Comments on: Money Blueprints: What Our Parents Taught Us About Money

By: Favorite Blog Wednesday - Getting Rich Slowly. | My Two Dollars

Favorite Blog Wednesday - Getting Rich Slowly. | My Two Dollars — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 16:15:54 +0000

[...] J.D. has dinner with some friends and discusses what each of their parents taught them about money. [...]

By: Allowances for Kids: Teaching Children the Value of Money ? Get Rich Slowly

Allowances for Kids: Teaching Children the Value of Money ? Get Rich Slowly — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:58:55 +0000

[...] parents modeled poor money habits. They didn’t do a good job of teaching my brothers and me about money via allowances, either. [...]

By: The Best of February — Facelift Edition ? Get Rich Slowly

The Best of February — Facelift Edition ? Get Rich Slowly — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 17:50:08 +0000

[...] Feb. 16th: Money blueprints: What our parents taught us about money [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 20:54:43 +0000

I think this is an important footnote on financial mental health as a child growing up: In retrospect, my parents were not financially progressive, however; they must not have argued or discussed how cash deficient we were because I never realized we were poor. Mom always found ways to provide just enough so that I could build on life experiences-soccer, music, boy scouts, whatever.
I read about a Chinese couple- Chicken Soup for the Soul, vol. #44 or something. They scraped and saved to buy a restaraunt. After that, they scraped and saved to pay for the restaraunt, living in the back, eating leftovers, sacrificing entertainment and other life enhancing activities to be only practical. They met their goal and were eventually owners of their very own restaurant. They became rich.
To me , too much was lost along the way. Like J.D. said, the experiences along the way are what define us. Some might think it’s easier said than done, and I agree. Where there is will, there will be a way.

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:39:35 +0000

I find it interesting in my family how differently children in the same home respond later to what they’ve learned about money from their parents. I have two brothers, and we all have different approaches, though they all seem to stem from the fact that we don’t want to make similar “mistakes” that our parents did.

For instance, I’m incredibly concerned about saving and reducing/avoiding debt. My parents never saved and made several poor decisions with what they did have. Where they saw every dollar that came in as a dollar to be spent on something, I see it as an opportunity to put some of it away for later use, sometimes to the point of not allowing myself to enjoy it.

One of my brothers, on the other hand, has taken a different route. He makes a decent living, but he’s by no means a saver. Rather, he is more focused on being able to provide the “nice things” for his family, taking them on regular vacations, etc. This was something he apparently felt was lacking while growing up. On occasion, I’ve even seen him panick around Christmas time, wanting to be certain he’s getting his kids “the best”, never feeling like he’s done enough.

Then there’s my other brother who frequently states, “I hate money.” He wants little to do with any financial planning in his home, seeing it as nothing more than a source of tension. This was true in our home growing up, as our financial state was both a source of tension at times as well as a thing of mystery to us as kids. Luckily his wife has a knack for finances.

Growing up, we were given an impression that money was an enemy to be dealt with so to speak rather than a tool to be used. Though we all have our different approaches to finances, it seems to have produced a bit of the same response in us; anxiety.

[Fortunately, though, it has also resulted in a healthy concern for the future as we see our parents aging. We're all (in different stages) taking steps to prepare for future needs.]

By: Chris Blackwell

Chris Blackwell — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 13:00:47 +0000

This sounds like intro to a book to me….so you going to write one? I just love your blogs and think you should!

By: J from LA

J from LA — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 08:09:01 +0000

I really agree with your primary thesis - that the lessons we learn both consciously and subconsciously from our parents about money never escape us. For example, the reason I am so fascinated about keeping credit card debt free and managing my credit so that I can maintain a good credit score is entirely because of the failure of my parents to do so. On the other hand, based on their example, I am always afraid that I might have inherited their lack of self-control. I fear that I won’t be able to manage them properly, and that their fault might become my own.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 03:48:16 +0000

Excellent post.

During my kid-dom, my parents never talked about money. Never. The closest I got to a money education was watching my mom sit at the kitchen table on Saturday afternoons with mountains of bills and paperwork in front of her. Whenever I’d ask her what she was doing, the answer was always brief: “Paying bills.”

And so it was. What I learned about money from my parents was that it was something to be feared, something to keep shackled and secret and away from the light of day, because anything that’s so out of control ought to be kept under wraps.

It took me about 20 years to figure out they had it all, all wrong.

By: Angela

Angela — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 01:24:27 +0000

Well, I’ll suspend my disbelief, even though this post has a slight Rich Dad, Poor Dad feel.

The point is well made, one of the biggest factors in my own finances are the scripts that I grew up with. Its why I know to pay my credit card in full but am lost at sea with investments.

Here’s to overcoming our upbringings.

By: Carisa

Carisa — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:30:18 +0000

My parents never talked about money with me. I grew up thinking it would magically appear whenever I would need it. I had no concept of how money worked. It has taken me years to understand the basics of a budget and just now I am understanding the power of compound interest.

I won’t make the same mistake with my 1 year old daughter. I will teach her everything I can about the value of a dollar.

By: squished18

squished18 — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 19:01:53 +0000

My parents lived by a principle that I have only begun to appreciate after I grew up, left home, and had to start making my own living. They always put the interests of their children ahead of their own. They did what was best for their kids, not what was most enjoyable for themselves.

They invested $3000 in an IBM PC XT (8086) - no hard drive and 640k of RAM - back in the 80s. A lot of money for us back then. That was followed by another XT, a 486, and a series of other computers as time went on. These were not toys, although my brother and I spent countless hours playing video games on them. They were educational tools where I quickly lost any fear of computers and explored how they worked. Dad convinced Mom to buy a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, which cost another couple of grand. They spent countless hours and dollars on piano lessons, swimming lessons, skating lessons, and trips for math competitions and engineering competitions. Dad spent hours teaching my brother and I math from old textbooks. Mom spent hours bringing us to the symphony and to music lessons. Yes, as Dilbert, I have The Knack. I also have an appreciation for art and music. But I wouldn’t have been able to develop these assets without the constant sacrifice of my parents.

Like fire, money seems to be a good servant, but a poor master. My parents put their money, time, and resources in service of the education and care of their children. I believe my life was enriched for it, and (perhaps strangely) their lives are more satisfying for it. I hope that if I ever have children (and if my fiance has anything to say about it, we definitely will) I live by the same principle. I may not have the most perfect children in the world, but I’ll likely sleep better at night knowing I did everything I could to give them every advantage I could afford.

By: Carl

Carl — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:33:27 +0000

There’s truth to that money blueprint idea, but I also think there is a blueprint in general that can overcome and or affect the money blueprint. My parents never talked about money, and i got that all to familiar “you dont need to worry about it”, sure I had a ’savings’ account when I was little, and they made me put money into it once I had a job @ 14…but they never really told me why. I was never taught how money works, just that I’ll need it. I was never taught how to grow money, just that it will get bigger by like 3 dollars a year in a savings account at the bank. I remember when my parents lost a lot of money because they had a lot of their investments (not retirement thankfully) in utilities (hurray enron and the like) (i had no idea what all this meant at the time, keep that in mind) and that i’d have to pay for my own college. However, the one thing they did instill in me is the drive to never stop learning. Learning was held at one of the highest levels in my household growing up. I’m not talking about how parents would give their kids money if they got A’s (which some friends had…I didn’t), I’m talking about learning the lesson, learning the material, and using it to grow, and never stop asking why. It is that quality that has basically driven me to learn about money and completely change my spending/investing practices…or rather, actually invest/save and not spend all my money because i can.

By: brad

brad — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:04:52 +0000

Very nice piece. As with many things, we often fool ourselves into thinking we have learned how not to behave by observing our parents and learning from their mistakes. Especially as teenagers we rebel against our parents’ approaches and promise ourselves we’ll never be like them. And yet genetics is a powerful thing. I find myself repeating many of the same financial mistakes my father made, despite my firm conviction as a kid and even as a young adult that I would never do so.

By: EasyChange

EasyChange — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:48:47 +0000

I agree, mapgirl. I think that the 9 steps is probably suze’s best book. I’ve read much of the other stuff out there, but the ideas in that book are different than I had found elsewhere. And *thats* why I like her. Although I am still learning from Suze, some of it starts to ‘eat like popcorn’ at this point.

As for me, I’ve always worried about money. And I think that is mostly because I knew that my family didn’t really have enough. Sure we were never homeless or on the street; but the fact is, if there were an emergency or something, there would have been real problems. Like you say, mapgirl, its not something you can easily hide from children.

By: mapgirl

mapgirl — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 16:06:11 +0000

I’m not the craziest about Suze Orman, but I have to admit, in the 9 Steps to Financial Freedom, she hits the nail on the head. Sometimes our past experiences with money shapes how we perceive money and its purpose in our lives. Losing it, saving it, buying stuff with it, etc. Parents can go a long way teaching kids about money. My folks always told me not to worry about it, but when they’re having conversations about it in a foreign language all the time, it’s obvious *they* are worrying about it. I guess that’s what made me a worrier in the end! The inadvertent reverse psychology worked since I’d rather mind my money than not.

Thanks for the post J.D. I’m so glad I’m not the only one that talks about money with friends.