Has reality TV changed the way people think?

Parent Cafe
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<p>I don’t watch reality tv- but I ask this mainly because this morning I read a local neighborhood blog- which had a story about a couple who want HGTV to choose their house to update. ( essentially they want a redesigned yard)</p>

<p>I agree that their yard looks like crap-( they posted a video) but according to public records, they have moved three times in the last decade, moving up about 200K each time, & currently living in a Puget Sound view home that is worth almost a million.
They don’t have 50 kids- just 2.</p>

<p>Granted perhaps I am jealous, because I would have loved to have had more room for my kids & their friends when they were growing up- but whatever happened to people living within their means?</p>

<p>I guess this could go back to the Kia or Mercedes thread & did you notice I didn’t say a thing when dadII talked about spending more money on a roadster then we did on our house? ;)</p>

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<p>EK4 - This is not about your initial topic - - but - - Today there is an article in our newspaper with this title - “Don’t Carry Your Mortgate into Retirement”. I think it’s a crazy thing to do - I wonder how many people actually have a mortgage when they retire? I love living in our means. It’s much less stressful.</p>

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<p>I don’t watch much reality TV because it made me realize that the world is full of more idiots than I’d ever imagined!:frowning: Loads of people are apparently much more concerned with appearances than substance and that leads more idiots to believe that it’s perfectly okay to spend more than they make. There’s no need to think of the wastefulness of it all…money and other resources are just poured away on someone else’s dime until that distant day when credit and income are gone and then there’s bankruptcy. Pathetic…</p>

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<p>Some folks don’t carry their mortgage into retirement but some make bad decisions that require mortgages, HELOCs or other sources of funding to help them dig out of holes they find themselves in–bad investments, medical bills, poor judgment. </p>

<p>We’ve always found it much more comfortable to live well BELOW our means–allows us to sleep much more soundly at night. :slight_smile: Don’t have any interest in having any minutes of fame on the TV screen or watching idiots do so for any financial gain. Yuck–NCAA (no class at all).</p>

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<p>^Agreed, although sometimes those bad decisions include funding an unaffordable dream school too! I always cringe inside when people my age (50+) tell me that they’re taking out huge loans to send their kids to private schools because they haven’t been able to save for college. Gotta wonder where they think the extra money is going to come from in retirement! My mortgage will be gone in the same year my youngest graduates from college and nothing short of a catastrophic illness is going to persuade me to refi! Twenty was plenty, thank you!</p>

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<p>Yes, it also scares me to hear people raiding retirement, taking on huge debt to send kids to K-12 and later to expensive Us. Can’t imagine where they are expecting to get the funds to repay. This is one of the reasons we did NOT send our kids to expensive private schools until they reached HS, despite being urged by many not to handicap our kids. Sheesh! </p>

<p>Our kids have told us how relieved they are that we have reassured them they **WILL NOT **have to help us in retirement and beyond because we have sufficient assets (tho we aren’t sure how much we can help THEM buy their own place or start their own business; not sure that’s really our duty anyway, but nice to be in a position to help some with down payment, especially with VERY HIGH HI real estate prices). They said not to be concerned about them but they’re relieved we are financially secure while having financed their colleges.</p>

<p>Don’t know who parents think they’re helping if they put themselves in a deep hole to help their kids–not a good decision for the family economic unit and extremely poor role-modeling.</p>