﻿For the past eight year, my wife and I have lived in a multigenerational household with
our two little children and my aging parents. When we tell people of our housing arrangement,
we get a range of mixed responses. Oh wow. That is so admirable. But I could never
live with my parents. They are too crazy! Really!? Why!? Man. You got a good setup.
I wish I could do that! The funny thing is, in the time period that we’ve lived together,
we have had the exact same thoughts. It’s so great having my parents here. They help
out with the kids so much. Oh my goodness. I can’t handle it anymore! When can we move out?!
Seriously. Why are we doing this?? Hi, if you are new to the channel, my name is Tae
from Financial Tortoise - a channel dedicated to helping the Sandwich Generation reach Financial
Security. We’ve definitely experienced all ranges of emotions during our multigenerational household
journey. I would be lying if I was to say that it is for everyone. But before you shut me down,
in this video, I want to share with you a few reasons why I'd ask you to consider it.
Reason number 1 Kids Are Exposed to Grandparents Wisdom One of the big drivers to our decision to
cohabitate was due to the challenge of childcare. When my wife was pregnant with our first child,
we racked our brains to come up with a workable solution to childcare. Is there a good infant
daycare nearby? Should one of us quit our job to stay home? Can we make the 30 min drive every
morning to my parents to drop the baby off? In the end, having my mother's help with watching the
baby eased our decision to cohabitate, however it also came with other unanticipated child rearing
benefits. My son is now eight and it’s fascinating to watch his interaction with my parents. They are
so much calmer and patient with him. Something both my wife and I struggled with as we try to
juggle our careers as well as being first time parents. Like any first time parent would admit,
you make so many regrettable mistakes when raising children.You try to argue with a 2 year old. You
lose patience when they don’t put on their shoes quickly​. You threaten them into eating
their breakfast.​ However, my parents never lost patience with them. They were calm. They listened.
It was such a blessing to see my children being exposed to their grandparents' wisdom and calm
slow ways, when I couldn’t provide it for them in a consistent manner. Such interaction would have
been only possible living under one roof where my parents got to spend so much time with their
grandchildren. Reason number 2 Allow Young Parents To Focus On Their Careers Many young parents
struggle with trying to juggle their careers while raising kids. Oftentimes, one of the parents are
forced to quit their jobs or significantly cut back their hours due to the challenge of trying
to do it all. I give kudos to millions of parents who are still able to hold down a full time career
while raising their kids without additional family help. I had to do it just a few times when my
parents were out of town, and I could not sustain it. Having my parents live with us gave us the
ability to focus on our careers. We could leave early in the morning trusting that my parents
would be able to prepare the kids for preschool or daycare. If work required us to stay later than
normal times, we could trust that my parents would be able to help wind the kids down. Now, we should
never abuse this privilege, because our parents have a life of their own that we should respect.
But the times that they were able to support us with these help was tremendous to our careers.
It enabled both my wife and I to grow our careers and income during a time period when
more was being demanded of us. The growth enabled us to pay down our student loan of
$105,000 in 3.5 years. You can check out our video about our student debt pay down here. And it also
helped us reach financial security in our 30s. real quick, if you're enjoying this video and
you want to learn more about personal finance and navigating life as a sandwich generation, I would
appreciate it if you subscribe and hit the like button, because that would really help out the
channel. Reason number 3 Aging Parents Feel Young Again The fascinating thing about my parents being
so patient with my son and daughter was that it was a side of them I had not seen before.
Especially my father. I don’t remember him being very patient with my sister and I growing up.
Something about the grandchildren brought out a very calm and gentle side of him.
Just as cohabitation has allowed my children to benefit from being exposed to my parents wisdom,
my parents have also benefited from the young ones energy, innocence and constant excitement.
They’ve told us that when the kids come home after school and are running around with pure optimism,
they feel young again. We also see this not just in multigenerational homes, but in many nursing
homes around the country today. These nursing homes are intentionally interacting with daycares,
because they see the mutual benefit of having elderly with young children
that bring so much life and energy. If you also live in a multigenerational household and you have
seen a different side of your parents with your own children, please comment below. I would love
to hear if you agree with my perspective or if you have any new insight you'd like to share. Reason
number 4 Financial Benefit of Multigenerational Household There is an economic term called
"economy of scale." Essentially, as you scale something, like a factory, you can reduce the cost
of goods produced. Similar concepts can be applied to overhead cost and multigenerational households.
It is much more cost effective to have one bigger mortgage than two smaller mortgages - of course
this is assuming you don't go out and buy the biggest house you can buy. Instead of paying
for two utility bills, you pay for one. For food, instead of buying smaller quantities at the local
grocery store, its much cheaper to purchase bulk at Costco. For my parents and I, the financial
benefits of living together have been tremendous - I have a video about more specific savings living
in a multigenerational household here that you can check out. My wife and I are able to own a home in
very expensive Southern California. It would have taken us additional 10 years, if we were to have
tried purchasing a home on our own. In addition, my parents have been able to reduce their overhead
housing cost as well. Giving them more financial flexibility to spend money on things they enjoy,
like going out with friends or spoiling their grandkids with candies. Reason number 5 Increases
Tolerance One of our favorite sayings when it comes to our multigenerational household
is that there is a cost to everything. We can’t have both a built-in nanny and a spotless kitchen.
We can’t have loving grandparents without some unsolicited parental advice. However, despite the
challenges of a multigenerational household, both my wife and I admit that we’ve grown so much from
the experience. We’ve become more tolerant of our generational differences. Instead of saying we’ll
never understand why parents behave in a certain way, we had to learn to calm down and try to
understand why they behaved that way, if there was going to be any semblance of a peaceful household.
My parents grew up in a very different time and place. Certainly growing up in a war torn
country after the Korean War is very different from sunny Orange County. Their perspective of
food or time is very different from my wife and I. Just as they tried to understand our perspective,
we had to learn to understand theirs. Though the conflicts were not pretty,
cohabitation forced us to work through them and helped us to better understand each other,
connect at a much deeper level and become more tolerant and (hopefully mature) individuals.
Thank you guys for watching. If you found value from this video, please hit the like button, leave
a comment and subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss out on any of my other upcoming videos.
I firmly believe that being part of the Sandwich Generation doesn't have to mean financial stress.
With careful planning and preparation, we can thrive during this stage of life.
Help me spread the knowledge. Thank you again and I'll see you in my next video.