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"  I bought the tickets even though I probably shouldn&amp;#039;t have. My husband&amp;#039;s company doled out pay cuts last week, so stocking up on Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band concert tickets probably isn&amp;#039;t the soundest economic plan for us at this time. On the other hand, the value of Springsteen tickets at the Meadowlands will no doubt stay steady, if not rise, by the time the tour comes around this spring, so I could unload them and get my money back. And frankly, that&amp;#039;s more than I can say for my retirement funds. And yet, even as I pressed the numbers for my credit card into the phone when I called Ticketmaster yesterday morning, I could feel my grandparents&amp;#039; disapproval. Which is creepy, because they passed away years ago. I haven&amp;#039;t felt this way since I took my grandfather&amp;#039;s graduation gift - cash - and went to Bermuda with a buddy of mine, much to Pop&amp;#039;s chagrin. He&amp;#039;d wanted me to invest the money. If I had, it would no doubt have grown in value over the past 20 years -- until I&amp;#039;d have lost half of it in the past few months. Ah, but I still have my memories of Bermuda. Also, pictures, a few shells and some bar napkins. Oddly, I also feel the disapproval of my fifth grader, who is tracking his Microsoft stock &amp;quot;purchase&amp;quot; in the business club at school. Since he started following the stock a few weeks ago, it has dropped 10% in value, though it looks like it&amp;#039;s now rallying -- if you can call minus 7% a &amp;quot;rally.&amp;quot; I&amp;#039;ve been trying to use his business club lessons and the recession as a teachable moment - a very long moment. I am passing along the things my grandparents taught me about money, including: 1. Pay off your credit cards every month 2. Buy only what you can afford. 3. Save a portion of your pay, investing it wisely. 4. Don&amp;#039;t buy Springsteen tickets when your household income has just decreased. Well, I took some creative license on that last one, but I&amp;#039;m sure that Pop passed along similar wisdom over the years, which is why I&amp;#039;m feeling so guilty about treating myself to that concert. But it&amp;#039;s also because my fifth grader is starting to sound like my grandfather. &amp;quot;How will the government pay for the economic stimulus bill?&amp;quot; he asked me the other day over lunch. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll either borrow from China, if they&amp;#039;ll even loan it to us, or we&amp;#039;ll print money,&amp;quot; I replied. &amp;quot;If we borrow, won&amp;#039;t we have to pay interest?&amp;quot; he asked. &amp;quot;Yup. I hear it&amp;#039;s about 350 billion dollars in interest,&amp;quot; I explained. &amp;quot;And printing money will cause inflation. You know what that is?&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;It makes the value of money go down,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;But how will we pay for all this?&amp;quot; &amp;quot;Not we. You. Your generation will get the bill,&amp;quot; I answered, watching his shoulders slump. &amp;quot;And you can&amp;#039;t even vote yet.&amp;quot; He opened his mouth to protest, and then thought the better of it. As I watched him shuffle away, I thought, I&amp;#039;d better not tell him about the Springsteen tickets. Though frankly, he would understand why, right now, they&amp;#039;re a better bet than Microsoft. Giving his future granddaughter cash for a graduation gift? Well, that could be a bust. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a22133/investing-in-springsteen/?src=shelter_footer>