Money Blue Book

Life is unpredictable. As much as we may try to project what is to come in the future, our feeble attempts at fortune telling and soothsaying inevitably fall short of reality. That’s life and that’s just the way of the world. We may try to walk the steady and safe path paved with good intentions, but sometimes life just insists on chucking a banana peel to trip you up when you least expect it. It’s not always fair and it’s not always just. Bad things happen to good people and sometimes unfortunate circumstances befall even the best of us. But the unforeseen and the unexpected don’t have to ruin our lives and cause everything that’s going for us to fall apart at the seams. We can plan for such an occurrence and protect ourselves the best we can by creating a back up financial contingency plan. Having a “Plan B” savings account and readily accessible emergency fund set aside will give you piece of mind in knowing that you will be taken care of should the worst case scenario occur.

I’ve personally had many unforeseen and unexpected situations spring forth in the last couple of years, and have learned that life comes at you fast. In the last few months, I’ve had to deal with a family health emergency due to the sudden passing of my grandfather which required me to go on emergency leave to fly overseas to be with him. I’ve also had to deal with a significant tax liability bill recently that seemingly came out of no where in the tune of almost $10,000. Most recently, my car suddenly broke down, necessitating me to pay out a good chunk of cash - $80 for an emergency taxi ride, $140 to tow my car to the car dealership for servicing, and an additional $1,200 for the cost of repairing my vehicle’s broken alternator, car battery, and to replace the break pads. All of these sudden expenses are part of the natural course of living but they weren’t expected. Thankfully, I’ve learned to practice what I preach and have been able to maintain sufficient emergency funds to deal with most of my financial emergencies.

Anticipate the Unexpected, and Save Up Enough Money In Readily Accessible Accounts To Cover Several Months Worth Of Living Expenses

There is no hard and fast rule as to how much one needs to have stored away in an emergency fund, but most personal finance bloggers such as myself advocate sufficient liquid savings to survive for at least a few months with no incoming funds. That is, you need sufficient savings to pay for the cost of living in case you are suddenly bed ridden for whatever reason, at least until you can get back on your feet and generate income again. Personally, I keep at least $5,000 cash stored in my bank account for emergency purposes that I try my best to not co-mingle with other investment objectives. That amount of money that I keep aside is designed to handle financial emergencies such as sudden large tax bills, health related injuries or medical bills, emergency car repair, and even the lack of income due to unanticipated unemployment. While some financial advisers advocate earmarking one’s backup emergency fund savings to cover only truly emergency living expenses, I personally take a broader approach and use my  emergency fund money as a monetary buffer for various out of the norm, over the limit type expenses that include necessary car repair charges and unplanned vacation trips. Of course, I make a very strong effort to rapidly replenish the funds as soon as the temporary financial emergency crunch subsides.

So what should we consider as ideal assets for emergency fund planning purposes? Obviously the best sources are ones that are very liquid, that earn interest, that imposes no penalties or interest charges for withdraw, and those that are easily accessible and able to be withdrawn at a moment’s notice preferably in cash money form or equivalent. The most liquid form would clearly be money stored in a piggy bank or bills stashed under your mattress, but with bank branches located everywhere and interest generating accounts easily accessible through the Internet and 24 hour ATM machines, bank related holding accounts are the supreme form of emergency fund savings. Such bank related accounts and assets would include checking accounts, savings accounts, certain forms of laddered CD’s, and money market accounts. The recommended emergency fund storage solution for most people would be to keep at least 3-6 months worth of living income stored in a high yield savings account or money market account. Bank savings and money market accounts (not to be confused with broker based money market funds) are ideal for emergency fund saving purposes. They offer not only high interest earning opportunities but they also provide instant account access, allowing funds to be withdrawn quickly for emergency situations.

While it’s nearly unanimous that putting your money in a high interest savings account is the best way to save and contribute to an emergency fund, there is much greater debate when it comes to two other commonly used forms of emergency funding - money invested in the stock market, and credit cards (specifically 0% credit cards that offer introductory 0% APR interest for balance transfers).

Using Your Stocks, Mutual Funds, or Retirement Savings As Your Emergency Fund Is A Bad Idea

Personally, I have used my brokerage account as my emergency fund before, however I highly advise against the practice. Not only is the money not very liquid and difficult to convert to immediate cash to pay off emergency debts, but oftentimes such hasty and immediate sales of stocks and mutual funds end up being very counter productive and detrimental to one’s overall long term investment strategy. Currently I have a decent amount of money invested in various individuals stocks, mutual funds, and exchange traded funds (ETF’s) through my online discount broker. Most of my brokerage money is being invested as part of a long term investment strategy. Having to sell my equity positions immediately and prematurely would disrupt my investment approach and force me to incur unplanned short term capital gains or sustain premature capital losses. Worse yet would be to withdraw funds from one of my retirement investment accounts such as my 401K, Traditional IRA account, or ROTH IRA. Not only would I disrupt the compound interest process that such tax deferred retirement accounts offer, but the withdraw itself may require me to pay out hefty early cash out penalties. While your investment account is obviously there as a final dead end source of money, one should look to other more liquid and less financially detrimental sources of emergency funds.

I Frequently Use No Fee Balance Transfer Credit Cards To Handle Emergency Expenses, But The Practice Is Only Suitable For Those Who Can Responsibly Handle Credit Card Bills and Payments

The use of 0% credit cards and balance transfers is my favorite and most commonly used source of emergency funds. I know this practice is highly frown upon by anti-credit card types, but it’s worked well for me over the years. Of course, the use of credit cards and particularly the practice of carrying large balance transfer balances (even at 0% APR) isn’t suitable for everyone. For those that have a history of overspending, or who have not demonstrated a responsible and mature ability to micromanage credit card balances, payment due dates, and minimum payment requirements, 0% balance transfer credit cards should be avoided. Those that can’t properly handle the use of credit cards and manage the logistics of balance transfers will risk making a terrible balance transfer mistake and wind up getting themselves into deeper financial trouble with credit card debt than they started out with. But for those who know how to make a balance transfer and know how balance transfer credit cards work, they are an invaluable financial tool to have in your emergency fund holster.

Back when I incurred a sudden and very unexpected $10,000 tax bill, I utilized my excellent FICO credit score to secure an attractive balance transfer card offer of 0% APR interest for 12 months. I utilized the 0% credit card’s high credit limit to pay off the $10,000 IRS tax bill and took advantage of the balance transfer card’s one year introductory period to slowly pay off the credit card debt which was basically the same IRS tax debt except in a much more manageable no interest form. Because I was diligent in making regular payments, I eventually paid back the entire liability and incurred absolutely no interest or penalties in the process. Balance transfer credit cards, when used properly, can help get you through such tough times and offer you a readily available source of interest free funds when you need them the most.

Of course, if the sudden financial emergency is quite substantial and the amount owed greatly exceeds what you anticipate being able to cover within the balance transfer card’s introductory rate period of 6-12 months or longer depending on whether you can keep rolling the balance onto a new 0% balance transfer credit card offer, I would suggest using something like a low interest balance transfer credit card for the life of the loan instead. While you’ll be paying a little bit more with a low interest balance transfer, at least the payments are predictable and you can take your time making regular payments towards paying off the bill without worrying that interest charges will drastically spike after the promo period is over.

These past few weeks have been tough on me. Not only did my trusty Honda Accord suddenly break down, but I’ve been experiencing major Internet service disruptions at home caused by the incompetence and admitted overselling activities of my current broadband service provider Comcast. For months now, I’ve been plagued by frequent Internet outages coupled with agonizingly slow download speeds reminiscent of my old 56k screech-and-hiss modem days. The breaks in service finally culminated into the complete stoppage and loss of my home Internet signal. Furthermore, the service disruption repair activities were hampered by a series of powerful thunderstorm waves that swept through my area this week, knocking out electricity, cable TV, and broadband Internet service for almost all seven days. While my car was washed and scrubbed sparkling clean by the rain and wind, lightening sparks managed to knock out the power in my neighborhood. Electricity was “quickly” reactivated in 1-2 days, but cable TV and my precious broadband Internet service wasn’t repaired and fully restored until nearly a week thereafter.

For the last few days I’ve been a pretty sad fellow. Not only did I feel isolated and cut off from the real world without convenient home access to the Internet, I haven’t been able to properly update my personal finance blog, nor have I been able to check my email messages, or tend to the operations of any of my online passive income businesses. On a normal weekday I usually receive close to 50 emails a day from a variety of personal and business related sources. By the time my Internet service was finally restored, I was greatly backlogged and had major catching up to do.

I Never Realized How Much I Relied and Depended On Having Home Based Internet Access, Until It Was Suddenly Taken Away From Me

I used to feel this way about TV, but I now have a new love - my computer (and the Internet service it provides me). When my precious Internet is gone, I feel crippled. This is not the first time I’ve experienced an Internet outage due to loss of power, but it’s the first time I realized how much I depended on my broadband Internet service at home. In the past, whenever my cable Internet service was knocked out, I’d simply access my backup laptop’s wireless signal manager and search for one of my random neighbor’s unsecured wireless signal to piggy back off of. Oftentimes I would get lucky and find one subscribed to a different broadband Internet provider that still had active service. While the majority of the stray wireless signals were properly password protected, a few were left publicly accessible. However, as the importance of securing one’s wireless router from unwanted intrusion has picked up steam, I find that most signals today are properly secured and inaccessible to strangers like myself. Particularly in a condo complex such as mine that’s populated by mostly tech savvy young adults and families, finding an unsecured wireless signal to temporarily piggy back off of is proving more difficult nowadays.

Since I’ve been working from home for the last few months, I’m not able to access the web through an alternate location such as an office workspace. So for the last few days during the outage, I visited my local library to get my Internet fix and to keep tabs on my email messages the best I could. Due to usage limits of an hour per day on the computers at my public county library, I wasn’t able to fully respond to all messages during each sitting and frequently had to do the bare minimum when it came to managing my online finances and keeping track of all my wheelings and dealings. Since I’ve adopted the practice of going all electronic and paperless and have converted all my paper bills into e-billing and automatic debit payments, not having immediate home based access to the Internet puts me in an incredibly inconvenient position. It’s a hopeless and powerless feeling when you’re unable to properly manage and access important aspects of one’s personal and financial life in real time. Especially since I am currently managing a major balance transfer credit card arbitrage, not having online account access makes it difficult for me to keep tabs on monthly due dates and stay on top of my minimum payments. If I’m not careful with online due dates, I could easily unintentionally commit a tragic balance transfer mistake and ultimately face terrible repercussions. It’s been so long since I’ve performed paper or phone banking that I’m not even sure how it’s done anymore exactly or where to locate my backup paperwork. I’m simply so used to doing everything online these days.

We’ve Become An Extremely Technology and Internet Dependent Generation

The no-Internet experience left me amazed and somewhat alarmed at how much my life has grown so reliant on the availability of the Internet. While it’s only a single form of technology, it’s a mode of communication and source of information that I’ve become extremely dependent upon. It’s interesting how only about a decade ago, no one had even heard of Google, Yahoo, Mapquest, or CNN.com. Back in the Internet-less caveman days of the early 90’s, we relied on non electronic forms of communication and information gathering. Before the Internet, people relied on daily newspaper deliveries for their written news, people purchased hard compact discs for their music, paper maps were used to plot directions, and people actually obtained background information on a variety of common topics by turning to hardcover encyclopedias.

Today, people rely on CNN.com, NYTimes.com, Yahoo news, and even online blogs to get their daily news. People order songs individually from online vendors like iTunes. People use online websites like Mapquest or Google maps, or utilize handheld GPS devices to easily and automatically get directions to where they want to go. Nowadays, the old volumes of encyclopedias have become extinct as all forms of text and multimedia data have been compiled and stored onto easy to carry around storage disks, or have been uploaded onto online information repositories like Wikipedia. As a testament to its breadth, the Internet is even changing the way we order pizzas now. Today, the trend of ordering freshly made pizzas online in real time through vendors such as Papa John’s is growing rapidly. The Internet has essentially phased out the clutter generated by paper documents, menus, and voluminous booklets.

The Internet Is Replacing The Cell Phone and Cable TV As The Technology We Can Least Afford To Do Without

But with this great reliance comes the dangers as evidenced by how out of place I became as soon as this important technology was taken away from me. Today, with the Internet having enveloped and dominated our day to day lives, and high speed cable and DSL broadband having greatly expanded the media content we can now receive, we can barely function now without this important service. I know I can’t.

Without full Internet access for the last week or so, I became handicapped and only partially functional. In fact, I dare to say that not having access to the Internet was astronomically worse than not having my mobile phone or even not having a fully functional cable TV service. Both cellular phone and television service can be easily replaced and compensated by the power of the web. There are easy ways to make local, national, and even international phone calls for free using a computer and the Internet, and I can easily communicate with my friends and family through instant messaging or via social networks such as Facebook or Myspace. There are also plenty of free online shared videos on YouTube and daily updated news videos on the major news network websites that can replace the lack of TV service. But there is simply no duplicate or substitute for a non working Internet.

The Internet is so pervasive, it’s hard to know what life would be like if it ever disappeared. It’s a wonderful and powerful tool that has changed the way we interact, communicate, and live our lives, but at the same time it makes us very technologically dependent and vulnerable. We are more susceptible to critical financial and societal collapses from computer viral outbreaks or electrical infrastructure disruptions than ever before. Some say it has made us as a society more distant and anonymous to each other, but I disagree. I think it’s greatly improved our lives and has allowed us to reach out and touch others in a way not possible before. We can only hope that technology can continue to defy the elements of mother nature (thunderstorms) and adequately keep up with this never ending appetite for electronic convenience and digital information. Such electrical and service outages as I experienced this week mustn’t happen again. I just can’t bear to be without Internet access for too long. Things just don’t seem to run right or smoothly when I am offline for extended periods of time.

There seems to be a trend among online finance and frugality commentators to share their personal frugal meal solutions. Some have gone so far as to post step by step instructional guides on how to put together simple peanut butter sandwiches, or compiled detailed cost analyses of the ham and cheese brown bag lunch making process. I think these simple and frugal lunch plans are excellent how-to’s for people like myself who are clumsy clowns in the kitchen. Single guys such as I are notoriously bad cooks. I think my lack of any real cooking ability simply is a byproduct of my single man laziness prowess, lack of hand skills when it comes to culinary creations, and overall personal opinion that cooking for one is too inefficient to even bother with. Thus far I’ve tried supermarket salad bars, Chinese carry out, Thai food take out, prepackaged frozen meals, microwave TV dinners, and the occasional home made steak, but my options always seem to boil down to eating ready made food or dining out (a particularly expensive habit). While I do try to find ways to save money by utilizing restaurant credit cards to earn cash back and rebate discount rewards when I dine out, the reality is that eating out is almost always more expensive and usually less healthy than preparing your own food at home.

Cooking and Preparing a Meal At Home Isn’t Easy For Busy Single Guys (Or Gals) On The Go Who Lack Speedy Cooking Skills

While I’m sure most amateur Iron Chefs out there may simply suggest that I take the effort to go buy groceries regularly and learn to cook home meals for myself, I’m also fairly sure most of the individuals that would suggest that are either married, or have jobs that allow them to spend time grocery shopping and cooking actual complete meals. Much of my life is on the go and oftentimes I simply don’t have the time to buy the ingredients needed to cook proper meals on a regular basis. If I had a family, a wife, and kids, I might be more motivated to do so, but when it’s just one person, it just doesn’t seem as cost or time efficient to do so. I did try cooking for a while, but each meal took too much time and oftentimes the vegetables that I purchased for use later expired by the time I got around to using them all. I have been told by friends and family that I’m very much the stereotypical single bachelor in his late 20’s - adequately knowledgeable about financial and technological matters, but absolute butterfingers in the kitchen. While my long term food strategy is to marry a girl who knows how to cook like a pro and keep me well fed with hot meals, my short term meal solution is to continue to find shortcut ways to assemble a reasonable balance between speed, taste, and nutrition.

I’ve tried the sandwich route, eating cheap ramen, frozen pizza, Chinese dumplings, and even cooking steak in the oven, but the truth of the matter is that none of these meal choices are remotely healthy. All they do is increase my sodium and saturated fat intake, thereby increasing my blood pressure count and making me feel sluggish, as well as causing me to grow a very slight belly pooch. Most instant food products contain high fat, high sodium, lots of calories, and offer little nutritional value in return. Even the common lunch meats that many commentators seem to speak so glowingly about are actually very unhealthy as they are quite high in sodium, fat content, and artificial preservatives.

Eating Vegetarian Meatless Burgers and Food Products Is My New Quick and Healthy Food Solution

However, recently I discovered a culinary lifesaver for single guys like myself - Boca burgers, from Kraft Foods! Actually, the terminology should probably be - vegetarian prepackaged frozen foods. As a little side clarification, I’m no anti-meat PETA fanatic. I’m a hearty beef, pork, and fish eater, who enjoys a nice juicy medium well done steak or hamburger patty off the barbecue grill as much as the next guy. While I do love the taste of genuine meat, I can still appreciate the overall health benefits of vegetarian food products that are often vegetable, grain, and soy protein based. While I’m not a health nut, I do try my best to focus on healthier foods when I can by increasing protein and fiber intake while limiting saturated fat, processed sugar, and sodium consumption.

One particular ingredient that is frequently found in vegetarian imitation meat products like the Boca food line is soy protein. Soy is a very healthy ingredient most commonly found in tofu, and is usually more nutritious and high in fiber than most meat products. While I love burgers, cutting down on red meat has been said to have appreciable health benefits, as over-consumptions has been tentatively linked to higher risk levels of colon cancer. Since I’m a pretty thin guy with a high metabolism, I don’t usually pay attention to caloric nutritional content, but I do pay extra notice to sodium, fat, and nutritional fiber percentages. The last time I had my physical exam and complete blood work done, my doctor advised me to consume more fiber. While I was otherwise very healthy, she suggested that I could benefit from an increased consumption of certain grains and vegetables high in dietary fiber. My purpose of eating vegetarian inspired burgers and sandwich products is to cut down on saturated fat and unhealthy ingredients of most other forms of prepackaged food, but do so in a way that is speedy and efficient. Even so-called healthier meat products like extra lean ground beef can only cut down the saturated fat content by so much. Veggie patties tend to contain less fat and much fewer calories - perfect for those who are weight and health conscious.

Boca and Other Vegetarian Food Products Require A Taste Compromise, But I think It’s Worth The Nutritional Benefits

While I’ll probably never quite give up the decadence of meat, I’ve grown to enjoy the taste of most vegetarian dishes. I’ve dined and eaten at very good vegetarian restaurants and cafes before. Many of the best vegetarian places are uniquely skilled at creating dishes that closely mimic the distinctive flavor of meat products but with all the nutritional benefits of soy and veggie ingredients. In downtown Washington D.C. near the Farragut North metro station where I work, there is a Korean, Asian fusion vegetarian cafe called Java Green that I often frequent. They serve the best vegetarian sandwiches and even die hard meat lovers enjoy them.

However, you don’t have to dine out to get vegetarian food. Easily found in your common supermarket are extensive lines of Boca and vegetarian food products in the frozen foods section near the ice cream, tater tots and frozen pizzas. The great thing about these meatless Boca products is that they come in a wide selection of concoctions, from organic meatless burger patties, to meatless sausages, meatless lasagnas, to even meatless tacos. The company really tries to disguise the vegetarian nature by creating imitation flavor. While the meatless products will never truly fool meat connoisseurs into believing they are really biting into a hunk of meat, for some of the burger products, they actually do a pretty good job of substitution.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell you’re really eating a vegetarian burger patty. When you stick the Boca veggie pattie between two slices of whole wheat burger buns, insert a layer of iceberg lettuce, add an extra tomato slice, slab on some wasabi horseradish, and squirt on a dab of low sodium ketchup, if you’re not paying attention, you could easily get fooled - not quite, but almost. The burgers even come in a variety of purportedly different flavors - including flame grilled, and roasted onion (although they all tasted the same to me). For those who like hot dogs, Boca even offers a nice line of meatless sausages and hot dog products.

While Boca from Kraft is probably the most well known vegetarian frozen food brand, there are also several competitors as well, such as Dr. Praeger, Morning Star Farms, and Gardenburger. However, I personally like Boca brands the best since I think they do the best job of re-creating the meaty flavor of real meat in their vegetarian products. The others, particularly Gardenburger seem to be geared towards the hardcore vegetarians as they are much more “vegetably flavored”. Gardenburger products contain more grains and vegetables - hence the more veggie, and less meaty taste. Gardenburger is not the best when it comes to recreating imitation meat flavor. Their vegetarian buffalo wings are terrible - I’m convinced they simply slapped some tofu soy concentrate together and compressed it together to give it the denser consistency of buffalo chicken meat (tastes nothing like real chicken however). I’m only a soft core, part time vegetarian so I’m not as into the pure vegetarian burger experience - I prefer vegetarian products that do a better job of imitating meat dishes, like Boca. Brands like Dr. Praeger, Morning Star Farms, and Gardenburger would probably be better suited for real vegetarians or vegans who want the true vegetarian experience without the imitation meat flavoring.

Nutrition Comparison Between Boca Vegetarian Meatless Burger and The Common Meat Patty

Below I’ve provided the Nutrition Facts for both your standard Boca burger patty (on the left) and your standard McDonald’s Big Mac Burger (on the right). Keep in mind that the Big Mac is not even the fast food chain’s least healthy meal option. Compare the caloric count, total fat content, as well as the sodium and sugar numbers. Scary isn’t it?

Boca Burger (Roasted Onion)	McDonald’s Big Mac Burger

Comparing the nutritional facts of Boca vegetarian burgers to that of your ordinary McDonald burger, the healthier choice is pretty clear. While Boca’ll never be perfect substitutes for meat products, once you get accustomed to the taste, they can serve as quick and easy healthy food choices. It’s just a matter of heating them up in the microwave at home and pairing up with some bread.

I recently read a very interesting online article from an English (United Kingdom) website today called the Times Online (I know it’s a well known site for British people, but I’ve never heard of it before). While the views expressed seem to come from a European perspective, with some interesting but different English terminology used in the comments section such as “blokes” and “birds” (translation: “guys” and “gals”), much of the opinion piece is also applicable to the American experience. The article addressed the familiar but sometimes complicated question of why today’s modern men seem reluctant, burdened, or feel socially awkward when it comes to talking about their moms or when it comes to actually calling them on a regular basis.

Today was Mother’s Day so I did manage to contact my mother who lives overseas with my dad to wish her a Happy Mother’s Day. Of course she was quite surprised but happy to hear my message (she is my mom after all), but I think she mostly enjoyed the rarity of it all. I can’t remember the last time I ever gave her a present or anything on Mother’s day (during elementary school maybe), but I think on some level she understands that grown up sons at some point in their lives must exercise that desired financial and social independence from their parents, particularly from their moms. While I do love my mom to death, it is true - there is also something very unattractive and rather unhealthy for a man who is too clingy with his mother and refuses to cut the proverbial umbilical cord.

In General, Boys, Men, and Sons Have A Primitive But Instinctively Driven Desire To Seek Social and Financial Independence From Their Parental Guardians

This common practice and social phenomenon of sons never calling their mothers and only doing so when they actually need something from them seems to be quite prevalent. Haven’t you seen the recent Comcast Digital Voice mother’s day commercial? The commercial was advertising the company’s new digital phone service and was encouraging all viewers, but men in particular, to sign up with Comcast phone access this mother’s day so they could give their mothers a call and wish them well. The funny commercial had scenes of mothers of all countries and languages clutching phones to their ears and systemically fainting to the ground in disbelief as the voices of their sons sounded through the ear pieces. The humorous punch line is that sons never call, thus when they do, it creates such a monumental shock to the mothers that it leaves them dumbfounded.

But the truth of the matter is that most of the male friends I know, myself included rarely call or contact our moms. The more financially and socially independent men tend to be more self reliant and don’t feel the need to call their moms on a daily, weekly or even semi regular basis to talk about nothing in particular. If you asked me when was the last time that I actually called my mom or either parent over the phone, and not counting the times they called me first, I would have to offer you an embarrassed guilty look and say over 6 months to a 1 year ago. Ever since I became financially independent after graduate school and no longer needed to beg my parents for money, I’ve relied on my own abilities to eek out a living. Since then I’ve learned to take care of myself, gotten used to setting my own schedule, arranging my own meals, and keeping myself out of trouble. Everytime my parents call (especially when it’s my mom), I innately feel like I just reverted back to a childlike state in which I am still nagged and coddled by my guardians. Every time my dad calls he always wants to chat about my job or where I’m going with my life professionally and occupationally. But everytime the phone gets handed off to my mom, she starts chatting incessantly and repetitively about my diet, what I eat, what I shouldn’t eat, the importance of needing to cook for myself, and my sleeping habits. The nagging about my living lifestyle could seriously go on and on for hours if I didn’t conclude it at some point. Everytime I talk to them I feel like I’m in elementary school again, but the fact of the matter is I’m not. I’m a grown adult, with a full time job, who is paying the rent, taking care of the bills, and fending for myself as a man should.

The Social Difference Between How Grown Up Sons and Daughters Treat Their Parents

Sexist, stereotypical or not, I think most girls and women are closer to their mothers than boys and men are. Daughters simply are more driven to call their mothers on a regular basis and chat about random things like their eating habits, living habits, who they are seeing, or whether they are happy or not. It’s probably the inherent differences in male and female nature that explain why they treat their parents so differently once they’ve left the family nest. Perhaps women are simply more inclined to pick up the phone and call their moms or anyone else for that matter due to the lifetime motherly bond between them that’s never broken or altered. Maybe it’s how we are molded when we are young - daughters are generally raised to become nurturers, gatherers, and future mothers, while men are usually raised to become grown up hunters, and caretakers of their future brood. When I pick up the phone, I call a person for a specific purpose and not just to shoot the breeze. I always find it strange when some people call for no reason at all then just to chat.

When I was young, I always saw emotional reliance and financial dependence on my parents as a tremendous weakness. My view was that I would never become my own man until I could break away from them and financially fend for myself. I still hold that view today and see single friends in their early and mid 30’s who are still living at home with their moms and dads as pretty strange. I understand there are key differences in certain European, Asian, and Indian cultures whereby sons are expected to live at home with the parents until they marry, but I’m viewing all of this mostly through the classic American perspective that encourages independence, especially when it comes to males. I love my mom very much and she’s done a wonderful job of letting her two sons go off into the world on their own, but I know many other moms out there have trouble letting their little boys become men. It’s important to keep your little solider safe when he is young, but at some point you have to kick him out of the nest for his own good. The best thing my mom ever did for me was to let me be, and let me make mistakes and learn on my own.

Personally, I think it’s natural for men to want to break away from their mom’s embrace at some point. It’s all part of the growing up and rite of passage experience for males. How is he expected to one day take care of his own family if he cannot assert his own independence and take care of himself before letting others help take care of him. Besides, what woman would want a man who incessantly clings onto his mother? I know some women out there claim that they desire a man who loves his mom and treats her well, but obviously what women wouldn’t? Being kind and treating one’s mom well is one thing, but being a mama’s boy and always calling the mom to get her advice and approval is a little strange when the guy starts to reach his 30’s, 40’s or even 50’s. Living at home as a single male and having your mom still cook your food, do your laundry, and pick up after you just seems extremely childish. I have no problem with a girl or daughter calling her mom regularly after marriage, but when I hear about men who constantly feel the need to call their moms to get approvals or give updates, I simply find them to be very wimpy, for a lack of a better word. My mom will always be my mom and she will always have a special place in my personal hierarchy of women, but at some point, sons have to grow up and join the world of men and inevitably leave their moms behind to a certain degree. However, I will always treat my mom with love and respect - but not as a little boy, but as a grown up, financially independent man.