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What's the Best Advice You Ever Got-- Or Ignored?
I didn't get much parental direction growing up. I tended to learn what not to do by observation and osmosis. So on the occasion that someone did sit me down and give me their two cents worth, I tended to listen. Here's what I learned:
Dad: "Be Kind."
Never could find fault with that one. Too bad he didn't follow his own advice on this one.
and
"It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man."
Was he advising me to be a gold-digger? Not to generalize from the particular, but the wealthy guys I dated (all one of them) turned out to be self-centered egotistical lying dicks. Dad, however, did marry a wealthy woman at the end of his years and he got to drive the new Cadillac he always wanted. So there's that.
I concluded early on that the worst possible situation in life was to be trapped and dependent on a man for money, which freed me up to look for other redeeming qualities. I'm pretty happy with how that turned out.
My brother Richard: "Pay yourself first."
When I got my first real paying job I did what any young southern Californian in the 70's did with newly disposable income. I got a good stereo with rocking speakers. I bought a '64 Volkswagon beetle for $200 and got it painted Basin Street Blue at Earl Scheib's for $29.95 and installed a removable cassette player under the driver's seat. That was when Richard stepped in. Richard had recently returned from traveling about in his hippie VW van, moving wherever he wanted to live and taking temporary jobs. He'd worked as a census taker in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as a bus driver in Tucson, as a Windjammer sailboat builder in Huntington Beach, and as bookstore clerk in Corvallis, Oregon. He knew how to live on very little money and how to always keep his options option.
So he took a look at my paycheck and showed me the payroll tax deductions. From now on, he explained, everyone is going to make a claim on whatever money you make. The government gets the first cut. Then you'll have to pay your rent and utilities and car insurance and gas and food. Then friends will hit you up for loans, and you'll want to buy clothes and eat out and go on trips and all the rest. No matter how much you make you're going to find a way to spend it all. So- always pay yourself first. 10% is a good amount to set aside. Whenever you get money from any source and after the government takes theirs, always sock some of it away before you pay your bills. Pay yourself first.
While I haven't always strictly followed that advice (sometimes unexpected bills nab you) I've tried to keep that mentality. Money goes into savings before it goes into luxuries. I have to count this as probably the best advice I ever got.
Friend of the Family: "You're a long time married and a short time single."
I got engaged at age 19. After 3 years of dating he asked and I said why not? Mom said I was too young, that I would outgrow him in a few years. I ignored this. A shrewd friend of Mom's asked to see my teeny tiny engagement ring. She told me she'd been married to the same man for over 30 years, smiled and said just this one sentence. "Remember: You're a long time married and a short time single." I would have been impervious to a lecture or disapproval, but this cheerful reminder caused me to feel a sick little misgiving every time I looked down at my ring after that. Shortly after I called it off. Very smart lady.
And my parting advice to all of you: "Never, under any circumstances, EVER eat at a restaurant with a giant plastic barnyard animal on the roof."
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