Send them my way if they give you any lip.

-j

Your story encourages me because, in part, it validates what I’m telling my teens. If you can get a college scholarship, great. If you can’t, attend the nearby community college and then go to an inexpensive state school. Curiously, a few of the state schools in Wisconsin are less expensive than the state schools in Illinois, where we live.

I also encourage them to consider a two-year “career” degree at the community college. Sometimes this makes the most sense; it depends on the teen.

Thanks for putting your story “out there.”

You don't need to spend money like Kim K. to have a wedding. The only imporant thing is to have your family and friends around you. From what you've described it shouldn't cost you more than a plane (or bus) ticket home.

That said, if your dream is to have two over-the-top grand ceremonies and parties then go for it. Just distinguish that from the wedding itself. You don't need to wait to get married; you have to wait to have two grand, huge weddings.

My wife and I (before she was my wife) made our own invitations, and they looked really nice. We bought dried flowers and put one on each. A friend of mine designed the print work, and I lucked out on the parchment paper. We had family and friends help us with the food, and they only charged us the money to buy it. We used our church for the wedding, so we didn’t have to rent a hall.

The point is if you really want to, you can get creative and not spend a TON and still have a beautiful wedding. Just figure out what you might need and save a bit here and there until you have it!

Good luck!

I’m from Canada originally.

So please accept my apologies for putting words in your mouth that were not there!

We’re thankful, and though it’s been almost a year since she got here (incidentally I wrote this piece in February…we’ve come a long way since then) and we’re still working on things like work and English. Part of the struggle is probably that my wife knew no one here and felt like she had abandoned her family who sometimes doesn’t have enough money for food in a month to come to a place where people throw away massive amounts because portion sizes are huge. So while I’m really OK being here (but I’m also a bit impatient, I suppose), she’s really anxious to go back. But at the same time she’s thankful that she can babysit for 12 hours a week and make in a month what she made teaching 9 hours a day (and send a lot of it back home).

Where are you from, honeybee?

-j

I don’t really understand how you read “as if to say the US is the only place anyone would want to live” in my comment. There is not any hint whatsoever of a value judgment as to whether the US is good, bad, or ugly. I don’t give a fig what anyone thinks of the US. The comment reflected on the nature of the INS.

Where did I say that living in the US was your dream or your wife’s dream? I called her “the woman of your dreams”… not sure how you read that into my comment. We all realize that your wife coming to the US is hardly your ideal, but from my experience it’s a small miracle that you were able to achieve this tiny feat that gives you comfort in the meantime, if indeed it is true that your wife “couldn’t live without you”. (I see above in comments you were being facetious with this line, but it made me wince nonetheless.) As someone going through the green card application now, I do not take the immigration process lightly in the least.

Can’t you at least be grateful for that small mercy, even if it’s inadequate in the long term? For a lot of people to whom the INS said “no”, it would be heartbreaking to listen to someone trivialize that win. Being thankful is really important, and being thankful for the things that help you move toward your ultimate dream is an important part of achieving them. I think you have a lot to be thankful for, and if you’ll only be thankful when you reach your dream, you’ll spend life not living.

However less-than-optimal my own situation is here in the US, and however much I loathe the INS process, and however much I find the environment in the US to be… umm, a little lame to be truthful… I would never trivialize how lucky I am to be able to be with my family. There are thousands of people who would love to be in my position and I don’t take that lightly, even if my position ain’t the greatest according to me. It’s the journey, not the destination.

Of industrialized nations the US has some of the lowest social mobility. If you’re born poor you’re more like to stay poor than if you were born in Australia, Denmark, Canada, and even France. See: http://www.oecd.org/vgn/images/portal/cit_731/7/50/44765433G4G%20ch%205.gif

And for the complete study:
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/2/7/45002641.pdf

To improve one’s odds of finding the American dream, its better to live in just about any developed nation other than the USA.

Interestingly, low social mobility correlates to high income inequality. And high income inequality correlates (actually, might be causal, but I haven’t looked at the subject in depth enough to make that statement, so I’ll stick to correlate for now since I know that much is true) to a host of other poor metrics such as lower life expectancy, higher incarceration rates, lower math and literacy, higher obesity, etc.

See this TED talk:
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html

I picked up the guy’s book after seeing that video and am reading it now. The kindle edition is super cheap at $4.

It is sad that in the U.S. education is so expensive. Even though I’d never benefit directly (I went to a private university and I will not have children) I think we’d all benefit from an educated population; likely in ways it would be impossible to imagine.

Additionally, language immersion is something that upper middle class people pay quite a bit of money to get for their kids because it is supposed to make children more intelligent. Kids pick up language much more quickly than adults do.

“The education industry takes more and more of the national resources while producing less and less real output. And if you want a job, you are better off as a well-credentialed zombie than as an energetic (often disruptive) producer.”

Regarding being foster parents now, I admit we hadn’t thought of doing it right now. We definitely want to adopt at least one kid, but we know that’s an expensive process. Fostering might not be, but with my wife still learning English it wouldn’t be easy if the child didn’t know Spanish.

Definitely something to think about and worth talking about!

-j

I teach the people that take my Celebrating Financial Freedom course that debt can also affect your spirituality. Being deep in debt can hinder your giving by making you feel like you “can’t afford” to tithe, give offerings, or even open a foster home in a place where it’s desperately needed.

It can also hurt you spiritually because you may feel you need to work to pay your bills instead of attending church.

Most people never realize the gravity of what getting into debt means for their future. I am so glad to hear where your heart is for these children and that you are making the effort to eliminate your debt so you can help.

You can do it, don’t lose heart!

Thanks for the great writing Jason and remember…

“When you help me with money, you help the world prosper.”- J.M. DuMont

For me in particular, I was struggling with major mental illness that fogged any ability I might have had to recognize my parents’ folly. And I assumed I would have killed myself before graduating from college anyway (not that I thought of this in terms of strategically not paying back my debts, but more that the repayment part of my life wasn’t going to exist, so why bother thinking about it).

I had little drive when I was in college, maybe partly due to lack of confidence, so I took the first opportunities that came around. Things have changed in that respect, but I wish I had the drive then that I have now. I’d have found one of those higher-paying (and cooler) internships like my friends got.

-j

It was deregulation that allowed people who wouldn’t previously of qualified for loans to get those loans. It was the false information those people were fed, that their house would keep gaining value and they could refinance at a lower rate in the future. It was the lack of regulation and oversight that allowed those banks to leverage that bad debt to sell to others to get the capital to create more bad debt.

No one held a gun to anyone’s head. No stick was needed for the guy wanting a home to call his own or the banker seeking more profits. Just big fat juicy carrots all around.

Including juicy carrots for the politicians who got rid of the regulations. Lose an election? If you took care of the corporations you can get a nice cushy consultant job. Want to win the election? Court the corporations and get campaign donations, or as its called in law, “speech.”

The people with money and influence got us into this mess and they’re still reaping the benefits.