Heidi from - wedding again!

[Guest guest]

Heidi,

well, I jumped the gun telling you that Nikki hasn't gotten married yet. If I'd

just read a couple more posts, I'd have read where you said you thought Nikki's

wedding was already over.

Thankfully, Nikki and are quite conservative and very appreciative of

the amount of money that my husband and I are giving them for the wedding.

Lucky for Nikki, her dad and stepmom agreed to match what we are giving. Nikki

and also started a joint wedding/honeymoon account as soon as they

became engaged back in Nov 2001, so they are contributing quite a bit toward the

wedding. They got lucky on their honeymoon. My hubby and I gave them our

frequent flyer miles and Nikki's dad and stepmom gave them their annual week in

a timeshare hotel. They are going to Cancun, Mexico for their honeymoon.

Actually, they elected to stay at a hotel that is about 45 minutes from Cancun.

It will be much more relaxing than being in the middle of things in Cancun and

the hotel offers shuttle service to Cancun for free pretty much around the

clock. The hotel is all-inclusive so Nikki and will have to pay the

all-inclusive fee but that will cover all food, drinks, and tips for the entire

week. It will also cover tickets for both of them on two tours. The price was

very reasonable for what it includes and this way they won't have to worry about

watching every penny for their meals and such.

is so conservative that for Nikki's birthday (3 days ago) he started a

savings account for a car fund for Nikki. They are going to try to make her car

last until his car is paid off. He bought a new Honda Civic a year or so ago

when his car totally died. Nikki has a 97 Saturn coupe that she bought a couple

of months after her high school graduation in 2000 with graduation money and the

proceeds from her previous car. Thankfully, Nikki only lives about a mile from

both work and school so she doesn't put many miles on her car. A lot of times

she walks to school and work when the weather is nice because she has to park so

far away from classes anyway. Back to the car account - I thought it was

amazing that at only 21 years old, is thinking ahead enough to start a

savings account to use toward replacing Nikki's car when they have to replace

it. Thankfully, they have both listened to all their parents and other than

's car (which they did quite well on when he bought it), they don't owe

any money. Well, let me take that back. They do both have student loans,

more than Nikki because he doesn't have any scholarships. However, if

at all possible, I'm going to try to pay Nikki's student loan payments for her

after she gets her Master's and has to start paying them. Of course, I first

planned on trying to do that for both girls prior to my getting sick again and

having to take a disability retirement along with a pretty big cut in my income.

However, I'd still like to try and do that for both of them IF they complete

college and are still as wonderful young women as they are now. They are both

very appreciative of everything we do for them, so of course, that just makes me

want to do more!

I do think there's a point where you can do too much for your kids. That's one

of the main reasons that we decide specific amounts that we are willing to give

them for various things. I think you can do your kids more harm than good if

you are too generous with money. We helped both girls buy their first car, but

they had to pay for half of the cost. After the first car, they were on their

own for buying the next car. We give them a certain amount each month for

college and the rest is up to them. Both girls admit that while it would nice

for us to just hand them credit cards and a never ending supply of money, they

know that they are really better off in the long run to have to learn to live on

a budget. They do say that it would be nice just for a week or so to be one of

those kids whose parents do supply them with unlimited funds! We just tell them

to dream on, doing without builds character! We'd never let them go hungry, but

other than that, I really do think it is good to learn to live frugally at a

young age.

Well, enough. I will do my best to quit the wedding talk in my group posts!