I’m lucky. Even though I was born in America, the land of abundance and excess, I was raised by parents who were extremely thrifty. I’ve joked with other friends born from immigrant parents that we need to compile a book of all the cheap things our parents did (i.e., never turning on the heat: that’s what sweaters are for). Anything we purchased was always on sale. Honestly, I did feel deprived growing up because other friends had these beautifully-decorated bedrooms filled with dolls and clothes. I remember a classmate asking me, “Why do you wear the same dress all the time?” That hurt.
While I didn’t appreciate it then, I’ve grown to fully embrace my parents’ extreme fiscal responsibility. I don’t have to worry about taking care of them. They’ve accumulated great wealth despite their limited resources. I look around and see people who have to work beyond retirement age. Or other parents who have to move in with their children. And it makes me really proud of my parents. They deserve to retire early, travel, and enjoy their golden years for all the sacrifices they made early on.
Because of my upbringing, these words have no bearing on my life: credit card debt, bankruptcy, underwater mortgage, foreclosure. I have never in my life gone into credit card debt. If you can’t afford that big ticket item today, don’t charge it to your credit card and think you’ll be able to pay it off down the line! Isn’t it common sense? Yet there are so many people who can’t seem to manage their money. Why?
It’s a lack of financial education. These concepts were drilled into my head as a kid:
- Often times, you cannot have what you want. If you want something, you have to work for it.
- Buy on sale.
- Save as much money as possible, then save some more.
- Credit card debt is evil. You must pay your balance off every month.
School is useless because I have yet to see a curriculum that includes anything about teaching our children about finances or budgeting. So don’t expect your children to learn about this from someone else. You are responsible for teaching them.
What financial lessons did you learn from your parents?
How are you teaching your children about fiscal responsibility?
Great advice Catherine! Your parents were very wise! They sound a little like my parents, lol! Yes, agreed…debt.is.evil and you’re correct, WE are to teach our children about finances. If it were left up to the world to do it, they’d be up to their eyeballs in debt, lol. My husband and I have made it a point to stay out of debt and we make sure our ministry does the same. My dad was a business owner before I was born 45 years ago and he was very frugal also, but I had an awesome childhood. He bought EVERYTHING with cash and taught my sisters and I to do the same whenever possible. His motto was, if you can’t buy it with cash, don’t get it! Lol! And my motto is, it’s a sin to buy anything at full-price! Have a good one Catherine!
michell, can i needlepoint these onto a pillow?
“If you can’t buy it with cash, don’t get it!”
“It’s a sin to buy anything at full price.”
i love it! i gotta put those in a quote book. serious words of wisdom. the thought of debt makes me physically ill. even when i had a mortgage, i was constantly refinancing to get a better rate and trying to figure out ways to pay it off sooner.
Great lessons! My parents were the same way. I hope to be able to instill some of what they taught me as well as teach them from our own mistakes and lessons I’ve learned from others.
~ Ferly
Gifts We Use {to grow, love and serve}
ferly, filipinos know how it’s done! i’m also hyper-vigilant about parenting because i’m no where near my parents’ financial discipline. i’m actually quite lax and spend a lot of money eating out, so i’m always worried my kid will be a spendthrift. right now it’s just me and dean, but i’m putting us on a strict budget once this baby comes out.
My parents were very similar to yours and this is why I have no credit card debt and have a ton in my savings account. I was told all my hard work and savings would pay off and not to ever charge more then I could afford to pay off monthly. I thank god for that, because I seriously would not want to be in any sort of debt (other then student loans) at this point in my life.
you go janine! financial well-being = emotional well-being. i can’t imagine the fear of debt collectors or not having enough money to pay bills. i just can’t deal with that kind of stress!
Thank you for addressing this!!! As a young college kid, I sunk myself into credit card debt that is paid for & I’m still recovering from… I will definitely teach my child to pay cash for everything, only charge what you can payoff that month! 🙂 ~A~
amber, that’s the thing…going into credit card debt, i believe, wasn’t your fault. i had this debate with my mom who thinks that people have no discipline, which is true to an extent. but i argued that there are all these students who get lured by banks and credit cards the day they start college, and of course they’re not going to read the fine print! and no one teaches them to stay away. this is a negative social phenomenon that no one wants to address or no one cares to teach our children!
Live within your means. If you can’t afford it, don’t charge it. Drive your car into the ground. Always buy stuff on sale. It’s funny, I don’t remember my parents teaching me this, but I modeled their behavior. I hope my kids do the same.
live within your means…yes, that is another of my mantras. i love everything you’ve said, dana. i have had my same beat-up 2-door honda civic for 15 years (that i bought new with cash) and it runs like the best car in the world. i am beyond upset that i will have to give it up when the baby comes.
All great lessons your parents taught you. My mom taught me how to hunt for deals, and it always was like a game, finding the sales. My parents are very hard working, and I think that greatly affected my work ethic.
stevie, you know how they say there aren’t bad dogs, only bad dog owners? i think it’s the same when it comes to everything; it’s just like parenting. we mimic our parents’ actions, values, work ethic.
Powerful words. You know we are on the same page with this. It burns me that people don’t learn even from their parents mistakes. You are blessed to have such strong financial rooted lessons, but shouldn’t one learn from a life of struggles and debt of irresponsible parents as well? I’d want a better life for myself!
joi = me. seriously joi, we need to teach some webinars together! i wish i could say that people will learn from their parents’ mistakes, but i haven’t walked in those shoes. i think it’s so ingrained that you automatically mimic your parents’ behavior. i know i’m lucky. it would seem like common sense, right? i do think society needs to recognize this as a problem and step up to help people. it really isn’t fair that one of the first things you encounter on a college campus is a banker or someone haranguing you about signing up for a zero-percent credit card for the first year…or whatever lure. it’s really shameful.
I have a camp I’m planning for the summer. It has a strong financial education arm. I was thinking of making it an ecourse. We might truly haves a little project on hand!
joi, make that an ecourse, put it up on your blog, and i will direct my network to it. such important work. i’m glad you are tackling it!
I grew up as one of five kids so we were hand-me-downs central back then. My two sisters and I all wear the same size now, so we actually like sharing and gifting clothes.
The 80’s were a good time for my parents so I wouldn’t say they were particularly thrifty for the most part. They have since become that way and we certainly are as parents now!
yes, hand-me-downs means more money for retirement! i’m all about sharing. i’m trying to get as many baby items as possible from other people and on craigslist.
Being an educator and a parent-The state of California allows for one semester of economics in high school. I feel is that they want kids to learn to spend and get into debt as someone will be making money off them the rest of their lives.
If people learned to manage their money, a whole of people will lose jobs. Many businesses will close (I know people who have put a bunch of Coach and Michael Kors bags on credit cards) in my view. We have many industries who revolve around people spending beyond their means and getting in debt.
I grew up poor in a single parent household and with a mom who had many issues, so I know all about food stamps, section 8 and other government programs. I learned how to stretch a dollar, get everything out of what you can out of things.
As an adult, people consider me cheap. I consider myself frugal but to society I am cheap. I try to be practical. it is funny, one of my co-workers screams at me for being cheap, just announced that he will be working until he is 70 (of course, he spends every dime he has). I have just under 11 more working years.
I used to take my kids to the second-hand store and flea markets when they were young to get things, even to this day my daughter still likes going there. I have really been trying to teach them about money. Over the last four years, I will straight up tell them-I had to pay bills or something and I can’t afford XYZ or ABC. I think being real with them helps. I have also told them unless it something that is used for life or they use everyday (car, fridge, etc) that they should not go into debt to get it.
yes, patrick, this is a societal problem. so many industries make money off of people going in debt. the health of our economy is characterized by how much people are spending and whether or not they feel exuberant. i just can’t live knowing that i don’t have emergency funds. that is way too stressful for me. but that’s what i was taught. i hope more people clue in on bad behavior and really think about whether spending money on a certain item is worth it.
FANTASTIC advice. You’re so right, school doesn’t teach anything about this. My parents taught me about saving and looking for bargains. They taught me how to balance a check book…but then NEVER told me about credit cards. I learned that lesson the hard way in college when I was offered several cards. Ugh. Learning the hard way was…hard. I’m not going to make that same mistake with my kids!! –Lisa
lisa, exactly! i was having a debate with my mom about credit card debt. she thinks it is a lack of discipline and i told her that the first thing i saw in college were bankers hawking tempting credit cards. that’s what our children have to contend with. so they aren’t totally to blame. and of course they’re not going to read the fine print. i don’t even read the fine print! why would some teenager spend the time to go through all of that detail when they are trusting the words of a sleazy bank / credit card peddler.
Great post, Catherine. We were always taught that establishing a good credit score was absolutely vital. This means paying our bills, having credit cards but paying them off every month, and establishing the discipline of saving. We have taught this to our kids and modeled the behavior of living below our means to save for an early retirement.
mo, that’s the right thing to do. our children mimic what their parents do, so if their parents are fiscally responsible, then they are going to be fiscally responsible. i do wish, however, that there were real-world classes in school where our children can learn these things (budgeting, credit card economics). if they are deprived at home, then they’ll never learn the lessons. it angers me.
Awesome advice! I am also the daughter of immigrants and my momis ALL about the saving, save save and save some more! She has made some really smart financial decisions that I can only hope I mimic with my kids.
yes! aren’t we lucky, nellie, to be raised by frugal immigrants?! i love it. i have no doubt you’ll pass on the same lessons to your children.
My husband has said many, many times that he’s so happy he married a girl who grew up without much. He says it’s so much easier to impress me and to satisfy me–he trusts me not to simply buy whatever I want. He was raised in more of an extravagant-yet-not-wealthy family–he doesn’t really appreciate many or most of his parents financial decisions, till this day, but I’m glad that the two of us are really on the same page financially even after coming from different backgrounds.
wow, rachel, we are actually pretty similar because my husband and i are from very different backgrounds. now we’re both on track. i tell him all the time he is lucky he married me! i manage all the money and he’s happen to let me have control.