What about Polish dancing? Wreck his knees!

Apart from Quasi, most of you with kids, sounds like they're still < 10 years old. Just wait till they become a teenager! Then on top of the lessons/activities (piano lessons = $$$$), you have additional expenditures. Clothes, school stuff, laptop, cell phone, etc. Sure, they don't NEED fancy electronics, but when all of their peers have them, it almost feels like you're punishing your kid if you don't get them something similar.

Another area I'm spending a lot of money now is food - my son is constantly hungry and he's really into fitness and wanting to gain weight so I need to find good sources of protein...

I was with you til this last part. I think treating a kid like a dog is a recipe for behavioral problems. Humans didn't come from the same evolutionary branch as wolves.

Anecdotally: the people I grew up with who had the super strict parents wound up having trouble with self-confidence, making good decisions, or even making decisions at all, because they were used to being told exactly what / what not to do, their whole lives. That, or wound up overcompensating with being counter-culture / authority.

I think there's a big difference between confident, consistent, respectful mentorship, and barking orders at your dog lol.

But that's just me, I'm not presuming to challenge how others are going to do their parenting.

Sort of, your choices can be a bit limited by what's available in your area. It sucks when the only option for something your kid wants to try is expensive.

You were right until you came to this point lol.

My best friend throughout elementary & high schools had a set of those super strict parents. He and his sister were adopted as babies (not as a pair, they weren't blood related). Both of them eventually ended up disowning their parents by early adulthood.

Re folks saying it's a risk to mental health to think about this stuff: I mean yeah it's a risk sure. But if someone's able to frame it as "this is my inspiration for career planning and I accept that I'll have to roll with the punches as I go" then they would get the upsides of strategically planning their career, without the downsides of feeling disappointment when things don't work out the way they would've wanted?

I mean if they aren't doing as well as the benchmark, if they're the type to just feel sad, then probably not great. But if they're the type to be happy for an opportunity to identify root cause and come up with corrective actions, isn't that a good thing?

I wonder if it has something to do with your profession. [Anecdotally,] I've noticed that my friends in the accounting / consulting field generally skew more into thinking about and discussing financial means and what that directly translates to in terms of "have / can" and "have not / cannot".

Could be that the work brain just inevitably bleeds into personal? I know I often baseline to mentally cramming everything in life into input/outcome efficiency, feedback loops, failure mode analysis/contingency models just being an engineer and that sometimes causes friction with my very non-engineer wife lol.

Yeah. On the other hand though, I think it's good to be friends with people from all walks of life. Keeps ppl open-minded and empathetic, vs just kinda being in our own comfortable social echo chambers.

I don't think any thread gets derailed as much or as often as the real estate thread lol

If the kids activities are done through public / municipal community centers, then they are subsidized and very affordable. The problem with those is -- CoV is absolutely horrendous when it comes to these kid activity programs. 4 new spots for swimming lessons at each community center for a new 8 week session? 12 spots for skating lessons? And online registration always opens at the worst possible time.

Burnaby is slightly better in terms of availability, but they always open to Burnaby residents first, so I am still SOL.

It’s not derailed. It’s all encompassing, as RE doesn’t just hedge on your house but your family situation, your lifestyle, job/business etc etc. to get ahead of fall Behind in any of those aspects would usually impact your RE or ability to buy RE.

It’s healthy discussions. If it never circles back to just taking about which houses to buy and sell the better for it. It’s not like this the craigslist bestbuy list, nobody I’ve ever known bought a recommended house from this thread.

Kids problem ? Try abandoning them like Nelson’s dad. Or just be completely checked out like most shit parents from the 80s and 90s. Done !
https://y.yarn.co/82188780-332e-476d...29ca7_text.gif

Like you said, if you can get into the programs.... :badpokerface:

We tried for the last year to get my son into swimming and ended signing him up at Bonsor because it's actually easier to get to/closer than going to Trout Lake or Kerrisdale.

Heard enough chatter about the public programs being not good enough and you end up about break even in financials if you signed up with private as the instruction is just that much better.

I'm not really in the loop with RE anymore other than watching rent go up, and ribbing my mom about paying very under market living in my basement lol.

Did you get a spoon upside the head yet from your ah-mo? Ah mos are mean man.

I made an offer on that rancher a couple pages back :alone:

Shut up. Stop poking holes in my theory

^Reading this thread is so depressing for me lol, no offense, but I think I am literally in the bottom 5% of Revscene hahaha

Wife don't work, but I think she really wants to, I dont have help from my parents or her parents (not that they don't want to, just not really feasible), between all the different programs, 2 kids and school, unless my wife can work from home and being super flexible, there just isn't a "normal job" she can do while juggling the rest of the family... I am stuck at the dealer like 6 days a week...

For kids though, you don't have to wait till high school to starting spening big $$$$

Me + Wife specifically wanted to stay away from those "Asian Parents Syndrome" of signing up for a million classes that your kids can barely be kids, but goddaammnn its a slippery slope and $$$$







My daughter - grade 6

swimming - private coach, failed public programs like 7Xs, and be like fook it, we don't need her to compete or be in a club or anything, just so she can swim without supervision is our goal, it's not bad, like $1200 for 4 months

volleyball - free at school, but to the practices, the meals before or after, to games at other schools etc etc

piano - Grade 6 now... its $80 for a 60min session every week

painting - She started since she was 4 as a hobby cuz she likes it, now that we are 7 years in, yes she draws amazing, but we cant stop now..and I think its $380 a month (new kids are closer to $500, we grandfathered our fees from way back)

cellphone - basically peer pressure, she was the last one in her class to get one, using wife's old phone, $30/month, unlimited calling/texting but no data




My son - Grade 3

Swimming class - went private coach straight up due to failure of daughter's example lol

Piano - yea... once again, just following his older sis footsteps

Wife is looking at martial arts and I am like fml....my son wants to go too so... very fml...

================================================== =

Honestly money slips out of my account so fast that I actually dunno how most people manage lolol, also Mortage renewal coming in a years time and I am scared shitless, right now I am at 1.79% ... heard people renewing at like high 6s% or low 7s%.... holy faaaccckkkk

end rant hehehehe

^ That's the thing, a lot of people are constantly on a precipice here... and heaven help you if you ever get sick or something, GG right there. It's a lot of pressure to carry every day.

Bro I honestly don’t know how you do it with a single income like that in this city.

Like how the fuck did you do it previously working at the print shop. That must have been even more insane.

You can have well behaved children and or dogs without beating them or being a crazy old school Asian parent.

We're all animals. We are largely influenced by our environment, this is well documented within the literature.

If you have a misbehaving dog, it's not the dogs fault. It's yours the owner. Same with a child.

Parents and owners and people in general do not take accountability for their actions. It's always someone else's fault. We rarely look in the mirror thinking we're the problem, when most times we are the problem and we're too conceited to acknowledge that.

mainly is having a super small mortgage helps with stupendous low rate... I dare say my mortgage is defn smaller than new build 1 bed room condos.... only cuz my parents + my inlaws gave me a huge down payment and got in the housing market in like 2010 lol

but on top of that...

- By being frugal af, walmart/superstore all the way
- Costco + T&T is a luxury
- 0 eating out
- 0 vacations, maybe camping once a year?
- driving a miata (which honestly is the best car Ive owned)
- blessed with good kids that dont ask for stuff
- pouring 1500 hours in to GT7 and being a weeb (but in all honesty, staying home actually do save money), most of my games have 1000+ hour play time, so a single game purchase can last me like 2/3 of a year if not more hahaha....

The only time I feel like I splurge is
- I feel bad that my wife don't get shit at all, so I get her nice things because she refuses to spend money on herself
- My kids, not like $1000 lego sets splurge, but they want a switch or some $90 game twice a year? sure... why not etc etc

If you think a car is a depreciating asset ... a kid is worst. And yah, as someone said, wait till they hit the teenage years and you do all this for them and they give you attitude back as a thank you.

And unlike the olden days, you can't get your kids to work on the farm and help with reducing labour cost for the family business.

100% this, hooked my kid up with my wifes old car, paid his first year of insurance and getting him to pick his laundry up off the floor in the bathroom is a daily argument. He's overall a good kid who does well in school, has a part time job and really doesn't get into trouble but I don't call him pigpen for no reason.

To a point. I still think there's a genetics "luck of the draw" component.

Like I can genuinely say that my kid has never had a temper tantrum/meltdown. Ever. Which is odd because, I'm not exactly the most patient person myself.

Contrast that with my kitty-corner backyard neighbour's kid. He's one year older. We've heard many multiple hours-long meltdowns come from their house. We've felt bad for the parents.
We've had each other over for dinners a few times, and they seem allright. They're successful professionals. I'm not really sure what they could be doing wrong and that we're doing right.
I think it's more that my kid got my wife's chill genes.

^ I'd say 80% genetic lottery - is it me or am I hearing more and more kids with ADD or behaviour problems that is syndrome related (not just typical kid stuff), learning challenges, mental health. If you have a decent well-behaved kid who pulls in 70-80's in school (oh, I forgot, they don't give out numeric grades anymore cuz it hurts their feelings), then see that you've won the kid genetic lottery!

For all the folks that have their kids in program. How good are you at the activities they're taking?

I never got the ops to do activities as a kid so I suck at everything. Trying to make up for it now lol

Cheap - > Frozen Chicken Breast / Pork tenderloin or pork chops / Lean ground meat / Rotisserie

Reasonable priced but tastes good - > Boneless Skinless Costco Chicken thighs, Shrimp, turkey sausage, ground turkey

Expensive - > Fish, beef duck meat, if I was rich, I'd only eat sashimi lol

I spend $500-600 on groceries when I try to sustain 160 - 200grams of protein a day. I wonder if teens are the same. I didn't have enough protein / food when I picked up weightlifting in grade 11/12.

That's probably it! It's a breath of fresh air when it's no longer tech + finance/accounting folks lol. I think we're all so analytical it creates all this talk about boy math.

Thought you said your folks tossed ya like $300-500K for a DP on a detached :suspicious:

If ya got it in 2010. I'd treat that as a $100K-250K boost in your income forever via cheap housing. A duplex in Van is almost $10 - 11K after tax monthly.