Lessons From My Dad

To give you some background, I am the youngest of ten children (yes, ten!), and my parents worked very hard to ensure we had everything we needed growing up. My mom stayed home with us kids, and my dad had a modest job. I was always aware that we weren’t rich, but now that I’m a mom and VERY cognizant of how expensive even two kids are, I can’t fathom how our large family survived on one income. But we didn’t just survive; I grew up never feeling like I had to go without – all ten of us went to private Catholic elementary school, we went on amazing vacations (though maybe unconventional), I played on traveling sports teams, and I never felt the sting of not having enough money. And you know what else? My parents fully paid for all ten of us to go to college.

When I spoke with my dad that day, he told me that he understood where those clients were coming from because he and my mom would have sacrificed anything to give their kids a leg up in life – whether that meant always shopping at a bargain or second-hand stores, very rarely eating out, skipping events, delaying his retirement, or even reducing their spending for their entire lives. They knew the tradeoffs, and it was worth it to them because that was their main goal in life. He told me that I would have been doing him a disservice if, as his financial planner, I had tried to persuade him to shift his goals and priorities to what made the most financial sense for him and my mom rather than help them with what they wanted their money to accomplish. I learned a powerful lesson that day, and I was lucky to have that wake-up call very early in my career.

There’s always a math answer. The answer that aligns with conventional financial wisdom and makes the most sense in terms of dollars – wait to buy the house when interest rates aren’t so high, save more/spend less now so you can spend more later, don’t aggressively pay down low-interest debt and invest that excess cash at a higher rate instead. But only you know if having that liability lingering on your balance sheet will keep you up at night or if missing out on purchasing the perfect house or not sending your children to private school will cause regret.

At Rather & Kittrell, we begin every client relationship with a Discovery meeting where the first questions we ask help us learn your core values and beliefs because we know this will shape every single decision you make. We always want to help you align your money with what is most important to you. We help you understand the tradeoffs so you can feel confident making the decisions that make the most sense because the math answer isn’t always the right one.