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how did you learn about money?

February 9th, 2019 at 05:30 am

I'm just wondering how people have learnt about money, when I was growing up we didn't have much money but I never felt like we missed out but we were never taught about money. Everything I have learnt over the years of being married and having kids is self taught and by trial and error...it works pretty well now for us (we still learn though) and we rejig our budget as we need to...we have taught our kids what we have learnt about money one is really great on saving and the other does ok but is a lot more social and like clothes so spends more but she does spend her own money so its on her and they both like to travel as well.

I actually do my moms budget now as it makes it easier on her and family asks me to help them with their budgets (how to do one) etc...so just curious on how others have learnt about budgets/money tc and do you help others?

8 Responses to “how did you learn about money?”

  1. Amber Says:
    1549713455

    I was never taught about how to manage money, but I was taught how to love it 🤦🏽‍♀️
    My mother was a saver, but she loves money. She’d yell at me and say I need to save my money but she never told me why. So for me I felt like she was being a Gustavo. My parents were divorced so I never knew until later how my dad managed money

    I’d say I learned about money the year I started blogging here. I had gotten sick and tired of bill collectors calling me. I just started paying down my debt. I started blogging and then I paid off my debt. I owed no one. I found Dave Ramsey. Then I met my BF and fell completely off the wagon. But I’m back and I vowed never again. I’ll continue to blog because it keeps me accountable

  2. Smallsteps Says:
    1549723749

    The thing I see with money and personal finance is there really is not a one size fits all style. I think of golf, some make it look easy, and even if you are taught the rules, just giving someone a club does not make them Tiger Woods.
    Some parents are transparent with bills/ money and some HIDE their issues. I spoke with different parents, for example my DIL's mother, they hid all the debt and stress from their kids both her kids seem confused how to finance their adult lives.

    Money skills get better with practice and even facing crisis teaches people. I, myself am an Observer i watched how people got into trouble or saved. It is harder then it sounds as some people project things that might not be true. i am more fascinated by people who amassed money with very little income.
    I also enjoy watching those whom act like the they have it all but it is all on cards and they are struggling to juggle it.

  3. Dido Says:
    1549740027

    Some of my childhood lessons with money:

    -Being brought to the bank to open a passbook savings account as soon as I could sign my name (that and the library card!)

    -Seeing my father spend a long weekend in a tizzy and very stressed each year at tax season

    -Having my grandfather ask his wealthier brother to consider helping me out with a college scholarship (since my great-uncle funded scholarships at the university where he sat on the Board of Trustees and where there is an auditorium bearing his name); great-uncle said he would do it but only if he cut grandfather out of his will; this, in fact, did occur (talk about guilt!) (there was a LOT of bad will between these two brothers);

    -getting myself into debt after graduate school when I spent a year in California while my boyfriend lived in Michigan (and I did all the traveling back and forth AND PAID FOR IT despite the fact that he was the one with the full-time job);

    -then getting myself OUT of debt a few years into my academic year; this led to a lot of self-education starting with "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" by Andrew Tobias followed by Burton Malkiel's "A Random Walk Down Wall Street";

    -reading "Your Money or Your Life" sometime in my early 30s and learning to think of money as "Life Energy";

    -taking advantage of one of those free postcard ads by American Express Advisors, getting a free initial consultation, paying $300 for a one-time financial plan (which came in a very impressive binder, which I still have), then being upset that all the financial products recommended were American Express funds with fees as opposed the low-fee Vanguard funds I had already discovered during grad school; this was the turning point which made me think "I can do a better job of this than these guys" and which led shortly thereafter to my career change (I now work as a financial planner);

    -also, being incentivized by the prior incident to learn more about investing by following the Bogle Heads board.

  4. Dido Says:
    1549740139

    (Obviously went way beyond childhood there....got on a tear!)

  5. Jane Says:
    1549751843

    I was lucky because my father is very hardworking and good with money. He prioritizes saving and while specific dollar amounts were not talked about as kids, my parents would talk generally about not wasting money on things that aren't worth it, working hard, saving for retirement, etc. Around the time I got my first real job he gave me a book on basic personal finances to read, and he opened Roth IRAs for my sibling and I as soon as we had taxable income, although it was up to us to contribute or not. I continued to contribute to that account with other summer jobs and later at my real jobs. As I got older and became more interested in retirement savings he was a good resource for advice. Debt except for a mortgage or education just wasn't considered an option in the family.

    I was also lucky that the internet really took off around the time I was in middle school, so by college when I was starting to make money decisions, there were already good online resources to learn about things.

  6. crazyliblady Says:
    1549768118

    I don't remember how much father handled money, as he died when I was very young. However, I do remember she had no concept of making a shopping list to make sure she bought what was needed and did not buy what was not needed. We never lacked for food, clothing, and the utilities were never turned off. My mom worked and also collected my dad's military pension. But she bought a lot of "stuff" that we did not need and charged it to credit cards. When she paid bills, she complained about how much she had to pay for everything and as if she was afraid. Even as a youngster, I thought to myself, "why doesn't she just not buy so much stuff?" Because of this, I learned to be anxious and afraid about money and like I had a lack of stuff, so I wanted to buy stuff. It was not until I was an adult and having money troubles of my own that I learned the hard way about managing money. It was not an easy thing to confront as an adult, but I would not change it for the world, as learning it myself the hard way was far more effective that being lectured on it.

  7. Lucky Robin Says:
    1549770479

    I got bits and pieces from my mother. She always did a budget and while she didn't really discuss it with me, she often left it out on the table and I would look at it. I had a savings account from the age of 4 when I had my first job. Yes, really, we went out to the berry fields in the summer as a family (minus dad) and picked. Mom was free to take us all because she was a teacher. I made $10 that year. I mostly played, but I did work some and I got to deposit that money in my very own account. As I got older and earned more and Mom made me tithe 10% to the church and put half of what I earned in the savings account. The rest I could spend. My parents did not have credit cards, so I did not learn about them. I learned how my parents threw everything at their mortgage and paid it off ten years early.

    As a senior in high school I had to take an economics class. I was in honors classes and I wanted one easy class and one of the choices was Economy of the Home (or basically Home Ec.). In that class we were paired up with someone of the opposite sex and had to write a budget as a married couple, although there was also a single working mother who got child support as we didn't have an even number of boys to girls. We were given either one or two paychecks, depending on whether both spouses worked or not (this was decided by a drawing). We had to write up a budget. We also had to find an apartment or house to rent that we could afford in the actual newspaper of our city and it could not be more than 25% of our income. We had to have a grocery budget and it had to be based on the store grocery ads. Our other bill amounts were drawn from a hat each month. We had to manage a paper "checkbook" and reconcile it each week with our imaginary bank statement. Each "month" was actually a school week and we went through a whole year's worth of running a household with our partner. We also learned how to do a basic meal plan and she took us to the grocery store on a field trip and taught us how to shop. We also did some basic cooking in that class. I learned so much. I really wish they still had classes like that in high school and that they were mandatory.

    I remember that my partner and I were both working (he was a real estate agent, I was a nurse), both college graduates, and had no kids and drove a paid off Oldsmobile and a Datsun that had payments. I don't remember what our income was, it was variable, but I know it was one that let us "rent" a one bedroom house by the lake and not an apartment. We were not taught about credit cards at all, though. I got really good at budgeting and we were able to take a vacation to Hawaii because we'd saved so much due to the variable income. Hypothetically, of course. We chose to do that instead of saving for a house since we weren't projected to have kids for five years. It was a really good thought experiment.

  8. rob62521 Says:
    1549830039

    I learned from my parents overall. They didn't have a lot to save, but they were always telling me to save what I could. But when I started working I heard about a retirement account so some guy at church was a financial advisor and he set me up with a 403b. I have learned more through the years by reading and asking questions.

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