Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now

We are constantly told to be grateful.  We have so much abundance in our lives, and we should be grateful to god, or the universe or other people, for all we have.  And really, if you're reading my blog, you have access to some kind if electronic device with Internet access, and you are literate, so you are probably better off than the vast majority if the world's population. Still, even in the midst of all this abundance, most of us don't feel rich.  Are we just ungrateful, superficial materialists with an insatiable need to acquire more stuff?  Or are we never quite sure we have enough to get us through whatever life flings at us?  People come to me and ask how much money they need to retire, and really, the answer to that depends in large part on how long they plan to live.  There's no way of knowing for certain that you have enough, so in essence, we are all somewhere on the continuum between feeling pretty sure we'll be ok, and being absolutely panicked at all times.   

The other night I watched a movie called In Time, staring Justin Timberlake.  Short version:  Bleak, alternate reality in which people have digital clocks embedded in their arms, which start ticking at age 25, counting down one year, after which the clock stops, and the person dies.  It seemed like it was just a Logan's Run remake, but the twist is that time is the currency of this alternate world.  People are paid in time for their work, so they can extend their lives, and time is used to pay for things (Coffee costs 4 minutes, the bus costs 2 hours, a very fancy sports car costs 57 years).  No one ages; they all look 25 and beautiful forever.  The very rich live in a different time-zone, they have the luxury of doing things slowly, and they control the cost of all goods, so the poor can never rise above their circumstances  (kind of how the evil Cohaagen controlled oxygen on Mars in Total Recall).   One day, a very wealthy man who has tired of living after 100 years, gives Timberlake his remaining116 years and then dies, leaving Timberlake, who has always barely subsisted on less than a day, to suddenly ponder abundance.   After hanging out in the time zone of the wealthy and enjoying some pleasures and comforts, he eventually realizes abundance can be empty and meaningless, and the only real pleasure is the joy of giving it away to others.  So Timberlake hooks up with a beautiful, but sad heiress and they go on a Bonnie & Clyde style rampage to redistribute the wealth to the masses.

Is this the best movie ever made? No, but stick with me, there's a point to all this.

Back in our own world, we don't have a time stamp we can look at, and we'll never know for sure if we're going to run out of time or money first.  Even though running out of money doesn't mean you die, the idea feels pretty scary.  So how much is enough? I once watched an episode of Mr. Roger's neighborhood with one of my kids, and he explained that it's nice when you have enough for yourself and also some to share with someone else.

I wasn't in a great mood today.  I had a lot of things to take care of, including getting rid of some old stuff that was left over from a bathroom remodel. I gave a sink away to  a really nice woman who answered my Craigslist post under Free Stuff.  She could hardly believe I was really going to give her a sink for free, and she was so happy!  She thanked me profusely, and then she gave me a great big hug.  Made me feel so good.  

I guess I should feel grateful to the universe for blessing me with an abundance of sinks, but right now I just feel grateful for that hug.

Money for Nothin'

This is what I heard myself say to my husband yesterday:

"Honey, I put all of our telecom and internet expenses on the Ink card because they're giving 5X the points for every dollar. Use that one for any office supply stores too because that's also worth 5x the points, oh, and they give 2x the points on gas, so buy gas with it too, but use the Freedom card for the three reward categories they're having right now, which are restaurants, movies and Lowes (not that we ever go there), but only until June when the categories change and they give 5% cash back on something else, and then put everything else on the Venture card because they give 2 miles per dollar.  Oh, but use the Venture card at Trader Joe's because they're giving 5x the points there, but only until the end of July.  Have you got all that?  Honey?

The Amex card?  No, I'm not using that one anymore.  The rewards weren't as good."

Have you noticed how complicated shopping has become?  Last year I wrote about this, and I swear it's now gotten much worse.  The banks have figured out how my irrational brain functions, and they know they can tease me with the promise of getting something for free, so I will spend a ridiculous amount of time figuring out which is the smartest way to pay for things.  If I need some t-shirts, I can go to the Gap and buy them, or I can go to the Gap website and buy them using the coupon code they emailed me for a discount, and I can start from the Upromise portal so that 5% of my purchase goes towards my kid's college fund,  or I can go check through the shopping function of each of my credit cards to figure out which will give me the greatest point bonus for shopping through their site --- points that I can use for travel, if I could ever actually make that work, or the massage that I will need after all this insanity.  And I can spend an hour or so trying to turn a 5% contribution on a $50 purchase into $2.50 to be split among the college funds of my three kids.  Great use of time!

And then you look at the other rewards you're killing yourself to earn.  I spent $67 at Trader Joe's one day, and I was so happy because I was going to get 5 bonus points per dollar by using the Venture card, and that's 335 points, which is really exciting until you realize that in the CapitalOne system, you move the decimal point over two places, so you're getting a whopping $3.35 in miles.  WOOHOO!

But still, I can't not do it.  Even though I know the payoff for all this effort is low, my brain can't get past that promise of getting a better deal.  I know it's irrational, and yes, compulsive.  

My poor husband.  I know he stands there at the cashier and thinks, wait, which card was I supposed to use for guitar strings?

Parenting and Behavioral Finance

My kids will do anything for a donut.  I was trying to get one of them to finish his homework, and the situation had been devolving into something between demanding, cajoling and begging, when it occurred to me I could try dangling a donut incentive. The savvy child in question made a counteroffer with his preferred terms, a deal was struck, and the room fell silent apart from the sounds of pencil writing. 

There are parents who object to this sort of thing, claiming that all external motivation, like rewards, punishment, or praise lead children down the path to eternal unhappiness because they will never do anything for any good, authentic, internal reason, but only for empty external rewards.  But that's silly.  I don't have to offer donuts to compel my kids to be kind and caring, or to draw piles of wonderful pictures, or to ask endless questions about how and why things in their universe function, but like all humans, when it comes to things we don't want to do, there really has to be an incentive. 

The incentive doesn't necessarily have to be material (or edible).  It can be a feeling of accomplishment that comes from completing a task, or the sense of satisfaction at seeing the results of your labor.  I'm endlessly gratified by the appearance of tomatoes on the vine I plant and tend each year, and it motivates me to replant the next year.  I also feel very satisfied by the sense of calm I experience after practicing Yoga.  Do I do Yoga because I will get a donut afterwards?  No, I am motivated by knowing I feel great afterwards.  Of course, if you want to make me go to a 5 year old's birthday party at Chuck E Cheese, I might need an external motivator.

These days I'm actually thinking a lot more about DIS-incentives.  More specifically, how do I avoid having a child who never realizes his potential because he lacks motivation.  What will motivate my children to achieve anything?  I think of all those people whose grown kids are living at home and not getting jobs, and I'm pretty sure giving them all donuts won't solve this problem.  Clearly, constant ease and comfort is not a great motivator to make changes.  Why ever leave mom's couch if she does your laundry and cooks fabulous meals for you, right?  Why would you want to change that? Especially if you haven't experienced the pleasure that might come from doing those other things you don't want to do.

Some parents won't contribute to the funding of their child's education because they believe the child will be more likely to work hard and do well if he himself is taking the financial risk and bearing the future financial responsibility for the debt.  But that relies on a motivation which is too abstract.  An 18 year old doesn't begin to know what it feels like to be 35, with a family to support while still paying off college debt, so he can't really be motivated by the desire to avoid an unknowable pain.  And where do you stop with this thinking?  Should I stop feeding my 7 year old in order to motivate him to become independent and self actualized?  If we stop cleaning the house does it incentivize our kids to start cleaning, or does it merely familiarize them with living in filth?  Rather than saving for college, should we just focus on making our kids miserable so they'll want to move out and make something of themselves?

I know that getting an education and a job and a life will bring my kids more fulfillment than the alternative.  I also know now that flossing more would have had a really good payoff, but these conclusions are based on experience rather than a mysterious intrinsic motivation.

So what should a parent do?  Here are the choices:

1) Bribery:  "Go to college and I'll buy you a car"

2) Dis-incentivize inaction (I know, that's a double negative): "If you don't go to college I'm taking that car away."

3) Do nothing, and wait for the kid to discover an internal motivation: "Would you like another donut, honey?"

4) A little bit of love/a little bit of hate:  "I'm going to make you do this thing you don't want to do so you can have a small taste of the potential payoff. Then I hope to bask in the glory of hearing you say 'I'm glad my mom wouldn't let me quit taking karate lessons because I've now experienced the authentic, internal satisfaction of having achieved the level of black belt, and also all my friends are scared of me'."

Now that I have solved a major crisis of our times, I believe I deserve a donut.  But first I need to go tell my 3 year old to start looking for a job.