What To Do With Surplus Money/Object Accumulation

I'm torn about what to do w/ money and valuable objects that I don't need, but can get my hands on w/o being labeled by mainstream culture as a criminal.

Take them and hoard them away for kids I might have one day? I always thought I'd do that. It's what my family does. As a teenager, I was already proudly telling my parents I was going to start setting away money for my kids, in addition to (hopefully) earlier expenses like housing & such, the moment I started making it.

And recently, one of my friends just told me that this probably isn't just my family--it probably has a lot to do w/ half my family being Jewish. She said it's pretty common for one generation to pay for 100% of the next generation's expenses, and for that younger generation to save the extra income they don't have to spend on themselves for their dependents.

That makes doing it feel kind of special. It gives hoarding surplus away a positive emotional meaning, knowing that there's a whole world of people doing that, too.



But kids cost a lot, so to really give future kids the childhood I was given by my predecessors would mean accumulating a lot of money & valuable stuff beyond what I need to accumulate to live the adulthood I crave.



That's a lot of money I could be either:
A) choosing not to get my hands on ("earn") in the first place
B) choosing to get my hands on, but then redistributing.


I realized yesterday that I'm "behind" on my "saving for my kids" plan, and that I need to kick my saving into high gear to achieve that goal. But am I going to do it?



If I do have kids, they can live a childhood less economically privileged than the one I lived. And I don't really plan to have them, anyway. So why get my hands on, and then hoard, as much money as I've always presumed I would?

Other than the fact that I've always presumed I would--and that that's upsetting to think about changing?


It's probably obvious from my blog that I didn't grow up poor, and that I'm not currently struggling mentally or physically due to a lack of money.

The privileged concerns I've written about in this post are on my mind, so I'm spewing them out, but I understand if no one I try to network with in the blogosphere really has any responses.