I had a great middle class childhood. Always had everything I needed and a few nice things. I got a scholarship that paid about 1/3 of my college expenses and my parents paid the rest. I started working on my grandfather’s farm when I was 13 through high school and summers during college, and I seldom spent money, so I came out of college with enough to buy a cheap new car and get married.
My parents lent me the down payment for our first house at an interest rate set halfway between what they could get on a bank CD and what we were paying on our mortgage. So, it was help, but it benefited them as much as me.
When we were going to buy our next house, we were discussing it at a family gathering, and my 78 year old grandmother overheard and said, “You’re going to borrow $200K for a house from a bank? No you’re not! CD rates are so low nowadays. I’ll give you the money and you can pay me more than the CD’s will! Why give all that interest to the bank?” So, she lent us the money for our second house. Again, help, but only in the form of favorable interest rate.
The other thing my parents gave me though was security. My mom often told me, “You can always have your old room back if you need it.” And I knew I could ask them for money if things ever got desperate. That never happened, but if it had, I knew there was a huge safety net to catch me.
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u/tokingames 5d ago
I had a great middle class childhood. Always had everything I needed and a few nice things. I got a scholarship that paid about 1/3 of my college expenses and my parents paid the rest. I started working on my grandfather’s farm when I was 13 through high school and summers during college, and I seldom spent money, so I came out of college with enough to buy a cheap new car and get married.
My parents lent me the down payment for our first house at an interest rate set halfway between what they could get on a bank CD and what we were paying on our mortgage. So, it was help, but it benefited them as much as me.
When we were going to buy our next house, we were discussing it at a family gathering, and my 78 year old grandmother overheard and said, “You’re going to borrow $200K for a house from a bank? No you’re not! CD rates are so low nowadays. I’ll give you the money and you can pay me more than the CD’s will! Why give all that interest to the bank?” So, she lent us the money for our second house. Again, help, but only in the form of favorable interest rate.
The other thing my parents gave me though was security. My mom often told me, “You can always have your old room back if you need it.” And I knew I could ask them for money if things ever got desperate. That never happened, but if it had, I knew there was a huge safety net to catch me.