Tobe Frank: Gone Skiing

To be frank I’ve been stocking up on my SKI gear recently – no, not skis, boots and poles, but new mountain bikes, a bit of artwork for the walls, an overseas trip, some bling for the missus and a few dinners out to places that have previously been off the affordable list.

What? What did you think I was talking about, actual ski gear? The only way I’d be able to get down a ski slope these days is on a stretcher behind a rescue patrol. I’m talking about S.K.I’ing…Spending the Kids Inheritance. Boy oh boy, I never knew it was such an extreme sport, a cocktail of cash: 1 part danger, 2 parts excitement, a shot of adrenalin, topped off with one of those little umbrellas and a cherry!

Much like skiing, there are various skill levels and gradients, even terrain parks for the intense thrill seeker. Gentle green slopes for the novice spender graduating to blue where one may have learnt to shop online AND in-store at the same time. Then as we gain altitude, heading further up the mountain, possibly going off-piste, we hit the red trails where the real spending begins: you finally step up to business class flights, because you can’t go without the pre-flight juice and you’d prefer it in a glass flute instead of a plastic vessel. If you happen to head down a double diamond black there’s a good chance you’ll spend their inheritance and every other penny you’ve got long before you and your body have expired the requirement to use said funds. Before you know it you’ll be begging the kids to let you sleep on the sofa couch! You’ll be living off the ‘credit’ account they’ve been accumulating in your honour for the last 25 years.

How times have changed though, hey. Us Boomers seem to be quite comfortable and quite at home not being at home and making the kids more comfortable. There’s an inclination, a well-deserved one too, to go out with a bang. I’m inclined to use every last dollar, to the point where if the kids will be too distraught saying their goodbyes to me in a cardboard box, they’d better take out a funeral plan for me. They can have the memories, the photo albums, the 12” vinyls, the tools in the shed (that they’ll have no idea what to do with), the mountain bikes, the artwork (if I haven’t sold them to fund some other extravagance), and the tent…yes, the tent. No doubt we will have sold the Frank Family Farm in the final years, completing our downsizing to an oceanfront site at the local caravan park.

But seeing that this is the season for giving, I’ll consider towing a more generous line. So, my glorious children, I hereby GIVE you notice that from here on in, your mother and I will be found on the slopes, tackling the Red Runs and the occasional black. Should we acquire inconceivable, irreversible, inoperable news, then you will find us up on the highest of peaks, doing parallel turns on the off-piste, double diamond black runs, the top of which we get to via helicopter…possibly our own.

So my advice to you, my wondrous offspring, is to work hard, learn to say no to that 80” Ultra HDMI LED LCD Smart Apple TV with Tiptronic gear change and heads up display. Learn to camp, learn to sew/repair your own clothes, learn to make do, learn to save and work with a budget, learn to fix things and not succumb to this disposable society, learn to stay that extra hour or two at work to help someone out, learn to read (things beyond your friend’s latest FB update), but most of all learn to create the life that you want to lead.

What’s the saying…

“We don’t live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means, and that is what life is for”.

Now, where’s that Harley Davidson catalogue?

Are you going SKI-ing? How are you spending the kids’ inheritance? What lessons do you think this teaches your children? Tell us below.