Martinique HallerMartinique Miller lives in Chicago with her partner and works at a University. Like most grad school graduates, she has student loan debt that she’s trying to chip away at and pay off within the next two years. At the same time she still tries to live a full life and is building a life with her partner by making smart money choices. Recently, she started a personal finance blog with her older sister, called Sister Thrifty as a way to stay on track and spur each other on with paying down their debt. These are her words’¦

I have friends that have cashed in their 401(k) when they transferred jobs ‘“ to buy a mattress! I was in disbelief when a friend told me he did this. Not dismay, mind you, but actual, stone-cold disbelief. I thought the likelihood of someone cashing in a 401(k) for a mattress was on par with the likelihood that there is actually a boogie monster or that our next president would be a gay atheist that rides her bike to work. I might come off as sheltered, you might be thinking, ‘œUm’¦some people need money, we’re not all rich’. But I’m not rich either, and the people that really need money are not the same group that cashes in 401(k)s for mattresses; they don’t have 401(k)s, which is another topic altogether. My disbelief stems mostly from one place, my childhood.

My dad is currently a CFP, Trust Officer, and VP of Trust at a small Michigan bank. He didn’t start out there, but climbed the ranks from teller starting around the same time that I was learning to walk. He believes in saving. And when I say that, I mean it ‘“ there has always been follow-through on that belief. Each of my siblings had our own little savings ledger-book and when our piggy banks filled up, we’d let our dad know.

Then the two of us would sit down at the kitchen table and roll our coins and count our meager dollars and tell our dad exactly how much we wanted to put into our bank account. We would write this amount into our bank books in our childhood scrawl. We’d carefully add up the total, trying in vain to fit our numbers and letters into those tiny lines, sometimes resorting to using a span of three spaces. I recently found one of my old ledgers and noted the deposits in amounts compromised entirely of coins; 97 cents, 3 dollars and 45 cents, 6 dollars even. My dad dutifully deposited this exact amount into our savings account.

There was also a strict ‘˜save half’ system at play all of our young lives. After every birthday party we totaled up the money we received, divided by two and gave half to dad to take to the bank. When my sisters and I started babysitting, or got a paper route, half of every payment went directly into savings which would eventually be our college money. When we grew older and took after-school and summer jobs we continued to turn over half of those paychecks to our savings accounts. It was habit. When you got a check for $120, you immediately thought, ‘œCool! I have $60!’ That’s just the way it was.

Between my own savings, which I continued adding to with the money earned from summer jobs in college, and what my parents had saved, I made it through three years of college without taking out student loans. I paid the last of my student loan off with an Americorps education award, and am lucky enough that my only loans are for an expensive graduate school. But it stuck with me, sometimes to my detriment. I can occasionally pinch too many pennies but I’m glad for it and for the balance I’ve achieved.

Too many people in their twenties and thirties are struggling under credit card debt, not saving for the short term or for retirement, and they’ll pay for it later. Even though I cried the first time I bounced a check in college because I thought I failed, I now realize that staying sensible is not failure. I realize that some things are worth paying for, but there isn’t money for everything.

I finally set up a long-term savings account for my partner and I so that hopefully we can own a home one day. We have a short-term savings so that we don’t show up empty-handed at Christmas and don’t need to call our parents when we realize that the co-pay at the dentist doesn’t quite cover everything. We’re paying down the last of our credit card debt aggressively and not racking up any more. It’s likely, very likely in fact that we’ll be just fine, thanks to our parents. As likely, you might say, as having a president that’s not another white man.

More about Martinique Miller
Martinique Miller is a queer woman living in Chicago with her partner, Brittany. She started a personal finance blog with her sister, Alexandra, call Sister Thrifty where they share successes about saving and get support for their struggles. She’s been creatively frugal for years and still manages to have fun without ever cashing in her 401(k) funds.