Does This Rule Still Work for You?
Picture a couple named Hilda and Jack, both sixty. Before they decide anything about retirement, they write down the rules they grew up with about money and home. A house is the safest place for savings. A household needs two cars. Live on the interest and never touch the principal. Stay near the children. Keep six months of cash.
Beside each rule, they write who taught it to them. The house rule came from Hilda’s father, who saw a local bank fail when he was young. The two-cars rule came from Jack’s mother. The six months of cash came from a financial planner.
Beside that, they write what was true when the rule was made. Hilda’s father had watched a bank close its doors, and a house was something nobody could take from him. For his time, it was a wise rule.
Then they ask what is true now. Hilda reads the house rule again. Their house holds most of their savings in one place, and it cannot be spent in small pieces. In many countries today, bank deposits are insured up to a limit, which was not so in her father’s day. The rule was good for his time. The reasons behind it have changed.
Jack looks at the two-cars rule. His mother lived in a suburb where a car was the only way to buy bread. In the cities he and Hilda are considering, a taxi or a train costs less than keeping a second car, and for most trips they would not need one.
The six months of cash passes. It is as true today as when the planner said it, and they keep it.
By the end of the evening, two rules stay, two are rewritten, and one goes on a list to test: a month living two flights from the children, to see what they miss and what they do not.
A rule from the past is a decision someone made once, and we keep following it without deciding again. Most of ours were made by people who loved us, in a world where they fit. Some still fit. Some were made for someone else, in another time.
You could write your own five rules about money and home. Beside each, you could write who gave it to you and what was true then. Then you could ask whether it is still doing a job for you today. A rule that passes can stay. A rule that fails can be retired, with thanks.
Our calculator touches one of these questions. When you price a way of living in a country, you are also pricing a life without some of your old rules, such as the second car or the house with spare rooms.
Which rule did you inherit and later set down, and who gave it to you? Tell us in the comments. Someone reading may be about to test theirs.
Tell us in the comments