I just heard your show and my mouth dropped. Not only on the amount of $$$ I’ve been wasting over the years but the little ways I could recoup some of it over a short period of time. That plan is being put to action now. I’m 40 years old, married with kids and I can attest to anyone that getting married was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. When they say that the divorce rate is around 50%, they are really understating the true number. Have they factored in all of the marriages where folks are forced to stay in the same house like living hostages because of child support/alimony costs? Do they factor in the amount of couples who live together but get along about as well as the Hatfields and McCoys did? I’ll dare say that for every marriage that they deem as ‘successful’, at least a third of them are held together because of the kids and the heap of expenses that neither of them could absorb if they broke up; that’s a fact. I remember a few years ago when you asked married guys would they leave tomorrow if they hit the lottery and nearly every guy said yes. I can tell you that many are still looking to that source and then some to escape their own Riker’s Island at home.
I also agree with a statement you made in regards to the schools not teaching personal finance. I fully believe that this rabbit hole goes a lot farther than any of us would ever imagine. Ask yourself this question: to whom would it benefit if the masses weren’t taught about credit, debt, interest rates, budgeting, amortization charts, and the like when they’re young? Major corporations, who spend billions pushing frivolous products for women to buy, certainly do. Government entities, who collect taxes from those sales and get more $$$ to keep/upgrade their fiefdoms when these folks eventually file for assistance after spending themselves out of house and home only to get laid off, certainly do. That’s why you’ll never, EVER, EVER see personal financial management taught in the public school system. They want this monster to keep feeding itself; they need this monster to keep feeding itself.
In order for that to happen, they can’t continually rely on the poor, the lazy, and the indigent to keep paying because at some point, they’ll run out of $$$ while refusing to go to school and/or find work beyond a fast food joint or Pep Boys. So they need more of those mid-tier/mediocre guys in that $25-50k range like Poindexter, Joe Blow, and Mr. Average to fall in love with the first female who pays them any attention, so they can marry and have kids as soon as possible. That way, the woman can quickly latch herself to his finances and spend every penny on the newest outfit, the newest tattoo, the newest ‘easy rental’ furniture that catches her eye, a new car because her girlfriend got one for Christmas, more student loans so she can finish her nail school certification, and the newest line of cappuccino at Starbucks. That’s why other entities, like the church, is so bent on guilt-tripping the few effeminate/whipped/easily manipulated men who still go into pairing up with the broads who attend every Sunday with 3+kids in tow that have never worn a wedding band before; we call it stupid (and other things) while they call it ‘manning up’. In order for many of them to keep building newer sanctuaries to keep up with the church down the street and pay for the pastor’s new home in the burbs, they need more men to attend with their checkbooks in hand. That’s why that $241k figure to raise one child got so little airplay in the mainstream media. That’s why so many guys are ignorant when it comes to prenuptial agreements and are blinded by lust and the fear of never getting any action for the next billion years if they fail to comply with the little lady in their lives.
It would be so funny if it weren’t so sad.
DJ in Lithonia, GA
Love yourself first. Words to live by.