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WE’RE A SINGLE-INCOME family with five children, so the prospect of paying for college for all our kids is daunting, to say the least. Yes, our oldest is now in her second year of college. But we still have a long way to go before they’ve all crossed the finish line.
Our kids are ages 19, 17, 12, nine and six. We’ve been homeschooling them since the beginning, with a few brief exceptions, including one daughter in a Department of Defense high school in Korea for a year and another daughter in a private high school for two years.
THE FIRST TIME I remember realizing that “time flies” was during my senior year of high school. One of my class periods each day involved working in the school’s main office. My primary duty was to walk the hallways, gathering attendance sheets from each classroom.
It was a highly repetitive task, each day a replica of the prior one, with the route through the hallways never changing. On one of those days, I recall thinking,
JOY DOESN’T COME easily to me. I tend to default toward melancholy, so I try to ensure my discretionary purchases bring as much happiness as possible.
Like many readers, I’m a firm believer that buying experiences sparks more joy than buying stuff. The dollars we’ve spent on family vacations, sporting events, church mission trips and, more recently, escape rooms—worth trying sometime—have created memories that’ll last a lifetime. Yet obviously not all of our discretionary money is spent on experiences.
AS A FIRST-YEAR dental school student in 1999, when I was debating whether to apply for a military health-professions scholarship, I never gave a thought to receiving a military pension. In fact, I don’t even recall knowing that was a possibility.
I was already in debt to the tune of $65,000 from my undergraduate degree, so I was simply seeking financial aid for dental school, typically considered the most costly type of graduate education a person can buy—more so even than medical and law school.
EVERY TIME I HEAR the sage advice to pay off a mortgage before retirement, I wince. Not only will I have a mortgage in retirement, but also I won’t even make my first payment until after I retire—just as my salary plummets to zero.
I hate going against the conventional wisdom. But I really have no choice. As an active duty military officer who, for the past 20-plus years, has had to move every few years,
Comments
What kind of car do you have? Sorry if I missed it elsewhere.
Post: Another HD Post About Cars
Link to comment from June 21, 2025
I wanted to take my three kids to see an IMAX movie yesterday (How to Train Your Dragon), because they'd never seen an IMAX movie before. Total cost for 4 tickets in the middle of the afternoon: $96.99!
Post: Is the “Experience Economy” Derailing Millennial Retirement Prospects?
Link to comment from June 21, 2025
Purchasing a Variable Universal Life insurance policy, sold to me by a "friend" I knew from church. I "invested" solely in this for the first 6-7 years of my career, i.e., the earliest dollars that would have most gone up in value if I'd invested more smartly. After 7 years of it, I wisened up and surrendered the policy, and went with "term life plus invest the rest" in a simple 3-fund Bogleheads-style portfolio.
Post: Stepping In It
Link to comment from May 31, 2025
Heck, I’m not sure if under-40 males can even use a public bathroom’s urinal without whipping out their phone. I see this all the time! One hand scrolling while the other hand is…taking care of business. I’m thinking, “You can’t even go 25 seconds without looking at your phone??”
Post: Generational Perspective
Link to comment from May 10, 2025
Bonds make up 30% of my portfolio, and I simply invest in the Total US Bond Market Index Fund, along with the G-fund in my Thrift Savings Plan.
Post: How Do Allocate the Bond Portion of Your Portfolio?
Link to comment from March 23, 2025
Jonathan, I often hear that the currency risk makes investing in international less advantageous--something along the lines of, "If you plan on spending U.S. dollars, it's smarter to invest in companies doing business in U.S. dollars". But I have a hard time estimating the true impact of that. I invest roughly 20% in international, vs. the 40% that VT includes. I'm curious to get your perspective on whether or not the currency issue holds merit, and how much it really matters.
Post: Stuck at Home
Link to comment from November 23, 2024
You might find Morgan Housel’s podcast this week worth a listen. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-morgan-housel-podcast/id1675310669?i=1000677122750
Post: What You Can Do
Link to comment from November 16, 2024
Jonathan, re: your #6, are you a fan of selling bonds to pay off a mortgage, if the mortgage interest rate is higher than the expected return of the bonds? If so, is it worthwhile to do so even if it means one's stock/bond ratio gets completely out of whack due to the selling of the bonds? (I suppose one could always rebalance right afterward and reset the asset allocation.)
Post: Advice for the Kids
Link to comment from November 9, 2024
I’ve actually told a slimy car salesman—as I was walking out—that I’m actually willing to pay more for a car if the salesman is honest. He lost the sale because to me, my satisfaction is higher—even if I pay $500 more—when dealing with someone who is honest and ethical.
Post: Car Quest
Link to comment from August 3, 2024
Rayan, have you had success buying any cars on FB Marketplace? I’ve always been curious.
Post: Car Quest
Link to comment from August 3, 2024