I Have a Wife, Kids, and a Good Life. No One Knows My Deepest Fantasy.

Pay Dirt Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Getty Images Plus. Our advice columnists have heard it all over the years—so we’re diving into the Pay Dirt archives to share classic letters with our readers. Submit your own questions about money here. (It’s anonymous!) Dear Pay Dirt, By all appearances, I have a good life. I have a not-too-difficult job that pays well and has flexible hours. I’ve been married for 30 years and all of our children are doing reasonably well. While not wealthy, I have money in the bank and we own a home, cars, etc. I am able to indulge my interests and hobbies, including travel for pleasure and “experience” activities like hiking and skiing. However … … I am completely burned out. My wife has serious health issues so I am responsible for most of the housekeeping, home maintenance, finances, and parenting. I make all of the family plans and keep the family schedule, even small tasks like getting oil changes on the cars fall on me. I am often frustrated with my wife and kids because of the imbalance of responsibility. At my job, I am completely uninspired and just do the minimum. But, I am also stressed that should I lose my job our lifestyle will completely collapse. Many of my friendships feel one-sided, we mostly talk about their problems because my life seems so “put together.” I fantasize about a future where I have no obligations and often think about quitting, not just my job, but everything, pulling all of the money out of savings and leaving everything behind. I have considered therapy, but I’ve had several bad experiences with therapists. It’s made me skeptical, not that therapy cannot work, but at the ability to find a therapist who is a good fit for me. Right now, my coping mechanism is to just keep plugging along in the hope that over time things will get better. —Burned Out Dear Burned Out, I know it’s frustrating to get recommended therapy when it hasn’t worked before, but you are burned out enough that you wrote all your frustrations out to a financial advice columnist. What you are dealing with is not a financial problem—it’s burnout. The malaise and frustration you’re dealing with are common for the “default parent” in a relationship and the person that carries the “mental load.” The tools that will best help you navigate this will come from a trained professional. If you’ve struggled with finding a one-on-one therapist, you might want to seek a support group that fits your needs (such as through the Well Spouse Association). While you look for a professional to help you, I recommend reading Burn Out: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski. And for financial advice: If it’s within your budget, outsourcing some of the household tasks to lighten your load might provide you with some relief. See if your wife is able to manage the outsourcing of the tasks, instead of you. —Lilian Karabaic From: I Figured Out How To Be An Ethical Landlord. Young Activists Don’t Agree. (March 6th, 2023). Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Dear Pay Dirt, I live in the same city as my 75-year-old mother and provide a lot of informal care for her. As part of these responsibilities, I monitor her financial accounts and have access to her statements/spending. She has mobility issues, which limit her ability to go out and I think contribute to a mild-to-moderate online shopping addiction. She has enough assets and income that this isn’t really a financial concern, but does crowd her two-bedroom apartment with many unnecessary items. I have tried to talk to her in the past about managing some of these issues but have given up when faced with too much resistance. The problem now is that she is increasingly having issues with the mechanics of online ordering: She accidentally orders multiples of expensive items, sends expensive orders to the wrong address, and thinks that she ordered something that she didn’t hit “confirm” for. She blames this on the vendors—and I am the one who ends up dealing with the returns of, for example, $400 worth of plastic cups. I have suggested that she needs to just provide me lists of what she wants and I will do the ordering but she is very resistant to this option. As the informal steward (though formal power of attorney), I feel like this is my responsibility but I’m not sure of the best path forward. My siblings live far away and are not as active in her care. —More Mommy Problems Dear Mommy Problems, People with limited mobility often develop online shopping addictions because it provides a way to pass the time. If your mom is open to other hobbies, you might want to support her in finding an activity accessible to her that helps fulfill the boredom: joining a senior social group (especially if there’s transportation in place) or a low-impact exercise group, or finding an at-home activity like knitting or puzzles. Even if overspending isn’t the primary concern for your mother, a prepaid debit card for online shopping might cut down on multiple orders as it will stop working when she’s exhausted the budget. You can also experiment with placing parental controls on her online shopping haunts or even a teen-focused debit card like Greenlight that requires you to OK her purchases before they go through. If it is only about the “stuff,” consider hiring a cleaner for your mom’s apartment with extra household organizing duties. A cleaner and organizer would take over the returning and decluttering you’ve been handling. They can also warn you if your mother’s shopping habits worsen. —L.K. From: I Need To Put A Stop To My Mom’s Online Shopping. (March 6th, 2023). Dear Pay Dirt, I’m a college student in a pretty fortunate financial position, but I don’t have a lot of insight into what I should do with the money I’ve earned so far. My parents are funding my tuition, so I’m lucky that I will graduate debt free in two years. I’ve worked a summer job for a couple of years, and I have about $20,000 in savings with about half of that invested in a mutual fund. I know I’m in a very stable position right now, given I don’t have any major draws on my savings, but how can I increase the growth on this over a long period of time? —Not a Finance Major Dear Not A Finance Major, College is the perfect time to get started with investing in your future. The younger you are, the more you can take advantage of compound interest, which is the “interest on interest” you earn. I reached out to Steven Keys from the personal finance blog Trip Of A Lifestyle for some added expertise on investing. “One of the biggest factors with investing is compound growth,” Keys concurred. According to a compound interest calculator, if you make a $500 initial deposit into a brokerage account with an estimated return of 8 percent, and contributed an additional $100 a month into the account with an estimated average 8 percent return over 45 years, you would end up with about $479,766. If you make the same investment with a return over 35 years instead, you’d have about $214,172. Keys advises that once you have an emergency fund secured in an FDIC-insured account, feel free to dump all excess income into investments, but make sure you understand the risks first. “A total stock market index fund such as VT or VTI is an excellent choice for young people,” Keys said. “You have more potential for higher returns in the long run for money that isn’t intended for access for at least 10 years.” Stock market index funds also carry lower fees compared to actively managed mutual funds. T. Rowe Price, Fidelity and Vanguard are all great places to start your investing journey. —Athena Valentine From: I Somehow Ended Up Footing The Bill For My Friend’s Entire Vacation. (March 10th, 2023). More Advice From Slate I recently had our second baby (the first is 14 months). My mother-in-law volunteered to stay at our house with our first while we were in the hospital. I felt a bit nervous about this, as my MIL has pretty severe anxiety and doesn’t often seem to be comfortable with what I would consider basic care tasks. I talked it through with my husband and he helped me see that I was really just feeling nervous about being away from my first baby for so long. Never miss new Slate Advice columns Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays. Advice Family Personal Finance