Looking this up now ty!
ETA yay our library had it, on hold now
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I wondered about NB too, but they are (all non-cishet) under so much hate and fire now in the US. Sigh.
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I’ve given gifts of money to my nieces for high school and college graduations. Would you do something for a Masters degree? She did it right after graduating college, not later on while working so she is still a “poor college kid” if that makes a difference.
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I feel like this is probably something pretty personal. I didn’t care much about my Associates and felt forced into attending the (long, boring, pointless) ceremony because my family wanted to go to that instead of coming to my capstone presentation (which was very important to me). How important is the Masters to her? As she’s still a poor college kid, it would probably be very welcome.
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I think it would probably be welcome. Everyone in my family, parents included, just ignored when I got my masters degree. I also got it right after undergrad. To be honest it really hurt me that it was basically ignored by my family, even though I didn’t expect to get gifts or anything. I think they ignored it because they didn’t understand it. I’m the first person in the history of my family to ever graduate from college.
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If you feel like it and can afford it, it would likely be welcome for things like moving and job startup, but I’d say it’s not expected at that level.
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yeah, I feel like I would have preferred to just go out to dinner rather than attending my ceremony, and while I can’t predict the future I think that’s what I’d like after a Master’s as well.
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I don’t think anybody (including me) did anything for my master’s, including the graduation ceremony. But it was very much just a small step along the way. High school and bachelor’s both took four years, so a two-year master’s just didn’t seem like as big a deal?
Also I went straight into the PhD, actually moved to new grad school city the weekend before I defended the thesis for the master’s. Which reminds me: my parents loaned me the money for the move, but we all regarded that as more of a “starting PhD” thing than a “finished masters” thing. Which they cemented by forgiving the loan as my PhD graduation gift (that and paying for the regalia I couldn’t afford).
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How does a spousal IRA work? I had envisioned myself opening another account under my existing Fidelity login and just saying “this account is for my spouse, who has no earned income, which is why I am opening an account on his behalf,” but there doesn’t seem to be that option. Do I have to get him to create an account and open an IRA and then we transfer in money from our shared account? Does anyone other than the two of us care that it’s a spousal IRA?
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Probably personal…I didn’t care much about mine, especially since it was mostly concurrent with my bachelors given the way the program was set up, but sibling really appreciated acknowledgement of theirs since it came after a career change and a lot of stress. Don’t know if that’s helpful or not, but I imagine most people coming out of college would appreciate any cash sent in their direction in general just to help with next steps.
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Spouse has to have an account of his own; all retirement accounts are individual. “Spousal” is a confusing term IMO. But it just means if you’re married to someone who makes enough money, you can have an IRA even if you don’t make enough money. It looks like any other IRA.
Source: husband has one, but we don’t even have to open a new account for a “regular” IRA for him now that he’s going to work full-time - he can just keep putting money in the same IRA as always. The “spousal” bit describes the reason you can contribute, not really the account itself.
ETA: and even the IRS has never asked if it’s spousal or anything. They might if we filed separately, I don’t know.
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That is a super clear explanation. Thank you so much!
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This one.
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Thanks for asking because I had been wondering this!
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What student discounts or other fun things should I take advantage of while I have access to a .edu email for the next two months?
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Music suggestions to broaden my toddlers horizons?
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Classical music nerd suggestions that are fun to stomp, wiggle, spin, glide, and dance to:
Prokofiev dance of the knights (from Romeo and Juliet)
Rimsky-Korsakov Flight of the bumblebee
Squire Tarantella
Saint Saens Allegro Appassionato
Saint Saens The swan (or anything from the carnival of the animals)
David Bowie’s narrated Peter and the wolf
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Thank you! She loves flight of the bumblebee, but I definitely didn’t know other lively ones offhand.
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Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky have a lot of good things too.
Shostakovich piano concerto number 2 is great (and is animated as the little toy soldier in fantasia 2000)
Shostakovich string quartet #8 is one of my absolute favorite. There are some slow parts but the middle has very fast dissonant sections and spooky swells with bangs (evoking Russian secret police, it’s a very political piece)
Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony finale (mvt 4) is very fast and fun. The third movement of the same symphony is short and played in all pitzzicato which is a different sound than normal.
Tchaikovsky’s nutcracker dances may also be fun.
Ok I’ll stop 
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