Coffee Break: Abbey Road Sunglasses

145 Comments

1. A young woman in my husband’s office is interested in the kind of work I do, and so he offered to introduce us. We were introduced over email, although she already follows my Twitter feed, where I use my real name as my handle. After a few emails back and forth, she addressed me by a name that is not mine. My first name is unusual (I’ve never met anyone else with it) and so I’m usually pretty forgiving when people mangle it. But I’m just irked that after all this, and after using my name correctly several times, she just out and calls me by a different name (like if my name was Marly and she called me Maria — sort of like that). I’m suddenly so not interested in giving her my time. I know that’s petty and I probably should still respond, but geez, just get the name right!

   1. Possible brain fart? If she’s used your correct name several times, she probably does know your name.

   2. Wait she only did this once? It was probably a typo. I can understand being irked if she keeps doing it but I think you’re being petty if she only did it once.

      1. Agreed, sounds like an autocorrect error.

   3. Typo or autocorrect. To use your example, if I were typing Marly in an email on my phone, it’s entirely possible my phone would have changed it to Maria and I wouldn’t have noticed.

      1. My autocorrect once changed a freind’s name to a gay slur and I didn’t notice. I was mortified. He thought it hilarious, fortunately. (He is not gay)

         1. I’m having a lot of fun trying to imagine what this could be.

            1. I’m guessing the slur is the obvious one. I can see Craig or Greg being autocorrected to that, especially if the name was a weird spelling the phone didn’t recognize like Craeg.

            2. Not to ruin your fun, but we call each other Fam based on an old inside joke…..

               Which I had typed into text hundreds of times before Siri decided one day I must mean something else….

      2. My name gets auto corrected to a famous footwear brand. That typo of my name bothers me far less than someone who adds an extra letter and doesn’t care to notice that my name is not spelled with that extra letter.

         1. What is your name?

            Niko? Pima?

            1. Yes, if she’s written your name correctly, I would guess autocorrect is at fault here and would cut her some slack, as I know a Niki who gets Nike and a Cristy who gets Crusty and Crazy all the time.

   4. Most likely this has nothing to do with you. I work with men with sort of similar names (like Marly and Maria), and mix up their names all the time, even though I never mix them up as people. It’s embarrassing for me, and I hope it doesn’t bother them.

   5. Yeah, it’s really f’ing petty. This weekend I typed someone’s name in my phone and it auto corrected to “emoji”.

      I’m sorry, maybe I need a snack but I just can’t imagine getting so worked up over this that you took the time to write a paragraph about it. Maybe because I’m tired of placing the expectation of perfection upon everyone. She made a mistake and now she’s not worthy of your time or attention? You are the kind of person that makes people (especially young professionals) nervous or hesitant to reach out to someone new or ask for help.

   6. Okay thanks for talking me out of being crabby on this one. My mom thought she was being creative when she named me but ugh, I would never wish this on a child. “Explaining my name” is such a boring game. (Especially since it’s mildly derived from an ethnicity that is not my own, but that I look like I might be. So people love to ask “what is that” meaning “what are you” when they hear it. Which requires another level of explanation. Both in answer to their question and in answer to their question behind the question. “It’s [ethnicity] but I’m not.”)

      My own kids have the blandest names. I hope they don’t hate me for it when they grow up.

      1. Fun story: I used to have two law partners whose autocorrect names were “Woman” and “He-Man.”

      2. I would be annoyed by this and would let it go once. She is hoping to use you as a professional contact and called you by the wrong name? She should have caught that in proofing. I’d accept it as autocorrect once but after that I’d politely say something. I’m shocked so many think this is petty. I am also a journalist and so getting a name incorrect could lead to a huge problem for me, and rightfully so. And I fully admit that does color my opinion. But still.

      3. Idk if you’re still reading, but in case you are….

         If you can do it without being irritated, it could be a nice mentor-ly thing to do to point out to her that people in business are still people and that something like that can be surprisingly irritating, so it’s wise to carefully proofread emails.

   7. Be annoyed. Help her anyway. If she does it again, write her back and say, “Hey so and so, I’m sure this is an oversight or attack of autocorrect, but my name is spelled ABCDEFG. Just wanted to make you aware should you email anyone else and refer to me.”

      1. I called a lawyer who did the bulk of writing on an amicus brief by the wrong name. I was MORTIFIED! I knew her name, but when I sent out the thank you email, I just imagined a different name and called her that. People make mistakes. I was still grateful for her help.

   8. I know most people are “iffy” on the subject of what I’m about to say but here goes: I, too, had an usual name. It was an alternative spelling of a word that already looked odd and was hard to pronounce. No one besides my family and very old, close friends who have known me since I was a kid could get it right. When I was in school, my teachers would just refer to me by my last name because even they couldn’t get it right. When I graduated from high school, my first name was butchered so badly by the woman who was calling us up to get our diplomas that for two minutes I just sat there and prolonged the graduation because I honestly did NOT know she was referring to me (there were a couple other kids in my graduating class [wasn’t related to any of them] who had the same last name as me, usually when someone butchered my first name but said my last name correctly I could assume they meant me but not in this case). It was the same thing during college. Eventually, I got sick of it and just had my name legally changed to something that was easy to spell and say and easy to remember. Problem solved. The only people who still refer to me by my birth name are old friends and family members. My co-workers and new friends I’ve made over the years have no clue what my birth name is. They just know that I’ve changed it but they don’t know what it used to be and they never will. And before I get questions, yes, I know I could’ve just gone by another name instead of legally changing it, but I didn’t like the name myself and I didn’t want to get people confused or having them ask me why I went by one name but had another. Decided to kill two birds with one stone and I couldn’t be happier.

2. I could use whatever advice people have on this, as well as a sympathetic ear. About a year ago I was diagnosed with OCD–I always wondered if that was too extreme a diagnosis but basically it manifested in words and images obsessively popping to into my head about suicide. It never went away entirely but medication was controlling it pretty effectively. Now the meds don’t seem to be working as well and the thoughts are not as frequent as when they were really bad but more frequent and intense than they were. I know this probably necessitates a medication change, which scares me because I had been pretty lucky on side effects to date, but in the meantime I’m not entirely sure how to cope. Exercise and meditation help, but my therapist is on vacation and I’m finding myself feeling fragile and jittery and on edge.

   1. Call your therapists office right now. This is an emergency and they have a plan for emergencies.

   2. Hugs to you – August is the worst time for mental health issues (therapists all seem to leave town at the same time!). I’ve been there, but I agree that calling your doctor is a good idea. There is probably another therapist on call to deal with emergencies, and he or she can help you evaluate what steps you should take now. You may just need a dosage adjustment, or you may not need to do anything, but you should have a professional help you evaluate this.

   3. Just wanted to say that I also have pure obsessive OCD that manifests itself in intrusive thoughts. It’s really tough to talk to people about it IRL. I hope you’ve been able to get through to a backup therapist, but wanted to let you know you’re not alone.

   4. Thanks, everyone. My therapist is a sole practitioner so I don’t think she has a backup but I will call my psychiatrist. I actually feel like I’m exaggerating a bit or making a mountain out of a molehill. I’m not in any danger – it’s just hard to cope with on a day-to-day basis. And things that I know are irrational, like the thought that I deserve to die, suddenly feel like they have real weight.

      1. My sole practitioner usually did have someone on call when she was out – she would leave the name and number on her outgoing voicemail. And don’t feel bad for finding this scary – I’ve had those thoughts before, and they are really frightening, even when you know you don’t actually want to die. I think it is okay to err on the side of being needy with your doctor. They can always tell you this isn’t an emergency, which can be reassuring in itself.

      2. This sounds really distressing – I’m sorry you’re having this experience.

         ITA that you should get in touch with your psychiatrist. If it’s helpful, my therapist is really clear with me that intrusive thoughts do not correlate directly with suicidal ideology. I find it somewhat easier to identify my intrusive thoughts as ugly and unpleasant but powerless when I remember this. So an intrusive thought about suicide does not necessarily mean you are in danger of self-harm, just like an intrusive thought about elephants would not make you in danger of trying to acquire one.

         The podcast Invisibilia has a really good episode (maybe their first?) that touches on this. Might be worth checking out when you are feeling a little bit more like you are on solid ground.

3. I could use some emotional support. The time pressure associated with travel is one of the biggest triggers for my anxiety, and I absolutely have to make a very stressful trip this weekend.
   But I live in a prime eclipse-viewing area, and I made the mistake of reading all the doomsday traffic forecasts. Now I’m so worried I cam hardly think straight!

   1. Where is the trip/when do you go and return etc.? If you post it here, I bet people can help you strategize in order to make it as easy as possible and sometimes just having a strategy and/or knowing you are going/coming at the best possible times is enough to make one relax — i.e. just having a plan or a framework.

      1. Live in OR, heading north for the weekend, and then turning around and heading south again…the saime time everyone else is. At least during the time everyone is leaving, I can just stay put. (No significant work commute)

   2. I don’t know if it helps, but I tend to think a lot of this eclipse stuff is really overblown.

      1. Depends on where you are–I think basically every hotel in Charleston is sold out, so I do fully expect that to be a traffic nightmare, for example.

         1. Charleston is a traffic nightmare on a normal day. I feel especially bad for the people who are going to have to get through that chaos just to go to work on Eclipse Day!

   3. Can you leave a day early? Can you stay at an airport hotel the night before your flight?

      1. It’s all by car, and the problem is that I absolutely have to maximize my time at destination. I need to help family, and there is more work to be done than we can possibly be done in a single weekend. Then I need to be back at work Monday…it’s just a terrible trip :(.

         1. It will be fine. You’ll leave as early as you can and do what you can. That’s all you can do.

            1. +1,000

         2. It won’t help with time, but can you find a backroads route that your GPS may not find? I know mine won’t necessarily show all routes if they’re going to be slower than the first three routes or however many it shows, but a backroad that is an hour slower may be less stressful than crowded interstates.

            1. Thanks, I appreciate the thought, but I’m driving across a couple hundred miles of desert, so let me signal boost the department of transportation’s warnings:
               ~don’t rely on cell signal or gps
               ~pack enough water, there may not be services, especially if traffic is bad.

            2. What aspect makes you the most nervous? Not getting home in time? Having to pee in traffic? (That’s mine lol). Running out of gas? Figure out your fear and then plan to accommodate it. Bring extra gas. Wear a skirt for easy modest road side peeing. Bring food and water. Pre cell phone days, someone always pulled over any time I was broken down. If you are in a place with crazy traffic but no cell service, someone will likely stop to help you and since there is a lot of traffic, you will feel safer talking to this stranger than you would otherwise.

               You have to recognize what is not in your control and let those things go. Plan for the best. Be ready to roll with the worst. Knowing it might be bad is half the battle. Now you get to prep for it.

            3. That’s an incredibly helpful question, actually, Blonde Lawyer. It suddenly made me realize that all I’m really afraid of is being blamed for not being able to please other people, i.e., stuck in a car with DH’s road rage, mom’s guilt-trips when we have to leave no matter what, because traffic. These problems seem almost as impossible as astronomically able to blot out the sun, but it’s still helpful to change perspective.

            4. Tell DH not to come. Srsly. It’s the only thing you can solve.

         3. I’d take a broader view and lower your expectations overall for the weekend. I suspect that even though you’re saying there’s more work to be done than can possibly be done, there’s a part of you that really wants to get it ALL done. I’d just downshift the whole weekend to ‘getting 1/3 of it done will be great.’ Then, anything you get done past that will be a bonus. In short, Breathe, and accept the reality of all the stuff that simply can’t happen this weekend.

            1. I’m really trying, but this is the final deadline for an effort that’s been dragging on for 6 months, and after this I’m flying out of the country. Have to get all my sh!t into storage, and yes, I’m panicking.

            2. Can you hire help with the moving stuff in storage part? Having hired muscle will help it go faster. And just decide who is best suited to packing up what (or whatever other tasks are at hand) beforehand so you have a gameplan.

4. In your circles,what is typical for parents helping adult children out post-college? Many friends and acquaintances I know bought condos in our HCOL city within a couple years of graduating college (at expensive private schools). This tells me that either they had no student loans, their parents are paying the down payments, or maybe both.

   But no one says this; they say “I” bought my place, not “my parents” bought my place. For years in my twenties, I wondered how they did it. I’m only now starting to see that people had significant help.

   1. It was pretty common in my mid-sized city to attend the local university so we could live at home and save living expenses. I was lucky that my parents paid tuition as well so I could spend my summers working interesting jobs in different places. Lots of friends worked in the summer to pay tuition. They didn’t expect me to pay them back but they did expect that I made sensible financial choices (no credit card debt, no crazy spring break trips). No one I know was bought a condo outright but several (including myself) got generous move-in gifts like kitchen appliances or a bedroom set. I know I am super lucky and never asked, it was always offered. I don’t think I could be friends with someone who ‘expected’ money/large gifts from their parents in their 20s. I don’t have patience for that kind of entitlement.

      1. Just realized my post seems really unrelated – I was trying to say that myself and a lot of friends didn’t have student loans so we were able to save for downpayments much more quickly. Not a direct contribution towards the mortgage by parents but sort of the same thing.

      2. My situation was similar. I got out of school debt free thanks to a combination of family help with college fund and scholarships. Tuition was less expensive then too. Many of my friends graduated from college debt free or with little undergraduate student loan debt (professional/graduate school was a different story). Not having that debt was definitely helpful in being able to save for retirement/down payment early on in my career. We’d like to be able to help our kid in a similar way.

   2. I’ve seen this too. I’ve finally realized that it’s one of the many (unfair!) ways that wealth protects itself. It’s great, when you’re starting out, to be able to build equity and solidify your credit and all that. And all you need is a $100k down payment! But if family can gift you the down payment, you can build that equity instead of paying rent (and all the good tax things that come with), and it’s just this huge huge head start.

   3. I’m past that age but most of my friends who were early homeowners got their down payments from their parents, and then made the monthly payments on their own.

      I did it the hard way, scaped up 10% down over several years and paid PMI for a good long time until I had 20% equity. I really resented people with the safety net comparing themselves to me, which they did a lot. I wasn’t able to buy until my 30s and I got a lot of “why are you wasting money on rent?” from my silver spoon friends.

      I’m in the VHCOL Bay Area and I’m now afraid my kids will have to move away from here when they are adults because they can’t afford anything. So if I can help them stay, I will, by helping them buy a place.

      Im saying I guess I get both sides now. But I hope to raise my kids not to be obnoxious enough to compare their non-struggles with anyone else’s.

      1. My parents are you, I think. They did it themselves, but in a LCOL area. I had a scholarship for undergrad, and my parents were able to pay tuition. I paid for law school through loans, and my living expenses were covered by me working.

         I was 27 when I bought my home, but was only able to do so because help from my parents early on allowed me to save up a small downpayment, and because my husband is a veteran who qualified for a VA loan (we paid a small down payment and didn’t have to pay PMI).

         I am so grateful to my parents, who sacrificed so that I could have this stability. I try not to take it for granted, and to realize that I’m extremely fortunate and should keep my mouth shut about any “struggles” I may feel like I have.

      2. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/07/millennials-with-rich-parents/398501/

         1. Thanks for this!

   4. In my circle, most of my friends (and including me) came from families who were wealthy enough to help with some things – staying on health insurance/car insurance and paying cell phone bills – but not wealthy enough to give down payment assistance of any meaningful amount. By that I mean I know of friends who’s families gifted them $5000-10,000 as wedding presents or just because around the time they bought their homes, but n one who’s parents actually paid their entire down payment.

      1. +1 This is similar to my circle. My friends’ parents haven’t gone as far to buy them houses, but they have paid for lots of other stuff, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more financial support that I’m not aware of because people tend to keep that on the DL.

         I’m in my early thirties and my parents still help me sometimes.

      2. I wanted to add, I don’t think there’s any shame in this at all, because our parents were the ones who were able to make good livings right out of college and could afford to buy houses on one income and didn’t have six figure student loans, etc. The younger generation (mine) aren’t so lucky.

      3. The only person I know who was given a down payment is the only child of prosperous parents who had a grandparent with a paid-off Bay Area house die the prior year. The parents went to down (probably paid off their house, went on trips, bought a fancy car) and figured that they didn’t need the 100K and their only child and heir would be easy to keep in own if they helped her buy a house.

         OTOH, she really resented the strings that were attached with that sometimes.

         I keep trying to get her parents to adopt me. Pretty sure my parents would be OK with that — an opportunity is an opportunity, no?

      4. I’ve seen a little of everything. I know several people whose parents bought them fancy apartments after graduation in our HCOL city. I know many people whose parents’ paid for their undergraduate education. Others’ parents footed the bill for part of it, and then they financed the rest through student loans. I also know a fair number of people who moved home rent-free after graduation. I’ve found that most other millenials I know that are trying to make it in a major city are on *some* form of family assistance, whether it is footing a cell phone bill or staying on your parents’ health insurance plan for a little while longer.

         I feel like I had a huge leg up, because my parents paid for my undergraduate education (financial aid paid for a huge chunk of it, but I never had to take out a student loan while in undergrad). I paid for graduate school myself. I’ve also learned that “help” is really relative. My parents were completely on their own financially as soon as they reached a working age. I recently talked to my mother about my parents’ decision to finance my education and they said that it made them feel good to be able to do it, because similar resources weren’t available to them.

   5. Definitely 2-3 people in my circle in NYC that are in this situation. And you’re right, they don’t say — my parents put up the down payment. Well — 1 guy I know does tell. He bought a HUGE 1 bedroom in the Gramercy/Union Square area with an enormous balcony at age 24-25. He was an investment banking analyst at the time (the most junior you can be in IB) and he was honest with his friends that his dad told him — if you buy a place right now, I will give you 300k down payment – if you want to throw your cash into a luxury rental, you’re on your own. So of course he bought and since then has become a big deal in his career – hedge fund portfolio manager, constantly in Forbes etc. — but the equity from the first place definitely helped him get into better and better apartments.

      The other 2 — TOTALLY act like they bought their own luxury pads in Manhattan. One doesn’t say much about it but the timing (and the fact that dad is a fam friend who told my parents) makes it clear. The other is obnoxious and goes ON AND ON about how she can’t possibly believe that our 30+ yr old friends are STILL living in non luxury studios, while she and her husband have bought themselves a $4 million 2 bedroom with a view. Um — yeah sweetie — I’m sure your job in HR and your husband’s job as a middle level mgmt. consultant at a big 4 affords this lifestyle and the rest of us are just dumb. Or maybe your uber wealthy family in India fronted the money for you.

   6. My friends are mostly from privileged upper middle class families. Most people I know had parents who paid for all or most of their college education. I’d say at least half my friends got significant help with graduate school tuition as well, but there were also quite a few who got no tuition help post-college.
      Post-school, very few people will admit to anything more than being on their parents’ phone bill and having their parents pay for their wedding. I suspect some people I know have probably gotten down payment help, but no one admits to it.

   7. I mean what are they supposed to do brag their parents have money? Pretend they are renting? It’s a lose lose.

      1. Neither but sometimes you downplay when the situation calls for it. Meaning if someone gasps – you bought a home already – or wistfully says they won’t be able to buy until they’re 40 — THEN you quietly mention how grateful you are for your situation/your parents help/whatever so as to be humble. No one is saying that you have to jump up and down that dad is a surgeon and gave you a 600k down payment. Or if you don’t want to even do that — here’s what you can NOT do — don’t go around saying ‘omg I can’t believe YOU/common friend/whoever is STILL renting/in a studio/in a non luxury building, OMG my husband and I bought a 3 bedroom in Manhattan, why don’t you get one.’ That’s what my friend with international family money does . . . comes across awesome . . . .

         1. Ewww I’d cut this friend loose.

   8. Either the parents are paying the down payment or the kids lived at home rent-free for years after they started working. Ime the kids in the latter category are more bratty and entitled than kids in the former. People who get a $100k gift for a down payment tend recognize that it’s a gift and not everyone is lucky enough to have that kind of support. People who were able to live at home post-graduation tend to think that they saved all that money all on their own because they just lived frugally; they don’t realize what a privilege it is to have family that live anywhere close to a decent job market, have an extra bedroom, and don’t need you to pay for rent/utilities/etc.

   9. Yep. I graduated with no family help, tons of undergrad loans, and about $100 in my checking account. I couldn’t go on to a masters because I literally couldn’t afford it. It took me a couple years to realize that my peers who were able to buy houses and take fancy vacations were likely receiving a lot more family help than I was – either in the form of no student loans or with trust funds or just family gifts.

      That’s okay, it doesn’t make me better than them or them better than me. We just had different starts to our adult lives. But it did feel very jarring at first, and I felt like I was playing a lot of catch up in my 20s instead of realizing we just were on different paths with very different starting points.

      1. It took me a while to realize this as well, when I saw people barely out of college buying houses. Finally it dawned on me that they must be getting a chunk of money toward the downpayment from their parents.

   10. I was very fortunate in that my parents paid for my undergraduate education and gave me a small amount towards my down payment. However, tuition was much less expensive than it is now, and I live in an LCOL.

       My parents are the most well-off and frugal parents among my close friend group where I live now outside of my bff’s MIL, and also in my close friend group post-college. I have one friend whose parents made more money, but spent it all and were not able to contribute to his post-secondary education.

       TLDR; it is not common in my LCOL close- friend circle nor in my HCOL post-college friend group.

       1. I should say, I am not counting any of my horse friends in this group – they all have families who help buy expensive horses and help them horse show 40 weeks a year. My parents don’t have anywhere NEAR that kind of money, but they are certainly wealthier than a good percentage of the country and I am very grateful for everything they have done for me.

   11. It’s not talked about where I live in the SE U.S. However, a few close friends have confided that their parents paid for first houses (~250k twenty years ago), still pay for their automobiles, private school tuition, summer camp for grandchildren, etc. The recipients are professionals married to professionals, and these gifts are an extremely private matter. Honestly, I wish it were discussed more widely since other people can get in over their heads financially by thinking, “Well, if they can swing it, we should be able to.” The playing field is not even when some people are funding their own houses and cars and others are not.

       1. Yes I wish it was more open. Wealth begets wealth for sure, and having a $250K “starter home” in your early 20s sets you up for a much different life path than someone who finally affords that $250K home at 35.

          I had to buy a $10K car, fund my $50K undergrad loans, pay for a $5K wedding, and then I could start saving for a down payment on a house. It’s hard to remember that when I feel a little embarrassed about a dinner party at my $300K house and certain colleagues and friends (who make roughly what I do) are in a $500K one and also send their kids to private school. It’s hard to avoid that human impulse to compare, and really hard not to take on excessive debt. I know they’re not judging me, and if they’re friends, they’ll love me regardless, but still. I want to reciprocate at a similar level, if that makes sense.

          1. I have the 500K house (LCOL city) but I’d be so thrilled if any of my colleagues or friends had a dinner party I wouldn’t care if we were in a 1 bedroom rental.

             Lots of people who had help from their parents are well aware how lucky we are and we don’t think that it makes us a stitch better than anyone else.

          2. I seriously doubt anyone notices. When people who earn what I do have a significantly more expensive lifestyle, I just automatically assume family money. I guess I figured everyone made that assumption.

   12. I’ve seen it a lot. MCOL city always getting more expensive. Most people in my peer group weren’t outright given houses and almost no one that I associate with has an extravagant place, but I’ve seen a lot of help with down payments, or parents paying for school, etc.

       One factor that can’t be overlooked is the safety net. If you know you’ve got parents who are able and willing to front you thousands of dollars, then you might be more comfortable making the choice to go ahead and buy, even if they’re not tossing 60k your way for a down payment. I am not such a person. My parents could not pick up the slack to the tune of thousands of dollars if I ever needed it. I’ve got a big emergency fund and savings, but it would almost wipe out my savings to put down a 20% payment on something decent. That’s not smart, right? I don’t have a partner, so it’s just my income. To me, that makes owning feel precarious (which I’m sure is a hold over from having graduated in the recession.)

       So, friends who had help, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease stop telling me I’m throwing money away on rent.

   13. In my circles, parents paying for education is common, paying for housing is not. I do have a few friends that lived at home rent-free for a couple of years after college explicitly for the purpose of saving money for a down payment though, and they were able to buy houses earlier because of it. For those that got that it was quite a financial help, but not actually much of a burden on their parents.

       Personally, my parents paid for my education, and when I bought my house in my 30’s my dad (quite unexpectedly and entirely unasked) paid the closing costs, about $5k. I don’t know anyone whose parents made a down payment for them though.

   14. My parents paid for my college tuition – I got some aid, but they paid the rest, so no loans. I’d certainly say “I bought my first house” in conversation, because they didn’t give me money for that. But I’d also happily acknowledge that I was only able to do so because I didn’t have debt – and because I had the good fortune to marry a European, so his college was free. I’m upfront with close friends; my BFF, for example, earns substantially more money than me but can’t buy because she and her partner are just paying off their student loans now and they live in a place where a 2 bedroom is at least a million. It would be disingenuous to pretend that our circumstances are the same, even if our degrees are from the same place.

       We also didn’t buy until we were 30, but that was only two years after the end of my Ph.D. program, so it was basically two years of saving for a downpayment. And we are in a MCOL area, so downpayments are on the order of $50k, not $250k. We could save $50k by living like graduate students for an extra two years, which was a reasonable sacrifice. I would not have wanted to do that for ten years – we could not have had children if we’d been trying to maintain that savings rate.

   15. In my family, I often gave money to my mom after I got out of college (although she paid the full family contribution for my tuition — I went to a very fancy private school and so was able to get a lot of financial aid, making it cheaper than state school). But now my MIL often gives money to us. She bought us extremely nice furniture (bed, dresser, kitchen table and chairs), buys the kids clothes so often we literally never buy them anything, paid off one of our cars as a Christmas present, and pays for the family vacation every summer (we all go together), plus she lives nearby and babysits constantly. She also often hands me a gift card for Nordstrom or similar and tells me to buy myself something nice, or asks if we can have a “girls’ day” which usually means taking me clothes shopping (she says she’s too old for anything to look good on her). Meanwhile the down payment on our house was my husband’s inheritance when his father died. This inheritance also paid off his law school debt (I had a full scholarship so had no debt). So our standard of living is clearly far above what it would be without her help or my husband’s inheritance. I estimate we’d have to earn about 15-20% more than we currently do to live the way we do on just our own incomes. While I don’t think this level of help is completely typical, I do think most of my friends (1) graduated college without debt; (2) had some help with grad school; (3) got little helps from parents like their parents buying them a car for graduation, keeping them on their health insurance/phone plans, paying for their weddings, buying furniture for their first homes, buying the big ticket baby items, etc. How many had parents fully pay for down payments I don’t know, but I think it’s somewhat common.

       1. That paying for a wedding or buying someone a car is a “little help” to you says a lot.

          1. It’s comments like this that keep people from being open.

   16. I think a lot of this is definitely cultural/community based.

       Of my high school group (in Toronto), all of us went to university fully funded by our parents through undergrad. I had a $10K loan for law school but only because I refused to sell my car (also bought by my parents). One of my friends went to med school and one did grad work in English and their parents paid for that as well.

       Houses in Toronto are really expensive and pretty much everyone I know had a bit of help with the down payment even though we were all at least 30 years old when we bought. My family paid for my wedding and then we used the money we got as wedding gifts to buy a house.

       In my circle, buying houses young is not a thing because that is when you are living in other countries, going to school and travelling…I do not know a single person who was married before 29. I recognize that I have had a fairly privileged upbringing, but as I have said before, this group can be weirdly judgey about people getting gifts from their parents.

       1. Here is what I know: there is a difference between acting spoiled/entitled and acting privileged/lucky. And you can be a billionaire’s kid and go either way or you can be a white collar professional’s kid and go either way. You are hearing from the entitled ones. (You can also be deeply in debt and act entitled – you don’t know what their checkbooks look like!) At the end of the day, the ones that are vocal and critical are not your friends (whether they have the money or not) and I would not waste your time with them. And the ones that are kind and never judgmental but that you know bought a home at 25, so they must get help from family money… what’s to gain by comparing yourself to them? You do you and do what makes yourself happy and what is right for you.

   17. Had no help personally. Parents divorced as a child. Mother was left penniless, while VP exec father said he wouldn’t foot tuition unless it was for Harvard or Stanford (LOL). Mother went on to become an entrepreneur but had no more than enough to keep her home and keep us fed and clothed in the suburbs at the time. Still, I wasn’t going to rely on my rich uncles to pay – mainly because even as a teenager – I still had a sense of pride and wasn’t going to ask for handouts (what I felt it was to ME). But I went on to receive an undergrad degree & 2 masters degrees. About $115k in loans. Very good and stable career. I am d*mn proud of myself too :) Not anywhere close to buying a home right now because DH and I have moved cities 3 times in the last 3 years and are open to continue moving around till we settle down to have kids. It works for us and we love being able to pack up – move and explore a new city.

   18. I live in New England and have struggled with this for years. I grew up in the Midwest, and my high school and college circles had middle class families. When I moved to New England, I got smacked in the face with family wealth. I met a lot of people who had these huge head starts but loved to pretend like they’d earned every advantage they ever had.

       I graduated from law school with just over six figures of debt (after significant scholarships at both the undergrad and law school levels). I took a job in BigLaw and lived like a student for the first few years. Now, as a sixth year, I’ve paid off my debt, bought a condo in a HCOL area, and my fiance and I are paying for our wedding next year. Law school classmates and other friends in the city — almost all of whom had their parents pay for their educations and many of whom had their first homes paid for by wealthy parents — often make comments about how I’m still in BigLaw and I must be a lifer, like I should be ashamed of selling out. I scrimped and saved and really kept the lifestyle inflation in check, but this job is the reason I was able to get myself out of debt and set myself up well. It’s honestly hard to hear the “just follow your dreams” nonsense from people who have had a giant safety net under them their entire lives.

       1. +100! I’m not still in BigLaw is the seventh year because I love it. I’m still here because I paid off my over $200,000 in student loan debt and paid for my house downpayment in a HCOL city. It’s only over the past year that I’ve started to be able to save money outside of my retirement funds.

   19. Millennial here. I grew up in what I would consider a middle class family (no extravagant cars or houses or vacations etc), but from what I’ve come to realize was actually pretty wealthy but my parents are not “conspicuous consumption” people. They paid for all of my siblings and me to go to college, paid for my sisters’ weddings, and gave each of us a significant down payment for a good (not expensive but something reliable and well made) car post-graduation. I’m the second oldest, the only single child and have had more work/financial struggles than the others but worked my ass off studying in college. I live in a HCOL city, work my butt off in a demanding but low paying industry, and struggle to make ends meet but live a frugal lifestyle. Last year, my parents bought me a ~125k condo as a way to ensure that I’d have a stable, decent, safe place to live, would be able to save money by not moving every year because rent got raised to an unaffordable amount, and would not be blowing 50-60% of my monthly income on rent as was previously happening. It’s not something I expected nor asked for, but having the stability is extremely comforting to both me and my parents. I pay them the equivalent of the mortgage each month, pay my own utilities/HOA/insurance, but I’m building equity rather than just paying rent and getting nothing out of it. It is definitely a huge blessing and a huge step up on my peers, but I acknowledge it when people ask. But in conversation, it’s easier to say “oh I own my place” or “I co-own with my parents” rathere than going through the whole story. I usually say that I co-own, since my name is on the title and I personally signed all the sale documents.

       I think that my parents enjoy being able to do things like this for us kids, and I make certain to express my gratitude and how I do not take any of it for granted nor expect any of it. I think my father is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever met, so I sometimes feel guilty that he’s not spending the money on whatever would make him happy…but having his kids be comfortable and secure makes him happy and it’s his money so I can’t not tell him to do it…

   20. I’m an immigrant and come from a culture where several generations usually live together until death parts them. It doesn’t matter where in US we ended up, my parents were going to help me with college and home buying. We happen to be in Seattle, and my parents paid most of my college tuition, while I lived at home and commuted ($~30k total over 5 years+room and board). In return when my parents started their own venture, I moved back in with them and volunteered for them for a year – they paid my health insurance, cell phone, car insurance, room and board. Now that my husband and I make enough money to afford a mortgage and then some, we borrowed half of our down payment from my parents, and plan to pay it back in 10 years.

5. Can anyone share tips or experience for a Maximalist moving in with a Minimalist? I understand about compromise, but when it comes down to it, I’m a person who keeps and likes to display everything from souvenirs from my college study abroad to a million framed photos of friends and family. He thinks that anything other than an empty surface looks cluttered.

   1. You should both read the Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. For you to realize that you probably don’t need so much ‘stuff’ and for him to realize that even the lady who ‘wrote the book’ on minimalism, puts emphasis on retaining items which spark joy (for you that’s displaying pictures and souvenirs).

      1. I meant to add to the original post, I’m hoping someone will have an idea that isn’t KonMari. I’ve read the book and I’m just not sold on it in spite of all the glowing testimonials. :)

         1. I am anti-Marie Kondo, so I get it. I think the best option in this scenario is the old-style separation of spaces and compromise. In other words, perhaps the kitchen is clear and tidy, as well as the living room, but you get to display your things in the den.

            1. This is the situation DH and I have. I’m not as minimalist as your SO, but I definitely prefer less stuff on display on surfaces than my husband does. We are lucky enough to have a spare room that we use as an office, and that’s his space to do with whatever he pleases.

               I’ve also, of course, relaxed my “clutter” standards in other areas of the house as well, and incorporated some of his beloved pieces into our decor (i.e. his friend made him a really cool origami wall hanging, he has some things from the military that are important to him, etc). I say “I” have done these things not because I’m trying to control the space — but because I take more of an interest in the decoration of the house.

      2. First, I think it’s perfectly possible that that “stuff” legitimately “sparks joy.” Some people seem to be wired to take more joy in their possessions than others, and I’m kind over the Kondo-based moral approbation out there for this.

         I haven’t lived with an SO with different levels of stuff-tolerance, but I did live pretty amicably with a friend/roommate under these circumstances. We divided our surfaces, sometimes by object and sometimes by section. Having spots for stuff made me feel cozy and at home, while having big swatches of bare wood broken only by a perfect houseplant or whatever made her feel like she had the breathing room she preferred. I also can’t recommend highly enough the experience of keeping a storage unit somewhere. My husband and I never fight over whether he should throw out something he wants that I don’t see the need to keep or vice versa because we have an actual space to store those useless but beloved items.

   2. My biggest tip is to each have your own space that you make totally your own style, and then compromise on shared spaces. If your place is small, maybe your “individual” space is as small as a nightstand; if you have a bigger house maybe it’s as big as separate home offices or man/woman caves. But you have to have someplace where you can display all your mementos and he has to have some space where he has empty surfaces.

   3. Compromise. There need to be clean surfaces and things on display. You need to box up your study abroad stuff.

      1. Why should she box up her study abroad stuff if it brings her joy? Wouldn’t that be perfect for ‘things on display’? Travel stuff is the best – reminds us of happy times.

         1. Because all her things bring her joy! And displaying every sentimental tchotchke she owns is not compromise. Study abroad was just an example but I think she needs to do something.

      2. On the compromise note: I would encourage you not to fall into thinking like there’s more moral virtue in having less stuff. There are lots of reasons that that is nonsense, but a lot of people tend to imply that minimalism is somehow more enlightened blah blah, and that makes it harder for us non-minimalists to argue that “hey, i LIKE seeing my family photos” is just an opinion, no more or less valid than “I like empty surfaces.”

         1. This. I love my family photos. I love my random tchotchkes from my grandparents. I also love having a packed closet from which I can “shop” every morning when I get dressed. I’ve come to the conclusion that having a lot of stuff really does bring me joy. I’m not a hoarder and I’ve generally become better about getting rid of things that I was apt to keep as a result of being raised by a very cheap father with depression-era parents (extra screws that come with Ikea furniture, sheet sets where I only have 3 of the 4 pieces anymore, stained towels), but I hate this new-found “I only have 5 shirts that I rotate this week and therefore I am a virtuous person because I dumped all my other crap at goodwill.”

            1. Yup. This is me exactly. It brings me a ton of joy to have books I haven’t read yet and a full closet. The sense of opportunity- so many books, so many cute outfits- makes me so happy. To me, a home library is the dream and some mornings when I’m sick, a cute outfit is the best self care I do that day.

         2. And now I like Rainbow even more than before! I am so over the moral superiority of the Kondo/tiny house brigade. I love my stuff. I have worked hard for it and carefully collected it *because* I love it. Minimalism be damned.

   4. My husband isn’t a total minimalist, but he’s a lot more minimalist than me. I love like, a busy wall with a mishmosh of things and textures and colors and he just doesn’t.

      A concrete thing that’s been helpful has been making sure everything has a place and looks official (???). Like, we collect [item] when we travel, and back at home they all go in a particular place, so that’s the display of [items] from around the world, rather than having them scattered around the house. Bonus points if that place is enclosed behind glass (like a china hutch) or up on a wall! I’ve picked up a number of textile art pieces, and I sew supporting things onto the back so they can be hung from a curtain rod and look orderly, rather than … well basically anything else where they’d look messy. Needless to say photos should go in frames (it would be ideal if all your photos could be framed in similar frames, too — like all in glossy black frames or whatever), and perhaps even in some of those collage frame things. You might also want to think about compromising by making some photo albums/books that can be on display, but are still holding everything in a single place. Also, maybe you can compromise by giving up framed photos on things (bookshelves, mantles) in exchange for putting them on the walls.

   5. I’ve taken a rotating capsule wardrobe approach to it. I don’t force myself to get rid of my travel souvenirs, but I don’t have to display them all at one time, either. Keeping them in a storage box and rotating them out when I feel like it has helped me to separate myself from some of the possessions as well, and made it easier to let go. The things that remain are things that I truly, truly love.

      As you pointed out, though, compromise is key. The house is a lot less “cluttered” than I would’ve naturally made it, and my SO doesn’t mind my stuff if it makes me happy and looks nice. There are way fewer photos of friends and family than I would be inclined towards, though, and you might limit yourself to one photo per person. If you have a family portrait or a friend’s group photo, that would consolidate it a lot.

   6. If neither of you is going to change, some potential compromises are…
      – if space allows, designate one room for you to decorate or display to your liking,
      – curate and display fewer (but more than zero) sentimental items or photos in meaningful ways,
      – with #2, use wall space for display if SO hates things on surfaces,
      – going forward, when you travel, buy souvenirs that you can use instead of stuff that sits on a shelf forever,
      – if there’s a particular item you love and he hates, take it to your office (within reason),
      – digitize your photos and ask your SO for a rotating picture frame as a gift.

   7. FIrst I must say I haven’t lived in this exact situation myself. I am very much a minimalis. While my preference is for there not to be a lot of things around, I find that when there are a lot of things, but it is tidy and they are well organized, then their mere presence is much less of an issue. For example, my MIL has never seen a surface that didn’t need something hung or placed on it. But everything is tidy (as opposed to piles of paper that only seem to grow) and has a place, and so it doesn’t really bother me. Granted, I don’t live with her and it isn’t my style of decorating, but I believe that I could. My own mother, who I love dearly, absolutely loves paper and has paper scattered about all the time, which makes me crazy. Could differentiating between having items and having a mess help you keep more of your stuff without making the other person hate the space?

   8. The thing that helped me and my DH the most was reading Men Are From Mars, Women are from Venus together and just acknowledging that we are very different people and it will take time (and it has!) to negotiate these differences. He is a minimalist because he’s actually super messy, so he manages that by living like a Medievel monk. I am a bit of a collector/sentimentalist, but I’m super organized. After we moved in together, things were just chaos for some years because we were constantly quibbling about who caused the mess. I went so far as to suggest that we live like Tim Burton-Helena Bonham Carter- in adjacent homes connected by a walkway. We have been happily married for 10 years now and are only now finding an equilibrium. I guess I haven’t offered much advice. Just know you’re not alone!

   9. A good compromise I think is actually good organization. I studied to be a professional organizer (traditional not Kon Mari) once in a blue moon and you’d be surprised at how many clean surfaces and how much stuff you can have if everything has its place.

      For example, he likes clean surfaces and you like family photos? Gallery wall.
      You want tchokes? Limit them to one shelf, even a floating shelf to take up less floor space.
      You don’t want to throw away a sentimental item, but you know you want to reminisce from time to time? Create a curated collection of those items that mean the most, put

6. Attention, any ‘rettes with very sensitive fair skin – what tinted moisturizer has worked really well for you? Thanks so much!

   1. Dr. Jart Ceramidin Day Tint. It’s pricey but so worth it.

   2. Elta MD. Buy it.

   3. Me me me! Fair and sensitive …. Dior Nudeskin BB shade 01 is the best I’ve found. It goes on a hair lighter than my skin but settles into a perfect match. I apply with a big fluffy brush.

      1. Armani cc cream in shade 1.

      2. +1 to Dior Nudeskin BB cream

7. I’ve signed up for some adult dance classes (as in for adults not, you know “adult”) this fall, and I need tights, and leotards. When I danced in high school, I bought mostly “L”-sized dance wear. I was a tall-ish size six. I’m still 5’9″, but these days I wear a 12 or 14. I feel pretty sure Capezio or Bloch XLs are not going to work. Does anyone have any suggestions? TYIA!

   1. I’m the same size and height as you and bought a Eurotard plus size leotard. I think I bought through DanceFashions dot com or DiscountDance dot com.

   2. Discountdance.com carries some plus size leotards, etc.

   3. Discount Dance carries a few tall sizes which might help, as well as plus sizes. Not that a 14 really is plus sizes, but as you know, leotards run crazy small.

   4. Get thee to Discount Dance or All About Dance (same company, different websites). They have many plus size options that are really pretty cute and are in a lot of price ranges.

      Oh, and I hope you enjoy your classes this fall!

   5. I would recommend buying from somewhere you can return — some leotard sizes are weird and going up in size only means its longer, while others are bigger all over. I’m 5’9″ and about a size 6-8 and take about a M in Capezio, while I feel like when I was a teen I was always an adult L. I can’t tell if it’s vanity sized or if I’m just different shaped. I’m not sure where you’re dancing, but honestly sometimes in the ballet classes I took as an adult I’d wear pink tights, black dance shorts, and sometimes athletic tank tops (from Lululemon etc, but also random cotton ones) instead of leotards. Maybe only half of the people in my class wore actual leotards, and mostly everyone wore dance shorts, with a few people wearing black yoga capris. I would only buy one leotard before class, unless you’re required. For adults they usually let you wear whatever.

8. Will I regret it forever if I don’t take a ‘babymoon’? DH is a teacher and can’t take a long vacation from mid-August to mid-December. I’m due in February and think I’ll probably be pretty uncomfortable by mid-December, plus family will want to see us around the holidays, so if we did take a vacation it would be probably just be a long weekend in October in the US. We’ve been to most of the popular US cities for long weekends except Asheville, and no offense to Asheville, but right now just staying home and doing some fun, vacationy things (nice meals out, a theater date, maybe a massage) here sounds way more fun to me (not to mention way cheaper). It might just be the first trimester fatigue talking, although my first trimester is technically over. We have traveled extensively together pre-kid and we plan to (hopefully) keep traveling (we actually already have potentially crazy plans to go to Europe w/the baby in summer 2018) so I really don’t feel any burning desire to travel this fall but my friends with kids are telling me I HAVE to do it.

   1. Meh, go for a long weekend in October if you feel like it and/or go out for a night to a hotel over the Christmas holidays if you feel like it. There are no rules. The only babymoon you really *need* to take is if you have a second kid while kid #1 is a toddler ;) Enjoy!

   2. Nope. We didn’t. Either time. Could not care less. I wish we had traveled more pre-kid, but frankly traveling while pregnant was just not that relaxing to me. I had to pee a lot so really no mode of transportation was super fun. I couldn’t drink but a wee bit, which took a bit of the pleasure out of nice meals. You do you on this one.

      1. Agree. Just had my second baby and didn’t do a babymoon for either one. (When did these become “a thing”?) DH and I travelled a lot before having kids though. I have one friend that did a babymoon to the Grand Canyon and regretted doing it because it was exhausting. Agree with PP though, you do you.

      2. Yeah this is part of my hesitation. We were traveling last week (to see family) and I was pretty uncomfortable between peeing constantly, being really bloated and feeling tired. We weren’t really trying to sightsee but I think that would have been tough. My friends all say second trimester will be totally different though.

   3. I don’t think you’ll regret it at all. Stay home, do some fun, vacationy things, and enjoy your staycation!

   4. No. This is a luxury thing that not everyone does. Your friends with kids probably would like a kid-free vacation now that they have kids, but that doesn’t mean having a vacation before you have kids makes you need it less desperately after the kid is born.

9. Any recommendations for a phone case / pouch / wristlet etc for two cell phones? I’m looking for something business-y enough to carry into a meeting and put on the table, without it looking like a cosmetics bag.

   1. I just carry my two phones around. A zippered folio could also work.

10. Found out I have to have sinus surgery this morning, had to leave work due to a stupid safety thing, and then got totally ripped off at jiffy l*be (due, I admit, to my own naïveté). But I’m home with my dog now and focusing on the good. What are you most grateful for today?
    For me it’s:
    My dog
    My support system
    My bed…

    1. Lots of rough stuff lately, in the world and in my stupid achey body/brain, so this is needed:

       Working with decent people
       My cats
       The fact that I just remembered I HAVE CAKE in the office fridge!

       1. Well my “focus on the good” went out the window when my aunt just posted a video saying that liberals are the ACUTAL fascist nazis. Nevermind, I take it back, I hate everything..

          1. Can you be thankful for the unfriend button? Or the catharsis of yelling at your family on FB?

          2. This dumb attempt at optimism is brought by my own “silver lining” on the fact that an Alt Right march is being planned in my back yard so at least I get to scream at them in person?

    2. It finally rained and cooled off a bit!

    3. I had sinus surgery and in the end it was SO WORTH IT :)

11. I’m currently in a job I like but in a location where I feel really socially isolated. I know, one can always make an effort to meet new people but there are few avenues to do that here e.g. meetups etc, it’s a small town. So in short I knew I would have to move at some point when I got this job since it’s not permanent, but that feeling of wanting something else has come up alot sooner than I expected it to. I’m only about 7 months or so into this position and at the same time there are new skills I am picking up here that would make it possible to move into a different industry when my contract is up–this is why I got this job in the first place so moving before I have these feels like bailing out before I achieve my goals. One of the things I am pondering is when I should start looking for a new position, my contract in this job is for another year and more i.e. until Jan 2019. Ideally I would like to be at this position for at least a year before moving–and by then I also hope to be more competent in the new skillsets I am picking up. Not sure if this makes a difference but I am in academia and would like to move into an industry or non-academic job. Given these timelines when is a good time to start looking for jobs again, doing informational interviews etc? Thanks in advance.

    1. I”m making a couple of assumptions, as I answer this, that may not be accurate. I’m assuming that you’re fairly young and that you moved to this small town in order to take this job. if these aren’t accurate, then just skip what I’m going to say!

       In my experience, I’ve ALWAYS felt socially isolated 7 months into a new job in a new town, no matter how bustling the area was. It usually takes me a while longer than that to feel like I’m getting connected and feeling at home. This took me by surprise in my first moves, especially when I added in the reality of how different getting to know people was as I got further and further into my career. Anyway, I’ve now come to accept that there will be at least 1, if not more, “lonely years” at the beginning of a new location. It makes it easier to endure through til the connections begin to come. If this is where you are, maybe don’t bail yet, and work out your contract — especially if you can add in other ways to connect with friends in other places.

       1. This is so true.

       2. Also, if by chance this is your first or second FT job, then you’re probably in the process of adjusting to post-college life, which is challenging and takes time regardless of where you live or what kind of work you’re in.

       3. Agreed. It took me a solid year to feel less socially isolated when I moved for my career. And even though I’ve built more of a network now, there are still periods of time when I struggle with it because friends move or enter new life stages (new relationships, kids, intense periods at work, changing interests, etc.). Hang in there.

    2. I’m sorry to hear you’re feeling this way. I also work in academia, and until a year ago I was in a similar situation: lived in a small town, few options for meeting like-minded people who weren’t students.

       From what you said, it definitely sounds like you ought to stick it out, for a year at least but to the end of your contract if you can manage it, since the skills you’re building now will help you to be in a stronger position when you do move on.

       It’s not ideal, but are you within an hour or so of any communities that might be more promising in terms of social outlets? You could also look for community volunteering opportunities that fit with your work schedule.

       Also, I don’t know what area of academia you’re in, but unless it’s something with obviously-transferrable skills (e.g. IT), be sure to put time and thought how your current abilities and duties can translate to a non-academic environment. In my experience, most people outside of academia understand very little about a university’s structure or the kinds of work staff and admins actually do.

       1. OP here: The transferable skills are IT -related, programming and data-analysis skills.

          1. Good, that will be helpful. I’m on the student services/academic advising side, and haven’t had much luck transitioning to a position outside academia, despite looking for the last 3 years (on and off).

12. thanks for your post

13. I LOVE these glasses! Might have to take a trip to Free People soon!
    -gabby
    http://www.orcuttfamilydentistry.com

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