I’d imagine our tax preparer will never know anything about our Roth accounts, being non-taxable, and nothing about our 401K’s until we are 70 1/2 and have to take RMDs. Nor the value of our home, or how much debt we have (or don’t have).
My nieces started going to sleep away camp many miles away since it was a family tradition. Multiple generations of girls in the family attended the same camp and as they got older they became camp counselors. Both girls go for about 7 weeks in the summer. I know one week is quite expensive so I could never afford to pay for seven. My image of sleepaway camp comes from the movie, “Parent trap.” I guess it is a nice thing to experience if the family can afford it. The most I’ve been able to do were local summer day camps when school was out. Even those fill up fast.
No money in my family for sleepaway camps. Did go to Girl Scout camp, which I paid for with babysitting money and GS cookie credits. A dear friend of mine went to summer camp in Vermont every year when she was growing up. Her mom was a Head Start teacher and they lived in the Upper West SIde in the 60s and 70s. Can’t imagine the scrimping that took.
DH went to BxSci in the 70s; he was among a decent-sized Co-Op City contingent, which was noone’s idea of a upper middle class neighborhood.
Two cars with a total of $800/mo payment does not mean expensive luxury vehicles. A Prius and a Subaru, both under $30K including taxes/title, came to a bit above that amount.
OTOH, childcare is expensive. We were paying $20k/year for two kids in the mid-90s. It was more than my take-home salary.
Back to summer camp–I went to camp for the whole summer starting when I was 11. My brothers went to the boys’ camp across the lake. I loved every minute of it. But oddly it never occurred to me to send my daughter to the same camp, which still existed. I liked having her around I guess.
@raclut $18,000 in charity on $500k is nothing. There are plenty other things they could cut and pay the debt off in one year.
@CountingDown What year did you husband attend BxSci? I attended 74-78. I too came from a Co-op City contingent (I.S. 180).
We regularly give to a few charities. Our church is the primary one, but we give to a handful of others. We have a few debts. It would never occur to me not to give to charity because I had a car payment or whatever.
@CountingDown @NoVADad99 my dad was retired NYPD and his retirement job was working security at Co-op City! I loved visiting him in the summers - that place was amazing! This was mid-70’s? When was the giant black out? It was around that time. I don’t think I’d have fun wandering around there now!
I do find that very odd! Not odd that you didn’t send your daughter to camp, but that something you did every year that you absolutely loved never occurred to you (even as an option to reject) for your own D!
^1977.
@NJWrestlingmom July 13, 1977. I remember that night well. I was watching CPO Sharkey on Channel 4 when the lights went out. We were living west of Co-op City at the time near Williamsbridge. My father had a store on Kingsbridge Road and we worried about the looting, which thankfully didn’t affect that area. A week later was the All-Star game at Yankee Stadium which I attended.
i had the best summer camp ever – and fall, spring, and winter camp too – and it didn’t cost us anything. it was “Camp Living and Working on our Family’s Dairy Farm”
I don’t even understand what kids do at camp for the entire summer. What could be so amazing that instead of doing whatever you want in the summer (be it working, hanging out with your friends, enjoying the mountains or biking, floating on a raft in the lake), that you would spend the entire summer away from home? It sounds too much like school. Organized activities, crowds of kids (not all of whom you might like), not your own bed.
My kids have gone to some Johns Hopkins camps and YMCA camps, but no more than a short time (until the youngest decided to work the summer as a camp counselor). I don’t understand the appeal of leaving for such a long time.
Camp is a cultural thing here in NY. When I was a kid in Ohio, we might go for a week to 4H camp, but never a 6 week sleepaway. Here is very common. Kids cant just do whatever they want all summer outside unless they leave NY. Even low income kids have camps!
Now, the Uber rich go to the Hamptons for the summer…and send their kids to camp! Poor kids!
I never got to go to camp. I would have loved to go, because there wasn’t all that much to do at home. Going to the neighborhood swimming pool was about as good as it got (before I was old enough to work).
I wanted to give my kids that opportunity, so I sent them to three week camp. There are so many fun things to do, I don’t know how anyone could compare it to staying home in terms of having fun ways to keep yourself occupied.
BUT: by the end of the three weeks, both girls were homesick. D2 got very VERY homesick and sobbed with joy when we picked her up. From then on, we only sent them to camps that were a week at a time, and only if they wanted to go, which they did most summers.
But the whole summer? No, that would not have worked for my kids.
best summer my son ever had was the Ole Miss Summer College for High School. best part (for me anyway) was he got high enough SAT score for a scholarship to pay for the whole thing. he has said many times it was the best experience of his life. so, that’s my plug for Ole Miss.
I can’t imagine not having my kids around in the summer. Life’s too short for me to miss out on that much family time. Plus, there’s no way they’d have wanted to go.
And I will maintain that even if it’s a cultural norm, it’s still a choice. As it’s a choice to live where expensive luxuries are norms that must be kept up with.
I mean, I have no problem with that if it works for a family, but let’s own our choices, and appreciate if we have that kind of money to act on them. I’m going to wager that most NYC kids do NOT go away for the summer. My cousins grew up in Queens, and certainly that wasn’t part of their life.
This Bronx kid was on his own for the summer with both parents working. I explored NYC on my own, went to baseball games at Shea Stadium on my own, even took a trip to Baltimore to go to a wargaming convention on my own. This was how I learned to be independent and now afraid to do things by myself.
I did sleep-away camp in two-week stretches. I enjoyed it, but there were some kids who were in boarding school all winter and camp all summer. I wondered if they even had a room at home.
My kids did our parish’s church camp every year until they aged out, then became “willing workers” and junior counselors. It was a week long, they loved every minute and it cost us about $125.00 per week per kid. They also did Boy Scout Camp and Boy Scout Jamboree.
I can see going away for a whole summer for an internship, or some sort of college prep/specialized skills camp, during high school. Not as a little guy.