When You Can’t Ask Money From Your Parents No More

From Mike’sMillions.Com

Welcome to the World of Grown Ups! You’ve really made it. You’ve hemmed and hawed your way to inde­pen­dence; you’ve started liv­ing on your own; and you really love it.

And then you go to the gro­ceries and can’t believe that toi­let paper could actu­ally cost that much. Things you took for granted when you were liv­ing with your par­ents are not cheap. And pay­ing the rent really eats up on your allowance, er, salary.

Wel­come to the real world boy. You can­not ask money from your par­ents no more!

Here is an arti­cle from the Sim­ple Dol­lar on what you’re sup­posed to do to deal with the shock of finan­cial independence.

That moment when you are left with­out finan­cial sup­port for the first time can be a scary one, and it can lead to a lot of com­plex emo­tions (fear, resent­ment, anger, sad­ness) that can lead directly into irra­tional behav­ior. This is a time of inde­pen­dence and free­dom, a time to step for­ward and walk on your own two feet. Where you go is up to you, but don’t go for­ward car­ry­ing a lot of baggage.

Here’s some advice for deal­ing with that first full taste of finan­cial independence.

Resent­ment is a waste of time. If your par­ents inform you that they are cut­ting ties, a feel­ing of resent­ment towards them is use­less. In fact, har­bor­ing such resent­ment is usu­ally a clear indi­ca­tion that some matu­rity needs to hap­pen, and the cut­ting of finan­cial ties is often an event that requires peo­ple to become more mature.

Accept it as a chal­lenge. No mat­ter the age at which finan­cial ties are cut, there are going to be chal­lenges and lifestyle changes. Rather than com­plain­ing, look for ways to accept the chal­lenge. Spend some time learn­ing how to bud­get. Chal­lenge your­self to live more fru­gally every day and per­haps start build­ing up your own finan­cial backbone.

Don’t con­tinue to spend as though noth­ing has changed. The result of this is debt, and a lot of it. It’s so easy to just keep buy­ing and use those credit cards to pur­chase things you don’t need, but even­tu­ally those bills will have to be repaid with inter­est. Now is the time to learn how to live a lit­tle leaner; buy­ing stuff not only pro­longs things, it makes the process of actu­ally learn­ing to walk on your own that much worse.

Keep the chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open. If you’re feel­ing a strong sense of resent­ment towards your par­ents, you might be feel­ing as though you should com­pletely cut ties with them. Think about this for a moment. They have been giv­ing you money that they’ve earned for your entire life, since even before you were born. All they’re ask­ing now is that you fly on your own now that you’ve tran­si­tioned into being an adult. Is this truly cause for resent­ment and anger?

Rather than cut­ting your­self off from them com­pletely, now is the time to keep those chan­nels of com­mu­ni­ca­tion open wide. Tell them about the chal­lenges you’re fac­ing and ask for advice, not money. Think about it this way: they once went through what you went through and even­tu­ally wound up in good enough finan­cial shape to sup­port not only them­selves, but also you (and per­haps other sib­lings) for your entire life, so they prob­a­bly have at least some idea of how to do things.

Re-evaluate what you’re doing with your life. The cusp of finan­cial inde­pen­dence is a great time to sit down, fig­ure out your val­ues and your goals, and deter­mine how to work towards those goals. This process can help you really under­stand why you are spend­ing money now and make you recon­sider much of what you do with money.