No, we will not ski with you
Social pressure can put pressure on your relationship, if you let it in.
I am so back.
Fresh off completing our draft manuscript of Money Together, I’m excited to start connecting with our readers here on The Joint Account again. Thanks to Douglas, who held the line for this newsletter while seeing Bone Fide Wealth through its busiest season (and driving carpool and doing whatever else it took for me to have the time I needed). Swapping roles without ego is a true demonstration of partnership, and in my eyes, we’re doing this better than ever.
I look forward to sharing much more about the process of interviewing real couples, learning from the best experts, and putting together our book in the months to come. You’ll also see much more of our real lives, because money touches so much of what we do: how we care, how we operate, how we move through uncertain times. This is the essence of our book—not budgeting and spreadsheets. We might as well start with us, and start right now.
January welcomes an activity most of our friends wait for all year: ski season. Already, they’ve rented or bought a fleet of equipment. They’ve locked down their lift passes, enrolled the littles in ski school, and booked their mountain resorts and whimsy winter cottages. From now until the end of March, most weekends they will be gone, their Insta stories filled with vids of “shredding” and “slicing” and children looking like cute little starfish.
Many of them started young. Others just married someone who started young and now wants to teach their children young, so they go along with it, dabbling on the bunny slopes until it’s socially acceptable to return for après ski time in the lodge with a good book and a cocktail. I love that for them, too. It’s a great demonstration of compromise.
We are neither of those people. Though I grew up in the Northeast, my parents stopped skiing right when I was born after my dad blew out his knee on a run and never looked back. And as you know, Doug is Florida Man. I’m don’t think he saw a mountain with snow on it until we drove by one on the highway less than a decade ago. He was intrigued by snow, briefly, until he started having to shovel it, and we both harbor a deep hatred for being cold. Being wet and cold is our seventh circle of hell.
Every year around this time, we catch flak from our friends on the ski patrol: Why won’t you just try it? Don’t you think the girls will love it? Drive up for the day! You can take lessons. Just chill in the lodge—that’s half the fun! Some truth lies here, I am sure. We spar back and forth over these low-hanging points, but nothing holds a fireside flame to our ultimate conversation-ending truth: we don’t want to spend money on something we don’t want to do.
Skiing is an expensive hobby. I did some back-of-the-envelope math using estimates from Curated, and even removing the flights and car rentals to reach your destination, you’re still looking at a median cost of almost $500 per person per day. For a family, we’re talking thousands. Agreeing to ski isn’t the same as acquiescing to a boozy brunch for your girlfriend’s birthday. Skiing is like, seven brunches, per person. It’s not the kind of thing you do just to do.
We’ve all endured social pressure to participate in expensive activities that we’re not excited for. Think bachelor and bachelorette parties, giant group dinners, Pilates classes, you name it. I once thought these pressures would cease after having children and moving to the suburbs, but they’ve just shape-shifted into other propositions and more subtle forms of conflict. No longer will Becky or Brian lash out at you for skipping the third leg of your Saturday night bender, but a Becky will still throw shade when you politely decline the party bus to Paw Patrol: Live. In many instances, people have not evolved beyond this toxic form of judgment, where they believe they know what their friends can afford to do, and in turn, what they should be willing to spend their money on.
(BTW, don’t be that friend. You probably have no idea what other couples’ situations are. You also have no idea how they choose to approach their finances behind closed doors, and they don’t owe you an explanation.)
The threat of judgment is hard for people to ignore. So, they bring it home with them, believing it’s easier to convince their partners to just go along with the thing—whatever it is—than say no to friends.
Occasionally, this isn’t a big deal. It’s part of the game of being social. But when it happens all the time, you will create tension in your relationship, because you’re implicating your loved ones to alleviate your own discomfort. Now, you’re all on the hook for doing something, and you’re spending money you might’ve been saving for something else; or even worse, money you don’t really have available.
Being pressured into an activity that costs money is an omission—not a decision.
Keep distinguishing between what you worry you should do from what you want to do. Normalize choice becoming part of the conversation with your friends and watch how that alleviates pressure on your partnership.
If our friends weren’t okay with the fact that we don’t want to ski, they probably wouldn’t still be our friends. We are very comfortable saying, “No, thank you,” and they are very comfortable saying, “See you in April.”
When’s the last time you faced pressure to spend money on something you don’t want to do? How did you handle it? We want to know!
In the spirit of spending with intention, let me introduce you to these big bois who live in the giant fish tank at the foot massage place in our town. For the cost of about three chopped salads, I can turn my phone off, close my eyes, and forget about everything I have going on for 50 minutes. I’d choose my Sad Girl Lunch(TM) any day if it means looking forward to this at the end of the week. Intention! That’s the theme of 2025!
TJA in the News
Heather’s back in theSkimm’ Money newsletter posing questions on whether you could leave the workforce to care for your children. Might have to dive deep on this in the next few weeks here!
Dana Miranda, of Substack’s Healthy Rich, included TJA in this Salon article about normalizing fluctuations in your credit history. Thanks, Dana!
Douglas got called back to CNBC’s Worldwide Exchange to talk about staying the course through market volatility.
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The content shared in The Joint Account does not constitute financial, legal, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their respective professionals for specific advice tailored to their situation.
I never understood the appeal of being freezing and careening down a mountain either! A friend had a pretty bad skiing injury in middle school and that pretty much sealed it for me. #nope
Skiing is so expensive. My daughter is on a ski team here in Colorado and she loves it, like my husband. So she’s there every weekend and then there are races. She will probably love it all her life. My husband is obsessed because he grew up skiing. I did not grow up skiing. I could get down a blue by the time. I was an adult, but I still don’t love it. I’m much better now because I’ve been skiing with our family and all three of my kids are good skiers/snowboarders. The bigger risk that I see besides the money – are the knees. I know there are so many people who’ve had knee surgery because of ski skiing. As a mid- life summer runner (way cheaper btw)this now freaks me out. I’m a very Fair-weathered skier and I’m not ashamed to admit it😅.