Barefoot Investor urges couple to focus on retirement savings instead of daughter’s uni bill
Barefoot Investor tells a couple who spent $40,000 a year on school fees that it’s now time they focus on their retirement savings, rather than paying for their daughter’s uni experience.
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“I’m goin’ to Jackson, I’m gonna mess around, Yeah, I’m goin’ to Jackson, Look out Jackson town”
The top is down on our convertible, it’s 100 degrees (fahrenheit), and the stereo is blasting Johnny Cash’s Jackson as we drive into Jackson, Mississippi.
My mate Pete and I have been driving through the deep South … otherwise known as Trump country – Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, (Sweet Home) Alabama, and finally Nashville, Tennessee – for a work conference (well, that’s the excuse we gave our wives anyway).
We hired a Mustang, of course. It may be billed as the quintessential American muscle car, but in reality it has about as much grunt as Joe Biden before his morning nap.
We’ve also been adhering to a strict American roadside-diner diet of approximately 11,000 calories a day. After a week of bacon-on-bacon, my pre-diabetes has made my hands swell up so bad that I can’t remove my wedding ring.
Yee-haw!
We parked the Pony out the front of the Mississippi Capitol building – one of the grandest and most beautiful political buildings I’ve seen in my life – and took a walk downtown to stretch our legs.
Though looking back on it now, that turned out to be a big mistake …
Welcome to the Trump road trip.
Right now it feels like America is in the grips of a binge-worthy Netflix show:
I’m calling it, ‘The final season of the United States’.
This show has it all … an assassination attempt. Pornstars. A coup against a (sleeping) President. And the star of the show is an overweight, 78-year-old white man with a spray-on tan.
Everywhere I went I asked people about the election.
And everywhere I went I got the same response:
A big ole cup of nutt’in.
Asking Americans about the election seemed to generate the same visceral response as that creepy in-law you’ve only met a handful of times, who stretches out their arms and says “where’s my hug”?
No-one wanted to touch it.
They may be the United States, but they are a deeply divided people. Nearly every person I spoke to admitted they’d lost friends based on the tribe they supported.
“It’s just so scary and … exhausting”, sighed Tyrone, my Uber driver.
Now I’ll tell you what’s scary – the streets of Jackson.
We didn’t know it, but it turns out that Jackson is actually a very dangerous city.
In fact, it’s the most dangerous place in America, based on the number of homicides, which seems like a very appropriate yardstick for danger.
“Something about this place doesn’t feel good,” I said to Pete.
Pete pointed to a car that drove by us: “Maybe it’s the bullet holes in the doors?”
“Let’s get outta here now!” we both said in unison.
Snap!
Jackson has been called a ‘failed state’ … a place where the government no longer functions.
Again, that’s not hyperbole.
After decades of mismanagement, and years of warnings about the city’s crumbling infrastructure, it all came to a head in 2022.
The city’s water supply was badly contaminated and shut off, leaving its residents without drinking water (or flushing toilets) through the heat of the Summer. Even today, many residents live with brown water that smells of sewage and they refuse to drink it.
There are similarities to what’s going on on the national stage. Throughout this election the Democrats have read passionately from teleprompters at Hollywood-style rallies about the pressing problems the country faces … which they haven’t addressed in the last three-and-a-half years. While Trump has spent a lot of time arguing about the size of his … crowds. Neither has given much time to discussing the actual policies that would benefit the American people.
How does the show end?
Well, no-one knows, of course.
The only thing we do know is that Trump is incapable of losing (even if he loses, again) … and that is the ultimate cliffhanger that keeps us all watching.
Tread Your Own Path!
P.S. The night before we flew out, we went to a bar in Hollywood and met a young rooster who was crowing about the fact that he’d marched on Capitol Hill. He swore that Biden was already dead – “Weekend at Bernie’s style, man”. Though I think he’d had one too many Harvey wallbangers.
Another barfly piped up and said that Kamala has it in the bag. He reckoned that in the next few weeks Joe Biden will have a medical ‘turn’ and announce that he has to stand down as the sitting President, which will officially make Kamala Harris the first black woman President – and she’ll ride that honeymoon period all the way to election day.
To add to the weirdness, TV star Sofia Vergara was standing right behind us, patiently waiting for a drink.
God Bless America!
Have we bred a monster?
Hi Scott,
My teenage daughter has had a private school education. This has cost my husband and I (average working-class people) upwards of $40,000 per year. Early on we saved hard to pay off our modest house and were pleased we could offer our only child a private education. We were looking forward to her finishing secondary school this year, going to the local uni, and thus giving us a break from the inexorable fees!
But now she wants to attend university in another city – at $40,000 per year for a live-in college – to get the ‘full city experience’. (I commute each day to the city but she insists it is too far for her to commute to a uni nearer to home.) She says she is desperate to leave home, and will move to the city with or without our help. She has no idea of how to be financially independent! Is this ‘normal’ privileged teenage behaviour or have we bred a monster?
Patty
Hi Patty,
You’ve bred a monster.
Look, even though 18 is the new 13 for Covid-kids, she’s biologically an adult, so you can have a grown-up conversation with her.
Here’s how:
Explain that you have already spent upwards of $500,000 (pre-tax) on her education … and now you have to focus on saving for your retirement.
However, there is absolutely no reason she should be deprived of what she calls the ‘big city experience’. In fact, part of that experience should involve working a minimum-wage job, occasionally drinking from a goon bag, and sometimes dining on two-minute noodles to make her money stretch.
In other words, I’d not only encourage her to move to the city, I’d help pack her bags. The education she’ll receive will make her a much more grounded human being. (And if she can’t hack it, then she can always go to the local uni!)
Crikey
Hi Scott,
I don’t want to make a huge mistake with what little I have ... so is this Trade 6000 Alrex, as recently revealed by Robert Irwin, still worth a try? I can find $375, but this is scary. What if I go there via a scam website that looks real and so lose everything? Advice please!
Craig
Hey Craig,
It’s a scam, man.
Robert Irwin handles crocodiles, he’s not an investor.
They’ve deep-faked him, the same way they did me.
If you deal with these crooks they’ll rip your bloody arms off.
DISCLAIMER: Information and opinions provided in this column are general in nature and have been prepared for educational purposes only. Always seek personal financial advice tailored to your specific needs before making financial and investment decisions.
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