The Price of Parenthood

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Price of Parenthood"

Podcast Information:

• Title: What We Spend
• Host/Author: Audacy
• Episode: The Price of Parenthood
• Release Date: April 16, 2025
• Description: On What We Spend, individuals from diverse financial backgrounds transparently share their earnings, desires, and a detailed account of their weekly expenditures. This episode delves into the financial realities of parenthood through the eyes of Jay, a religious studies professor balancing the expenses of raising two young children.

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1. Introduction to Jay and His Financial Journey

[01:26] Jay opens the conversation by addressing the challenges new parents face, highlighting how businesses often target this demographic's vulnerabilities:

“New parents are the best market for businesses because new parents are fucking idiots. New parents will pay any amount of money to figure out how to get their kid to sleep more or how to get their kid to eat better.”

He candidly reflects on his own experiences, admitting that his family had to purchase an online course for $300 to help with baby care, emphasizing how exhaustion and vulnerability can lead to significant financial decisions.

2. Jay’s Personal and Professional Background

[02:13] Courtney Harrell introduces Jay:

“Our guest today is a 38-year-old religious studies professor in Maine. He's a parent of two kids and he's asked us not to use his real name so we're going to call him Jay.”

Jay shares details about his family:

“The oldest is two and a half, the youngest is seven weeks and one day.”

He humorously notes a rare day of ample sleep, courtesy of his in-laws:

“[...] today is a really good day because the in-laws got the toddler so I've got like nine hours of sleep almost.”

3. Jay’s Troubled Relationship with Money

[03:34] Courtney probes into Jay’s relationship with money:

“How would you describe your relationship with money?”

Jay responds with stark honesty:

“Extremely unhealthy, borderline abusive.”

He elaborates on the constant anxiety money causes him, describing his decision-making process as a relentless cost analysis:

“Every decision I make is cost benefit analysis. It's not even benefit, it's just cost analysis.”

This anxiety manifests physically, making even mundane purchases feel burdensome:

“I have physical pain when I have to buy something, when I have to like spend money on something, I'm like, ah shit, is this.”

4. Navigating Finances as Educators

Jay and his wife, both educators, manage their finances through a joint account. However, the arrival of their children drastically altered their budgeting approach. Jay admits:

“I just don't bother budgeting per month. And like every time I sit down and actually think about it, I'm like, what am I gonna cut reasonably?”

He shares practical adjustments they've made, such as consuming more cost-effective foods like chickpeas, while his wife prioritizes maintaining their quality of life:

“I can't really change my lifestyle without wanting to die.”

5. Breakdown of Weekly Expenses: Jay’s Diary Entries

Jay meticulously documents his weekly spending, providing a transparent look into the financial demands of parenthood.

Day One

• Expenses: Birth certificates ($21), Costco shopping for bulk items including diapers ($200), groceries ($105), credit card bill, and a $50 gift card for his mom.
• Total: $400
• Quote:

  “Having a newborn, having a kid in general is just death by a thousand cuts.”

Day Two

• Expenses: Childcare ($65), increased internet bill ($3), and deliberation over cost-effective airport parking.
• Total: $108
• Quote:

  “This is my own anxiety about money that comes to the fore. [...] it's my own anxiety that comes to the fore.”

Day Three

• Expenses: Medication for his wife ($10), failed haircut, wine purchase ($15), cat funeral expenses ($345), offset by a $420 contribution from his father-in-law.
• Total: $345 spent, with an additional $420 received.
• Quote:

  “It's completely out of reach for me five years ago. 10 years ago. Oh, 10 years ago. It'd be a joke.”

Day Four

• Expenses: Breakfast date ($25), bakery treats ($15), toddler snacks and groceries ($20), gas ($42).
• Total: $120
• Quote:

  “He's really cute, and when they're not being a terror.”

Day Five

• Expenses: Subpar haircut ($40) and tea purchase, totaling $61.
• Quote:

  “I just feel like you get a lot more bang for your buck for 40 bucks.”

Day Six

• Expenses: Minimal spending focused on household tidying and a whiskey purchase.
• Total: Minimal, focused on daily upkeep.
• Quote:

  “Staying healthy has never been this affordable.”

Day Seven

• Expenses: No money spent.
• Quote:

  “There was no money spent.”

6. Reflections on Upbringing and Financial Habits

Jay delves into his childhood, revealing how his parents' financial mismanagement profoundly impacted his own relationship with money:

“As a young adult, child of divorce, you get a window into your parents' lives that you didn't have before.”

He recounts witnessing his parents struggle with credit card debt and lack of retirement savings, which instilled in him a deep-seated aversion to irresponsible spending:

“My mother spends very frivolously, like, unbelievable. It's addictive almost.”

7. The Influence of His Wife’s Family on Financial Stability

Jay discusses the significant financial support his wife's family has provided, contrasting it with his own financial struggles:

“They were able to effectively quadruple the amount of savings I had.”

He grapples with feelings of inadequacy and the realization that his efforts to be fiscally responsible pale in comparison to the generosity he receives:

“It's not negative feelings. It's just... it's complicated.”

8. Shifting Orientation: From Money to Religion and Parenthood

Jay reflects on his internal struggle to balance his religious beliefs and his pre-existing obsession with money. The arrival of his children forced a reorientation of his priorities:

“Kids come and they are there. Everything is oriented around them. It is a shocking reorientation.”

He expresses a desire to reduce his financial anxiety for the sake of his children:

“I do not want that for my kids. I do not want them to have that burden.”

Jay aspires to teach his children financial responsibility while also sharing the roots of his own anxieties, aiming for a balanced approach to family finances.

9. Conclusion: The Ongoing Battle with Financial Anxiety

Throughout the episode, Jay candidly shares his continuous struggle with financial anxiety, emphasizing how parenthood has exacerbated his concerns but also provided opportunities for personal growth and redefinition of priorities. His journey encapsulates the delicate balance between ensuring financial stability and fostering a nurturing environment for his children.

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Notable Quotes:

• Jay on Financial Anxiety:

  “Every decision I make is cost benefit analysis. It's not even benefit, it's just cost analysis.” [03:34]

• Jay on Parenting Expenses:

  “Having a newborn, having a kid in general is just death by a thousand cuts.” [15:XX]

• Jay on Parental Financial Impact:

  “My mother spends very frivolously, like, unbelievable. It's addictive almost.” [10:26]

• Jay on Financial Support from In-Laws:

  “They were able to effectively quadruple the amount of savings I had.” [25:26]

---

Final Thoughts: The Price of Parenthood offers an unfiltered glimpse into the financial strains and adjustments that come with raising a young family. Jay's honesty about his struggles with money, shaped by his upbringing and exacerbated by his new parental responsibilities, provides listeners with a relatable and insightful exploration of the true costs of parenthood.

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Interested in Sharing Your Financial Story? If you'd like to be featured on What We Spend, reach out to us at [e-mail] and share your financial journey with our community.

Transcript

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[Jay]

New parents are the best market for businesses because new parents are fucking idiots. New parents will pay any amount of money to figure out how to get their kid to sleep more or how to get their kid to eat better. And we fell prey to the exact same thing. I remember we paid. Actually our family bought it for us because they felt bad for this social media influencer Kara taking care of babies and she did courses on how to get your baby to sleep. So it was like an online course that we paid like 300 bucks for. Someone paid 300 bucks for. And you know, looking back I'm like, if we weren't tired and vulnerable, like clueless, you know, and afraid, we never would have bought that.

[Courtney Harrell]

Our guest today is a 38 year old religious studies professor in Maine. He's a parent of two kids and he's asked us not to use his real name so we're going to call him Jay. How old are your kids?

[Jay]

The oldest is two and a half, the youngest is seven weeks and one day.

[Courtney Harrell]

And how many hours of sleep are you working off of right now?

[Jay]

Oh, today is a good day. Today is a really good day because the in laws got the toddler so I've got like nine hours of sleep almost.

[Courtney Harrell]

For new parents, having kids comes with all kinds of life changes and it can bring up all kinds of anxieties, new and old, that you have to figure out how to confront. And a lot of times those anxieties are around money. That has definitely been true for Jay. This week we'll take a peek into his life with a toddler and a brand new baby in the house and listen in as the week of diaries shows him something he didn't expect. I'm Courtney Harrell and this is what we. How would you describe your relationship with money?

[Jay]

Extremely unhealthy, borderline abusive.

[Courtney Harrell]

Tell me what that means.

[Jay]

I have so much anxiety about it, it's just awful. Like every decision I make is cost benefit analysis. It's not even benefit, it's just cost analysis. Like is this do I want to spend this money? It's not do I have the money to spend? It's do I want to part with this money? Do I want to go through this expense? And so that means for me, like in my experience, physical pain when I have to buy something, when I have to like spend money on something, I'm like, ah shit, is this. I'll just do it later and then I'll just try not to do it.

[Courtney Harrell]

What do you think was like the biggest abstract kid money anxiety before you Daycare?

[Jay]

Cuz I knew from in laws having kids that like this is going to be 25, $30,000. This is a substantial percentage of our total income. How are we going to get by?

[Courtney Harrell]

Jay and his wife are both educators. His wife works for a Waldorf school and makes 60,000 a year. Jay makes 92,000 a year. How do the two of you manage your money together? Like what's your system?

[Jay]

System is a strong word. So effectively we have all of our money in a joint account. In terms of budgeting, it's a very vibe based situation. Like when back before kids it was like, oh shit, we got a good amount of money, let's put some in Vanguard. Maybe I'll add more to my ira. Now it's more along the lines of okay, we got to get something, what do we get? Can we afford it? What are we gonna do? Should we do this? Should we not do this? So I do have a budget of like what things should cost per month. And the thing that I took away from that budget was it doesn't fucking matter because of childcare and just the cost of children. So you could have this perfect plan of like, okay, every month we're gonna have like a thousand dollars left over. No, you're not. No, you're not. Because you have kids and like they always need something. So I just don't bother budgeting per month. And like every time I sit down and actually think about it, I'm like, what am I gonna cut reasonably? What can I do to save money? On a practical level, we're eating like a lot of chickpeas. You know, like, how else can I change my lifestyle that will make me not wanna just die? And my wife is like, look, I'm not compromising quality of life to like save a few bucks. Cause it would be really like, at this point we'd be eating like Wonder Bread and jam. Like that would be a meal. So that's why I don't really keep a budget anymore.

[Courtney Harrell]

Let's get into Jay's numbers. Remember, their combined income is $152,000 a year. That's before taxes and health insurance. And they share their expenses.

[Jay]

Housing is about $3,200 a month. That is mortgage. So that includes taxes, city taxes, which are insane for where I live. It also includes mortgage insurance because we couldn't afford 20% down on a $450,000 house.

[Courtney Harrell]

Jay's referring to something called private mortgage insurance or pmi. It's a fee that banks tack onto your mortgage when your down payment isn't big enough. So Jay is paying an extra $67 a month until they pay off 20% of their mortgage.

[Jay]

So that $3200 is all of that stuff.

[Courtney Harrell]

Their utilities really fluctuate in Maine. In the summer, they usually pay 300 to 400amonth, mostly on electric. In the winter when the heat pumps kick in, it goes up to about 1000 bucks a month.

[Jay]

The phone bill is 30 bucks a month. Because I'm on a family plan and Even though I'm 38, my mom still is like, I want to pay this. So I have to like, I'd like fight her to let me pay her something. And so $30 is what it is.

[Courtney Harrell]

Does your wife have a phone bill too?

[Jay]

She is also on her family plan. I think she might be like several years in arrears on that one.

[Courtney Harrell]

Transportation, 280amonth for their gas and tolls. Groceries, about 800amonth.

[Jay]

WiFi, sons of bitches. It was $40 a month and it just went up to 43.

[Courtney Harrell]

Their car insurance is a couple hundred bucks a month and health insurance for the family is 383amonth. Medical debt, all baby related. 170amonth.

[Jay]

Child care, $1,325 a month. And then when the second kid goes to care, it will be $2,025 or so.

[Courtney Harrell]

And what kind of care is it? What are you paying for?

[Jay]

That's a good question, Cory. I'll tell you what I'm not paying for. I'm not paying for help with potty training.

[Courtney Harrell]

A family gym membership at the YMCA is 93amonth, and they pay about 50 bucks a month for a combo of Netflix, Spotify, Amazon prime, and the New York Times game subscription.

[Jay]

I get New York Times for free through my college, but they don't include the games. And I'm a crossword guy, and so I had to pay for the games.

[Courtney Harrell]

When do you think, like, this kind of relationship with money started for you?

[Jay]

I don't know. I never really had a job in high school, but I also. I never had money. I just never had money to spend. Like, I just got whatever my parents gave me.

[Courtney Harrell]

Jay went on to college at a prestigious university that gave him a lot of grants. His parents did help him out a little too, taking out $10,000 in loans. And then he had a work study job to pay for books and other needs.

[Jay]

And I knew at that point that I had no safety net, I had no backup. So I think once I got to that stage and then realized that I'm on my own 100%, it probably developed over time.

[Courtney Harrell]

Jay graduated with a degree in religious studies. After college, he worked for AmeriCorps for a stipend around $11,000, and just got used to living on very little. And then around that same time, he had an experience that made him see money differently. His parents got divorced.

[Jay]

As a young adult, child of divorce, you get a window into your parents lives that you didn't have before. And one of the things I saw was their finances. Neither of them knew how credit card interest worked. They were paying minimum payments on like 10, $20,000 of credit card debt. And I realized at that point that my parents were fucked. Like my mom, her retirement plan was my stepdad, who was in the Navy and would have a pension. She had no retirement savings whatsoever. She'd been a waitress, so she had nothing, no retirement plans whatsoever. So that, I think, contributed significantly to the way that I view money. And like, my mother spends very frivolously, like, unbelievable. It's addictive almost, right? Like she's just buying things to sate some kind of desire.

[Courtney Harrell]

He didn't see it as a kid, but now As a young adult confronting the reality of his parents finances, he thought about the ways his mom would spend money when he was growing up and the ways that was probably shaping his spending now.

[Jay]

I remember, for example, for Christmases my mother would buy my stepdad and I, it would be no exaggeration to say between 10 and 15 presents each. And they're like, it's not like a deck of cards, it's sometimes expensive things. And then she'd buy a joint gift. Okay, we're a family of three. Joint gifts included. Trampoline, full sized. A basketball court. To reiterate, I am an academic. Even as a young boy, I think I leaned that direction, not towards basketball. I didn't know this, but I put it together. Now they were spending all of their disposable income basically as it came.

[Courtney Harrell]

Wow.

[Jay]

Basically as it came. I tell my wife a lot, like whenever my mom comes to visit and she does this, go to the Bakery, buy like $80 worth of shit. Like no joke, like $80 worth of stuff.

[Courtney Harrell]

Yeah.

[Jay]

And a lot of it gets thrown away because like, you know, and I'll just tell my wife, now you see why I am the way I am. I cannot abide this thoughtless, wasteful spending.

[Courtney Harrell]

After the break, we'll dive in to Jay's week.

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[Jay]

Corporation all rights reserved. End of day one. Today I didn't do terribly much. I dropped my kid off at daycare. I did a lot of baby holding and care of a newborn. You know, my wife and I just kind of switched. We're on man on defense at this point and we're both off for winter break. I guess that leaves a lot more time to like spend money because today was a brutal one. I just paid for a copy of a birth certificate. I got two copies just in case because the second copy is like cheaper. Once you order the first one, there's like a discount on the second copy for some reason. So it's 21 bucks for two birth certificates. But that's gonna. It's Gonna pay for itself, man, because we're taking a trip in a week or two, and the newborn girl gets to fly for free because we can prove that she's six weeks old. So whatever, 21 bucks is going to be money well spent. Expense number two, had to order some stuff at Costco. Even though we're a pretty small family, even when we were only a family of two, we were ordering stuff at Costco because certain things are just easy in bulk. But now that we've got a toddler and newborn, like Costco's godsend, today we got animal crackers, two boxes of applesauce, and then, of course, diapers. Just so many diapers with the newborn. Having a newborn, having a kid in general is just death by a thousand cuts. In terms of expenses. Like, there's this first one really big stab, really huge, just gash. That's the hospital bill, right? Five grand right there. Boom. And then lots of little things that just are constantly accruing. And for the. The first few months that the major one is just diapers. Just diaper, diapers, diapers all the time. She's, like, incredible. She's. She's a pooping machine. You know, we're changing her diaper like, ten times a day. And, you know, each diaper is like 45 cents or something. So that kind of adds up over the course of a month, you know. So in total, that Costco was like 200 bucks. So then the third expense was grocery shopping. So after, like, a weirdly short but long day of just, like, trying to plan for classes while wearing a newborn in a carrier and, like, bouncing up and down to try to keep her asleep, but also do my work, I took the toddler to go grocery shopping, which is always kind of a fun experience because there's. There's like, this little calculus that I have to do, which is like, what do I need to buy him at the store to keep him entertained? Because he is very short attention span, and he does love the market and, like, he's pretty good there, but, you know, he's. He's come to expect a certain. Certain quality of shopping experience that involves lots of treats. One time, my son ate an entire pint of blueberries in the grocery store. So he slammed, like, $6 worth of blueberries in five minutes. It was unbelievable. And that was. That was like a snack, you know, like, and he. He could have kept going. He could have eaten another one if I had let him. So that's partially, I think, why groceries are so expensive. For at least for, for me. So I only had a very small grocery list today. Normally I can't get out of there for less than 180. So 105. I guess I should count my blessings.

[Courtney Harrell]

On day one. Jay also paid a credit card bill and sent a $50 gift card to his mom for her birthday, bringing his total for the day to $400.

[Jay]

Day two, I have to whisper because I have a sleeping baby on me. I just checked the weather for the next couple days. And tonight and tomorrow night it's gonna get down to about 10 degrees outside God knows what with the wind chill. So now I have a dilemma. Our house has an oil burning furnace. Because we live in Maine, we still actually use heating oil, but we also have heat pumps. And the heat pumps are efficient, I think, up to below zero. But efficient does not necessarily mean cost effective. So running the heat pumps when it's that cold is really expensive. So what I have to figure out is, is it cheaper to use the. The oil heating downstairs and the heat pump upstairs? Because the oil heating upstairs is a nightmare with two kids. Like, the rooms are completely different temperature. One will be like 75 degrees and the other will be 65. It's crazy. And like, we don't really want the newborn in 65 degrees. And the other, the other calculus here is not simply how much this costs, which has so many variables that we don't know, but it's what will my wife tolerate Because I am willing, I am willing to keep this house like three degrees above freezing. And perhaps unsurprisingly, she is not willing to do that. And so every night there's this negotiation with her getting increasingly frustrated with me as the winter goes on. And I know I'm already, I'm prepared to do battle over this, but I'm also prepared to lose because of the fact that there's a newborn in the house. Like, I just know I'm not going to win this. And so maybe I'll go quietly into the dark night these two nights. As I say this out loud, not a lot of expenses. Today, 65 bucks for childcare. Got my Internet bill and I noticed that it went up by $3 a month from 40 to $43. And that's just because the company decided to raise their prices. It's like this nickel and diming stuff that really gets to me. And then, you know, the funny thing is, I guess I do the reverse where I nickel and dime the shit out of things. So my wife and I had a long conversation tonight about a trip we're planning to go on next week. We're flying to Florida to visit her parents. So we're gonna drive to the airport and take our kids and go to Florida. Now the question is, where do we park? So the main Parking garages are 15 bucks a day, but there's sort of a surface lot that's. You need to take a shuttle to. That's 10 bucks a day. And we're going to be there for, like, 13 days or two weeks or something like that. And so the additional cost of the garage is like, 65 bucks. And the discussion we're having is whether it's worth the effort to drop her and the newborn and our luggage off at the airport while the toddler and I drive to the surface lot and then catch the shuttle to go back to the airport, because then we have to leave the house earlier than we normally would, which is already going to be pushing it with two kids. And then also, it's just gonna be a huge pain in the ass to do all that. But is it. Is it a $65 pain in the ass? Like, am I. Am I willing to do this on the way there and on the way back for 65 bucks? And I'm thinking it's not gonna. I'm thinking we're. We're not gonna do it, which physically pains me, the amount of trouble that I have gone through in the past in my life to save a fraction of $65, like you wouldn't believe. But the. The kids factor just defeats me. And so gonna have to. I think I'm gonna have to lose. Lose a little bit of my willingness to put up with inconvenience in order to save money.

[Courtney Harrell]

Total for day two, $108.

[Jay]

Day three, I just pulled into my driveway after running some errands. I had to get some medication for my wife. That was 10 bucks. Then I went downtown to get a haircut, but it was full, so no expense there. But I did. I woke up with a sore throat last night, so I stopped at the drugstore to get some cough drops because we're out. And then when the haircut was a bust, my favorite store is across the street. It's a cooking store with fantastic cooking equipment and also little snacks and wines and stuff. And so I grabbed a bottle of wine on sale to drink tonight, just as, like, a little treat for me and my wife, because sometimes when you have a newborn and you're trapped inside all the time and you're going slowly crazy because your toddler is driving you mad, you just need a bottle of wine. You just need to treat yourself.

[Courtney Harrell]

On day three, Jay also had one more expected expense. His mom's cat of 15 years died. And Jay offered to help cover the death expenses.

[Jay]

And, you know, they're like, do you want to keep the ashes? And do you want to get a paw print? And I was like, yeah, mom, get the ashes, get the paw print. I'll pay for that. Just do it, you know? And she's like, okay. So she did it. And then. So I called the vet today, and I was like, so much of. How much are the ashes in the paw print? And I really don't. We don't charge for the paw print, but the ashes are, like, you know, 230 bucks. I was like, what? Say what? Like, the ashes, right? For, like, a cat, you just, like, put the cat in fire and ashes come out, and that's 230. She's like, yeah, you know. You know, the other option is to bury it. And I was like, well, it's too late now, but how much was the burial? And I said it was $70. And I was like, okay, hold on. So I had this little dilemma where I was like, oh, do I pay for this? Or, like, do I. She. She offered to split it. I'm like, that seems kind of. Kind of lame of me. And so I don't know. Oh, God. As I say this out loud, I'm, like, almost mortified. I really feel like George Costanza. So what? I eventmo. I venmoed her 160, because I was thinking, at the very least, she would have had to pay 70 bucks to dispose of the cat's body, right? Like, you have to. You have to pay something for the vet to properly dispose of the animal. And so Shoota had to pay 70. So I. So I decided to pay the remainder of it. God, this is awful. I guess maybe this is a. This is an insight into how cheap I am, but it's really like the sticker shock of seeing the 230. And I was like, hold on. I don't remember. I don't really remember agreeing to this. Jesus Christ.

[Courtney Harrell]

With the medicine, cough drops and wine, plus some propane for their stove and generator, and Jay's phone bill. Day three's total was $345. On day three, they also had a little extra money come in. If Jay's family history means he's always looking for corners to cut and occasionally having to help out his folks, his wife's family, and their money situation creates a Different kind of anxiety. They've got money to spare.

[Jay]

My wife's dad actually venmoed us half of our flight to visit them in Florida. So it was like 420 bucks. Because he's just super generous and he always likes to do things like that. It's quite humbling actually to have him be that generous in, in certain ways because there's, there's, there's no aspect of my life now that I don't owe to my father in law, which is pretty crazy to think about because I've worked pretty hard in a lot of ways. Like I've had a lot of side jobs and I've been like very dedicated to the academy and like working towards this professorship and doing anything I can on the side to like make money and save money and pay off student loans and whatever it's amounted to. Nothing, like literally like fucking zero, you know, I think the biggest, the largest that my checking account ever was before I married my wife was after, after I got hit by a drunk driver. And I got an insurance settlement for like 12 grand. I don't even remember how much it was now. And so like at some point in my checking account I had like $15,000. And I was like, damn, Bruce Wayne. Like, I'm just really killing it right now. Maybe I'll be a venture capitalist now. And then when my wife and I went to get married, her father cut us, he gave us an option, actually. He said, look, I'll pay for your wedding outright, pay for whatever you want, or I'll cut you a check for $30,000. And we were like, we'll take option B, Bob. Like shit.

[Courtney Harrell]

Then a few years later, when they wanted to buy a house, his wife's parents helped them again, this time with 25,000 towards a down payment which Jay says would have otherwise used up more than half of their savings.

[Jay]

It's not upsetting. It's not upsetting to think that like, the amount of effort I put into like being fiscally responsible and independent and stuff has amounted to basically nothing in comparison with like two checks this family has written. I mean, I guess it is upsetting. It is upsetting in a way. You know, this, this was completely out of reach for me five years ago. 10 years ago. Oh, 10 years ago. It'd be a joke. What was I, 28? Oh, yeah. This never would have happened, but just this, this family generosity made it happen. I, I just got to think about this more. I'm not really sure how I feel about this. It's Certainly not bad. But, like, it's not negative feelings. It's just. It's complicated.

[Courtney Harrell]

You talked in your diaries about her parents giving you all money.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Courtney Harrell]

What about it bothers you?

[Jay]

The receiving of the money does not bother me. So I can say what doesn't bother me. Being gifted substantial amounts of money does not bother me by her family. I think what's. What's kind of alarming maybe is that me as this working class kid trying to make good, it would have taken me another 15, 20 years to get to a position that I am now because of that generosity.

[Courtney Harrell]

Yeah.

[Jay]

Right. So, like, with just a few strokes of the pen, they were able to effectively quadruple the amount of savings I had.

[Courtney Harrell]

Right. It puts what you have done up to that point in a totally different light.

[Abercrombie]

Yeah.

[Jay]

You know, it's difficult to. Because this is bringing things up that I hadn't. I don't think about often, and I try not to, but I start to wonder how I look in the family's eyes. Because on the one hand, just sheer appearances. Professor at a good college. Cool. Great. The more they know me and the more they know my background and, like, my financial background, it's like, oh, it's this. This kid who sort of clawed his way up into this stable thing and he's always trying to overcome. And I think that might bother me being viewed maybe as the scrappy kid who pulled his way up and like, his accomplishments are only accomplishments by contrast with what he was or where he came from.

[Courtney Harrell]

Oh, I see.

[Jay]

I think that might be. That feels belittling.

[Courtney Harrell]

It lessens it.

[Jay]

It lessens it because you get that perspective. Right. Once you get that gift, you're like, oh, wow, that was. That was a long time for me to get nowhere.

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[Jay]

Day four so this morning my wife and I did a breakfast date. There's a nice cheap little diner down the way and today I thought it would be a good idea to get out of the house with the newborn. Just kind of like break the routine. And it was not a total disaster. But it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily a fun experience because my wife didn't really like she really want to come. The baby hadn't been sleeping this morning, so she was. My wife was kind of anxious about the baby not getting enough sleep and so I think I pushed a little hard to like go out to this breakfast. And so of course the baby didn't sleep at breakfast and I had to sort of rock her in her little car seat and keep the binky in with one hand and eat a breakfast sandwich with the other hand. And my wife is like shoveling her food. She's just like eating as quick as possible. And at some point, like as soon as the food came, she was basically like, should we get this to go? It's like, no, this is completely contrary to the whole aim. So that ended up being a $25 breakfast, which by the way, really good deal. Really good deal. But $25 breakfast, that probably was just a, you know, didn't need to necessarily happen. That led to another expense because two doors down from the breakfast place is this fantastic Italian bakery and I always scope out the day olds there, like literally. I feel like they must know me as the day old guy because I'll go in two times a week and get day old bread because their day old bread is half off, which makes it cheaper than like grocery store bread. Like good grocery store bread. We ended up stopping in there and then of course there was a little treat that my wife saw and she said we got to get this little treat. So long story short, $15 for the bakery. So that brings the morning's total up to $40 before 10am and then I had to go to the grocery store because we were flying to Florida next week and needed to get some snacks for the flight because a four hour flight with a two year old is.

[Courtney Harrell]

At the grocery store. Jay bought some oyster crackers, pretzels and various toddler snacks.

[Jay]

$20 worth of fucking snacks for this kid. And then, you know, some dinner stuff. Then of course I had to stop for gas at some point. So it's $42 in gas then that was it. Total of 120 bucks in expenses today so far. Like still four and a half hours left in this day. Who knows? Day five a diary. You're catching me. Not in a good space. Pretty mad right now. Didn't sleep much last night because of baby stuff. Probably running on four hours, maybe five hours of sleep. I don't do well on no sleep. Some people power through. My wife is great. She's amazing at powering through with little sleep. I do not. I become a big fat baby and I get very fussy. So when I went to get my haircut today, which I'm just returning from, I had anticipated the cost would be 20, 30 bucks. We took my toddler there. His haircut was 20 bucks. Generally the price is pretty similar for an adult. So I was like, okay, maybe $30, whatever. And so we finished the haircut and it's like a fine haircut. Like it's a hole in the wall place. It's not like a, you know, fancy haircut establishment. And it was 40 bucks. $40. 40American dollars for a quick haircut. Now the reason that I'm furious about this is because I had stopped going to my like bougie haircut place, which was. It was kind of a drive. It was like a 10, 15 minute drive and kind of difficult to get an appointment. But I liked it there. I liked the person who cut my hair. It was fun there. And they give you like, you know, a sparkling water or a beer and like, it's just a, it's a much nicer establishment. And I feel like you get a lot more bang for your buck for 40 bucks. So I'm just very annoyed That I had a subpar haircutting experience for the same price. That being said, the person who cut my hair was lovely and it is nice to spend to keep my money.

[Courtney Harrell]

After a tip on the haircut and buying a box of tea, the total for day five was $61.

[Jay]

Day six. This is my end of the day diary. Just tidied up the house and got everything locked down for the night. Poured myself a little whiskey before bed. It is 8pm and that means I'm actually a little late for bedtime, such as life with a newborn and a toddler. And I think it was maybe the way in which I was thinking about having some whiskey tonight, which was a result of just having the toddler home all day, which is just endless amounts of work. There was a funny. This relates to money. I swear to God. It was at Rennie's, which is a store here in Maine that's sort of like a very small department store. And it just has a bunch of everything has, it has literally everything you need in the store. It's super weird. So anyhow, I was at, I was at Rennie's with, with my son and I do that. It's one of the things that we do to entertain him. When it's really cold outside and there's just like not much to do, I'll take him to Rennie's. And he runs around, he looks at the toys and so anyway, I was, I was playing with him and we were walking around the store and he was like asking. He was in this mode where he's like asking what everything is. And this woman said, oh, you know, he's really cute. And I said, ah, thanks. Yeah, he's pretty cute when he's not being a terror. Sort of a standard response, right? And this woman said, I know, I got a nine year old. And she says little boys are cash up front. I was like, whoa. First of all, I don't really know what that means. What does that mean? Cash up front. Little boys are cash up front. And then as I've thought about it, I think what she means is that the energy and the effort you put into having a little boy versus a little girl is dealing with their insane amount of energy, dealing with them bouncing off the fucking walls, creating a mess. And so all of the work that you do and all of the effort that you put in is right there, right on the front end and you got to do it immediately. But I thought, how funny you start to think about the ways in which ways of conceiving of money. The metaphors around those things have started to infiltrate the way that you understand the world around you. It sort of shakes you up a little because you realize the way that you come to understand the world is through your relationship with money.

[Courtney Harrell]

Jay knows that money has colored everything about how he sees the world, but he's really been trying to change that. As a religious studies professor and also a religious person himself, the way he thinks about it is, what does my life revolve around? It's what one religious scholar, he loves calls an orientation point. Everyone has an orientation point now.

[Jay]

I think in America, it's generally capitalism, right? Like money, really, just money. And I know personally that my biggest battle here is my religion as my orientation point and money as my orientation point. These are both centers of orbit, and if you're orbiting one, you're not orbiting the other, period. They're mutually exclusive. So that was the struggle before kids.

[Courtney Harrell]

The struggle for you was, how do I shift my orientation from money to religion?

[Jay]

That's like the thinking. Kids come and they are there. Everything is oriented around them. It is a shocking reorientation. Now, when I say orientation, what I mean is not only like, how you spend your time, it's how you think. It's how you classify your world from the way that you use language. I don't refer to my stomach anymore. It's my tummy. When I'm in a bad mood, I'm feeling fussy. Where I go and what I do is it kid friendly? So what I'm saying is it just changes everything about how you think and feel. Now what that means is I have a third, a third center that I'm trying to negotiate. Now. I'm trying to pull myself away from worrying about money without sacrificing the financial security of my family. I'm trying to maintain religion as my center without sacrificing, caring for and doing everything I need to do to provide the best life for my kids, which is an insane place to be. I think it gets better as the kid gets older, right? Because it's not so all consuming. But I will say it has been. In some ways, the diaries made me realize this. In some ways, it sort of helped pull me away from money a little bit more by devaluing it where I just, like, you know, I can't care anymore. Yeah, you'll spend in ways that you wouldn't have before because the money is less valuable than not being in a position where you want to bash your head against the wall. It's been so Defiled by children. Now that it's no longer, it no longer has the power to cause the kind of anxiety that it did in terms of child related expenses.

[Courtney Harrell]

I think that's kind of beautiful. Like, that feels like a kind of like surrender.

[Jay]

It's resignation. Yeah, it's total resignation. It's like surrendering to the abyss.

[Courtney Harrell]

Well, I mean, like, I don't know if there feels, there feels like there's something like powerful in the idea that you're saying this is bigger.

[Jay]

Yeah, I'll just. Let me clarify. It's not, it's not bigger in the good way. It's. It's not bigger like God the creator of the universe. It's bigger like a dragon's running at you and you're just like, well, nice knowing you guys. What am I going to do? Right. Like it's that kind of resignation.

[Courtney Harrell]

Right.

[Jay]

But it is, it is. There is a beauty to it insofar as it's. It loses some of the mystique and it loses the power to make me suffer the way that it did. And that's really, that's quite nice. Day seven, End of day, end of week diary. Today there was no money spent. Usual evening calculus of whether to use the heat pump or the oil. It's fucking so exhausting. What I'm realizing as I talk through this is that as I go through these negotiations with my wife and like trying to deal with all these things, it is my own anxiety about money that comes to the fore. Right. Like, I literally agonize about a lot when it comes to this. I'll negotiate with my wife about five degrees of. I mean, I'll negotiate with about one degree of temperature change in, in the house on a cold night, right? Because I know that it's just going to, it's going to cost a lot of extra money. And now that I have kids and I'm talking through this, like, I don't want that for my kids, Right. I don't want them to have that burden. Like this is the stuff that I'll deal with, obviously, because it's really hardwired into me. It's very difficult for me not to worry about money. It's hard to convey how hard this is for me not to worry about it. It's always on my mind and I don't want that for them.

[Courtney Harrell]

How do you want to talk to your kids about money?

[Jay]

My ideal, I think would be as he gets, as he and she. I keep forgetting there's another one. As they get older, I do want them to learn just a little bit of financial responsibility. Chores, I think is fine, right? Like chores, you earn money. You can spend this money on what you want. As they get much older, teenage years, stuff like that, I think in addition to financial literacy, I also want to let them know in an appropriate way where I'm coming from with all this. I want them to know sort of why. If they had maybe noticed that dad has some anxiety about money or dad has a weird, you know, he gets a little feisty. When we want to spend money, I want them to know why. I want them to know I've got stuff with money and it's not easy for me to handle it in a logical way and it caused me an amount of suffering that I don't want for them. That's the ideal. Who knows what'll actually happen.

[Courtney Harrell]

Jay's total spending for the week was $1,034. What we spend is An Odyssey original podcast. It's written and hosted by me, Courtney Harrell. Our producers are Margot Gray and Kristin Torres. Our editor is Jonathan Menhivar. Our executive producers are Maddie Sprunkiser and Leah Rees Dennis. Theme song and original music by Matt McGinley. Additional music from APM music mixing by Pedro Alvira. Special thanks to Melissa Akiko Slaughter, Joel Lovell, Jenna W.E. sperman, J.D. crowley, Maura Curran, Josefina Francis, Kurt Courtney, Hilary Sheff, Sean Cherry, Laura Berman and Hillary Hilary Van Ornam. If you want to be on what We Spend, we'd love to hear from you. Write us at WhatWe SpendPodcastMail.com and tell us about yourself.