I wonder if NG’s wife refused to look for work. I know some spouses who are what I call “employment-optional”; they just think that the normal economic rules don’t apply to them.
Just finished reading this whole thread. When I first read the article, like many of the above posters, I got the uneasy feeling that he was stretching to apply some of the same problems many of the middle class are facing to his own situation. While to large extent I felt these were problems of his own poor choices, I admit to feeling a bit sympathetic to him because it seemed that he WAS beginning finally to own his problems. Beginning the realization that his choices had put him where he was, and that he had made efforts to turn things around, working multiple jobs and curtailing many expenses - though perhaps not enough. But then I heard him on the NPR program and he seemed IMHO much more defensive about these choices.
I would have liked to ask him if he would have made different choices with 20/20 hindsight, what would they have been? He comes off entitled, and not really having learned much if anything from his mistakes. His financial optimism of simply hoping things will get better has led him down this path, and he still seems to think just around the corner there is a pot of gold under the rainbow.
It is obvious to many of us who HAVE struggled financially, under one income, that our problems are not the same as his. I have been a SAHM for my pups, due to medical necessity, and we have struggled to live within our means. Modest vacations, if at all, and doing all our home repairs ourselves. DH and my pups put the new roof on our home when it was needed, following son’s junior year of high school summer, when some of his peers were getting internships and beginning to write their college essays.
We are among the many people who would find it a struggle to come up with $400 - we have $224 in our savings right now. Despite DH now earning $90K, my medical issues drain much of this, so we are tremendously grateful our pups have received the FA at Columbia and Stanford they need.
We have had to take loans from his 401K to pay for medical care and emergencies in the past. We were planning to take a temporary loan to come up with the college application fees D needed, until my FIL passed away and we inherited $1500.
We have our mortgage ($150K left on a home valued at $240K), but no credit card debt. DH and I have tried to make good financial decisions but too often, life gets in the way. I get the impression that some here at CC would say that we should have been saving more all these years, and we have spent too much, and it is our entitled way of thinking that got us where we are. That our pups do not belong at elite schools because we couldn’t afford them, that it was wasteful for D to apply to so many top schools that give fab need based aid. Forgive me if I feel entitled to be a SAHM and waste DH’s earnings on my medical care.
Even though we are well behind where we probably would need to be for retirement, we realize that we still have a dozen years to go, lord willing.
I’d like to hear more about the circumstances since you can’t take gold with you to the store to buy groceries or to pay for gas in your car to get to work. Cash would seem to me to be the better choice for survival.
Gold is very volatile and while it can spike it can also languish in price for years. People who bought gold a few years ago have lost about 30% of their investment.
Who knows @rosered55. I’ve reread this piece twice in the light of a information gleaned from a few simple google searches. There are so many holes in his tale of financial woe that I now hardly believe anything he writes or says. Bad news for a formerly reputable biographer.
I know a number of people who work just for the insurance benefits. If their spouse has one of those on again/off again jobs, or their own business, it can be well worth it to work even at a low level job, just so they can get benefits. There still are companies that provide that. Mine provides it even for part timers.
The car thing makes me wonder, too. Most of our cars have a lot of miles on them, we keep them forever. What’s wrong with an older car? 160,000 miles isn’t even very much. I wonder what his wife is driving, as he doesn’t say the older car is his only car. He did say that was his father’s car, and it makes me wonder if his dad was driving that because he gave all his money away to his grandkids, for private schools. I think some people just believe old folks don’t need their money anymore, so if the old folks are spending their savings, they are actually whittling away at their “inheritance”.
We have our mortgage ($150K left on a home valued at $240K), but no credit card debt. DH and I have tried to make good financial decisions but too often, life gets in the way. I get the impression that some here at CC would say that we should have been saving more all these years, and we have spent too much, and it is our entitled way of thinking that got us where we are. That our pups do not belong at elite schools because we couldn’t afford them, that it was wasteful for D to apply to so many top schools that give fab need based aid. Forgive me if I feel entitled to be a SAHM and waste DH’s earnings on my medical care.
@3puppies, I don’t think anyone on CC would think that. No one would confuse you circumstances with Gabler.
As pointed out by several posters, every word he uses is crafted to support his bizarre narrative. (So that a job from 31 years ago he that he previously said he quit seemingly becomes a recent job that he “squeezed” out of.) We can pick this apart till the cows come home but ultimately we have no idea if any of it approximates the truth. I would much rather hear about the real struggles and solutions of CC posters. I want to thank many of you for being candid.
IMO your story contains the authentic struggle NG’s lacks. I don’t think you’ll find anyone here who would criticize you for the decisions you’ve had to make.
This is the story we should be hearing, essentially “Why I had to make long-term financially disadvantageous choices to keep us afloat short term and what the cost has been.” Draining the 401K costs, but when you have to do it to pay medical bills it may be the best option. Short-term loans are expensive, but when they result in good FA they may make sense.
"DH and I have tried to make good financial decisions but too often, life gets in the way. I get the impression that some here at CC would say that we should have been saving more all these years, and we have spent too much, and it is our entitled way of thinking that got us where we are. That our pups do not belong at elite schools because we couldn’t afford them, that it was wasteful for D to apply to so many top schools that give fab need based aid. Forgive me if I feel entitled to be a SAHM and waste DH’s earnings on my medical care. "
Actually, 3puppies, I totally agreed, understood and supported your post until that one paragraph. I don’t know why you would even say that. I think that is unnecessarily defensive and unfair to posters who haven’t (or wouldn’t) say that. Has anyone said that to you?
Many college students struggle with this - pick a major that will bring in dough, or that you love. My son is looking at a history major vs. a computer science major. We are suggesting he minor in history. Our college student may minor in music, but paying tens of thousands of dollars per year to major in music would be very much argued against. At the very least, we would insist that he cultivate a second career.
We watch Taxi on occasion, and I think that show has an important message: If your dream job doesn’t pay a living wage consistently, you have to have another job until your dream job pays off. The gag is that there is only one taxi driver of all the drivers on the show, the rest are “really” something else.
As for liquidity, my father loaned me tens of thousands of dollars with two weeks notice, which I paid back within two more weeks, and I was able to pay 20K back with two days notice. I also paid him 14K back with two days notice at another time. He gives us money as gifts, but we could pay him back all of his gifts if he needed it.
Being “worth 10 million” has to be analyzed. Is it property, which you can’t sell or get a HELOC on quickly? Or is it stocks, which you could sell quickly? Is the problem that the guy with 10 million WON’T cash in a few stocks to get that 5K? That he finds the debt to you immaterial and meaningless to him, that he doesn’t want to pay “stock fees” to cash out some of that 10 million?
The only thing that enrages me more than commercials for prescription drugs are the commercials for bailing out people who haven’t paid their taxes, for “pennies on the dollar”. I feel sorry for someone who doesn’t understand finances as much as I feel sorry for someone who commits a crime and goes to jail. You can argue that they weren’t brought up right, or had the wrong environment surrounding them, but it comes down to the individual (and couple for married folks) decisions made.
This struck me:
“But, like many Americans, I wanted my children to keep up with the Joneses’ children, because I knew how easily my girls could be marginalized in a society where nearly all the rewards go to a small, well-educated elite.”
He is completely wrong on this. Many Americans don’t have the choice for their kids to keep up with the Joneses. My father was unemployed, and I wore handmedowns. We ate spaghetti, once in a while with meatballs. My mother took on a job. I had holes in my clothes on occasion. But in the end, I attended an Ivy League university, met an even poorer guy, and we are doing well enough to pay for our children’s college. Even if we sap our savings, we both have jobs where we’ve put into our 401k’s and will have a good amount for retirement.
Good luck to him, but “get a job”. A job that will feed your family. I just don’t see what his excuse is.
Based on what I’ve read here, I think that is an unfair characterization of the POV represented in this thread. Your situation isn’t remotely comparable to NG’s. FA is in place for exactly the reasons your kids have benefited from it. You went to the source whose mission is to offer lower income, high performing students the opportunity to attend their institutions. You did not allow your parents to raid their retirement accounts of over half a million dollars to send them to elite schools when other high quality, affordable options were in plentiful supply. You didn’t buy a home worth 3.5 times your income while your other home sat unsold on the market. And on and on…
I think you are projecting here…
The costs have gone up 50% or more at these schools since 2005 while very few middle class people have seen that level of growth in their incomes. Looking at those price tags, I would have been quite happy paying those bills back then since our savings have increased but incomes have not a whole lot. Schools have been steadily increasing their bills by 4-5% each year for over 15-20% when the incomes have stayed stagnant.
“He says, “I drive a 1997 Toyota with a 160,000 miles on it,” in a tone of voice that is implying, hey, this shows how poor I really am. What he doesn’t point out is that this is a trait he doesn’t just share with stretched middle-class families, it’s a trait he also shares with the millionaire next door (someone upthread mentioned this great book)”
THANK YOU. You’ve articulated very well something that bothered me in the article.
Guess what, buddy, part of the reason I can send my kids to college without liquidating my parents’ retirement is precisely because we bought cars and drove them to 200,000 miles. This is what the upper middle class DOES. If they wish to stay that way.
@rhandco Ironically he wasn’t keeping up with the “Joneses.” If the Joneses children go to college at all, they go to Georgia Tech, Miami of Ohio, UC Davis, Florida State, Pitt, etc, etc.
My family weren’t millionaires. They were well off in China before their property was confiscated. My dad was poor after. We are talking around 1951. There weren’t that many millionaires around, 
MidwestDad3,
You may not be middle class.
I thnk a lot of posters are projecting. Just listen to his words while trying to be neutral. I actually do that. I try to do that always. Then I do try to see why a person says what he says. I try not to project too much…
“Gabler seems to bemoan…” Really? I think you are being petty about the car.
You may be right about the vacations. You probably are.
The house…he will probably be able to rent the house out some day and live somewhere cheaper. There are a lot of benefits in raising kids in affluent areas so I can see why people stretch their finances to live in affluent areas. You meet people who can be role models. You see what is possible. Better public schools. Less crime. I had no idea what the world was like growing up. I grew up in a working class area. A middle class area. I am not saying a person has to live in an affluent area to have a fantastic, super meaningful life. You don’t. Living in an affluent area is not a necessity. (So, I don’t need words put into my mouth. )
The cost of college has gone up at what? Twice the inflation rate for 30 years? Public colleges have lost a lot of public financial support. What are the private college reasons for these increases? Some of these colleges probably are extortionists.
He wants his kids to be winners. I think most parents want their kids to be winners. (I can’t remember his exact words). He thinks sending kids to certain schools matters. A lot of people think that way. I used to argue against that. Probably 1,000 times on CC. My thinking has changed a little bit. Maybe schools like Stanford are worth it. Maybe Stanford is worth it for some people and not others.
Gabler didn’t have a blow out. He had air taken out of his tires slowly…like millions of Americans. You can crash fast and you crash slowly.
Because Gabler or others have made different decisions than you have doesn’t mean your decisions aren’t valid, aren’t great decisions, etc. I think you have made wise financial decisions. I respect you and your decisions. I appreciate your sharing your story. You do the best you can for you.
My thinking is more like yours. I do live in an affluent area, but I can afford it. I don’t spend money if I can’t afford it and many times I don’t spend money even if I can afford it.
I judge people with power. I judge policies and ideas. I judge a few other things.
However, I try not to be so damn opinionated when somebody else makes different decisions.
“Schools have been steadily increasing their bills by 4-5% each year for over 15-20% when the incomes have stayed stagnant.”
This is certainly true @texaspg. But there are ways to address this. Some prepaid tuition plans enable you to purchase tuition credits at today’s prices for use down the road. The Private College 529 Plan is one of these. And, there are some colleges that have a 4-year price guarantee–what you pay for freshman year is the same that you will pay for senior year. Sewanee is one of these.
@busdriver11 be assured that we have heard more than a few these comments from ignorant people in real life, those who largely don’t understand our expenses, crummy insurance benefits, nature of my medical condition (I admit I try to keep much of it personal), cost of applications and the financial aid process at elite schools, etc. Since some of my friends, neighbors, and even my own siblings and in-laws don’t get it, I suppose I was stretching in that I expect that others here at CC to feel the same way - especially since the financial conservatism I consistently read here at CC sounds so familiar to what some of them spew so frequently.
Let’s be honest, there are a lot of posters here who are critical about others who choose schools where they will have to take loans, instead of less costly alternatives but perhaps lesser schools. How many of these posters would have thought favorably about taking out loans for application fees, to prestigious schools? I understand that this approach is not applicable to everyone, but because my pups are truly special students I felt they were “entitled” to go for it, and it paid off handsomely.
But I agree I should not have been so unnecessarily defensive and unfair to posters. Like the author, when you are thisclose to financial instability, it is very easy to get defensive about the choices we have made, and the ones we perhaps should have made.
“Petty” and I sound like your mother! Whoa–feelings are majorly hurt. :((
@midwestdad3 - this certainly will help serious planners with a fixed plan but I don’t know if that is me. We had credit buying in Texas at $50 per credit when my kids were born and we could have paid $6000 per kid back then and bought up 4 years of education (it is now about 42k). That went out the window when the state decided not to keep funding the colleges and effectively released them from their tuition locks when they cut the funding. They still have a savings plan but in reality we were not aspiring to ensure they attended their safety schools.
OTOH, I don’t think I want to prepay 220k in tuition for the school my kid will start attending this year to lock in the bill for next 4 years either! @dstark will give me all kinds of ideas on how to make it a much bigger pie instead of prepaying to a college 3.5 years in advance. 
“Just listen to his words while trying to be neutral.”
Not only did we listen to his words we read his words.
If it quacks like a duck it’s a duck.