k it’s no different lol. I had a great time with them when we were young and broke Have a great time now
You could end alone and with no mansion. There's never a perfect time to do a lot of the key things in life, but at the same time, some things just happen or you take them on, and later you discover that the moment was right. I'm happy with the way things went in my life, and although we were not rich when our kids were born, we really didn't face any uncertainty when they were little and at the same time, I think that we had enough energy to deal with them, although our youngest was born when I was 41 yo. And Jmezzy, I've seen couples in their late 40s, early 50s dealing with newborns... That's insanity. Regarding college, I don't think is going to be that big of an economic challenge, since both my kids are bright, although my daugther is way more dedicated. My son is a HS freshman taking a ton of AP classes and he will likely have an associate degree by the end of HS. I don't think he will make it to the big leagues, but he'll probably earn a comfortable Florida bright futures scolarship, that is unless DeathSantis manages to destroy the Florida college system (which he is actually trying very hard to). For my girl, I think the sky is the limit.
There was a study some years ago about how much money you need to be happy, and IIRC was something like 80k and happiness also declined after certain amount. I assume that each family's case is different, but it probably involves having your basic necessities covered (shelter, food, clothing, healthcare, etc), which depending on your location and particular situation, could be very difficult to fullfill if you are struggling with money. Ok, I found an update version, that puts happiness in around $105k. It also mentions the old study at $75k. https://www.fox9.com/news/heres-how...-be-happy-living-in-the-us-according-to-study
Interesting maybe it’s because the timeline coincided with the kids being young So when I was in the Navy, they didn’t expect much you know. We would go watch movies on Matinee and watch tv. My in-law worked at Disney so we got to go all the time my sister in law worked at universal so every now and then we got passes we lived simple. Movies, play and wrestle, theme parks here and there we had one car. We didn’t go out to eat or anything we were very simple but we were happy I’ve been able to do so much now, for and for them, but nothing brings them joy anymore. Nothing excites them. Part of it it’s because they are older and part of it it’s because they’ve gotten so much. I miss when they were little. I honestly missed those days where a simple guys we are going to watch a movie excited them. Now short of taking them to the moon gets any kind of reaction
I hear you. It's true that as they grow up, their expectections change/increase, and we are kind of dealing with similar issues, meaning that tweens/teenagers can be very complicated to deal with, because they are at a stage where they're stablishing their individuality. I hope that most of the connection issues we are experiencing, are age-related, and hopefully our kids will remember and appreciate the simpler pleasures when they have kids of their own.
Yes Luckily I connect with them really well. My boy is still special but the girls it’s a juggle to try to do things to get them excited and engaged lol. we are all good, but my point was that the money played little role on the status of happiness. Including mine. I had a great life back then. I think people mis construct that they need money to be hapoy
A lot of research in this space actually! I tend agree with you and the common research finding that money doesn't make you happy. In b school, we learned about one study with lottery winners that found that miserable people get a short term boost in happiness but over time regress back to their norm. Have to admit, with all your workout posts it never occurred to me that you had three kids - good for you, J!