Reader Story: Rich Dad, Stingy Dad

I just buried a friend who confessed many of his regrets before he died.

Living a life full of regrets isn’t a life. I’m reminded of a proverb: “Better a little where there is joy and feasting, than great wealth where there is sorrow and regret.”

Thank you for sharing your story!

I feel like the takeaway lesson here, though, is not really about money, but instead about parenting. Certainly, having a philosophy with how you handle money is one thing, but I also think that just as important, particularly in a family situation, is how you convey that philosophy to the people around you. There are certainly positive ways to reinforce the idea of saving and spending conservatively that can avoid feelings of shame or guilt. Perhaps more than the financial implications, it may be more important to think about the psychological implications in this case.

I’m sorry; I know we’re supposed to be nice to the guest writers here, but this entry sounds more like bragging disguised as a “problem” than anything else. The writer mentioned specific savings amounts (a few million for her dad, over $100,000 herself).

Being “ashamed” for having money is like being “ashamed” for being good-looking. If it really bothers you at a core level, it’s time to seek therapy, not write anonymous personal finance articles.

This is a real eye-opener for me as I tend to say, “We have that at home.” to the kids quite often. I certainly don’t want to be a scrooge but it’s sometimes difficult to teach children how to save money and why it’s important to save.

I will try a more positive approach such as an allowance. This way they can master the art of saving and sometimes splurging.

I was a little upset by Patrick’s comment. I think you got distracted by the dollar amounts and missed the point that saving can become a problem itself (as Chipmunk’s comment so clearly illustrates).

While we didn’t have as much money, we were raised in the same way. “We have that at home” was a common refrain and when we were out and there was a cheap gift that I might want I might be given the money to buy it with the lesson, “well, you can buy that now – OR you can save it and buy something bigger and better later”. Of course I always saved it, but never knew what the bigger and better that I was saving for was for, and so just kept saving.

I think what has helped me is to figure out what things are worth spending money for and what is not. By making the decision what to spend my money on, and then budgeting accordingly, I feel more comfortable enjoying my money without feeling like I am wasting money.

I grew up in that family:>) The difference is that two of us “recovered” and are now (in their 50′s) deeply in debt. One is obsessive- has several mil in the bank- and is just now enjoying life and two have just moved on. The blessing I take is that I always know how to save a dime. I can always help someone in need and am often come to for advice in difficult situations. I still only buy on sale (except groceries) and would never bother with a Coach purse! It isn’t worth the financial security my parents ingrained in me.
Get over it. Your parents gave you valuable tools. You can abuse them-in either extreme- or use them to better the world! By your fifties I hope you really enjoy the middle.

I had a very similar experience growing up, though not quite to the same extremes. From my parents, I learned a lot about how to save money, and that saving and planning for retirement was important, but I didn’t learn very much about how to spend money. For a long time, I rarely bought anything. When I did buy things, including necessities like clothes and shoes, I felt bad because I worried that somehow it would be a waste of money. This website has helped me feel in control of my money (which I need because of my compulsion about saving), but also be able to spend money freely without feeling guilty. I pay myself first. This means setting aside both a specific amount that I want to save and a certain amount I can spend freely on anything without guilt. This has helped me get much more enjoyment out of my spending because I still feel in control.

I grew up very similarly to you–wealthy parents who worked upper middle class professional jobs but didn’t have many outward signs of their wealth. However, for some reason, my childhood of feeling like spending for pleasure was taboo led me to become an adult with a serious spending problem. I honestly wish my reaction to that upbringing was the same as yours. I have $20,000 in credit card debt (even though my combined net income with my spouse is over $100,000), in addition to a mortgage and a car loan, and am struggling to find the discipline to stick to the debt snowball and our budget.

If your intent on writing this post is to simply tell a story, congratulations on a well written post. Your writing was fluid and you have a distinct voice in your writing.

If your intent was to seek advice from the readers, here is my two cents. Every person has to come to terms with their own childhood and adult experiences. Don’t blame your parents for the decisions you are making now. You’re an adult who is conscious of the person you are and the person you would like to be, so become that person. We are all shaped by the adults who raised us and our surroundings, but ultimately the decisions are ours to emerge into the people we want to be.

Based on your post, your spending decisions and relationship with money seem to be based on everything from the past with no consideration for your future.

Parents provided guidance for the people they think we should become, but at some point you need to take responsibility for the person YOU want to become.

I can relate to your struggle with shrugging off the negative lessons from your childhood. There’s a clear difference between blaming your parents, and consciously trying to shape your habits to what you would like them to be, and I think you came across clearly with which of those two you were doing.

I myself have found it a daily struggle to not repeat my parents’ relationship habits with my own husband; I know how difficult it can be to do something different than what you’ve known most of your life!

Great post. And to everyone that is suggesting “bragging” and to “stop blaming your parents”, this issue is an inherited issue that could only be healed by counseling and intervention from others. This explains why she is writing for help and feedback.

The love of money is the root of evil, even if that love contributes to wanting to continuously save. That evil/drive takes over you and bars you from living.

Don’t let this lifestyle take over you!!

I concur with Jane (whose point was right on the money). This post is nothing but “it’s-all-my-dad’s-fault.” If you find your father’s money management poor, fine, then change your behavior instead of expressing foolish petulance. But it’s not your dad’s fault how you behave now: you have a choice.

Of course, as far as amassing wealth (or as you call it, hoarding money) goes, you will find that money you spend on yourself or money you save for yourself will never go as far as giving money to others. If you are amassing wealth for just yourself, I do feel sorry for you. Instead of buying ice cream or sodas, why not spend the difference to help the lives of others, who are much less fortunate. You’ll find that your happiness improves much more than if you saved or spent more money for yourself.

Like Gates and Buffett, I think that the only purpose of amassing wealth is how you can change the world with it so that it’s a better place when you go.

I grew up with the same mantras too, but also the diametrically opposite one “dont worry about money, your husband will do that for you” (I am single, this is not irony). I am not OCD about money. The last mantra turned out to be the strongest so my challenge has been to learn to manage money well. One thing I always try to remember is that money is a symbol-it has no value in and of itself-you might just as well collect cowrie shells, some do. Its only value is in what it can buy for you. So this helps with maintaining balance. I love learning to manage my money better, and aspire to greater security, but have no inclination to cost out everything I buy to the last cent. For me, it defeats the purpose of having money.

I always remember this story (true) from Brantome’s Vie des dames Galantes. Madame de Montespan, Louis XIVs principal mistress, had an ancestor by the name of Renee de Taveau, who flourished (if you can call it that) in the early 16th century. Renee de Taveau was a miser: all she cared about was money. So much so that on her DEATHBED, she kept getting out of bed to visit her money collection (hoard, retirement account) to count it and check nobody had stolen anything, and had to be dragged back to bed, where she was, after all, occupied in dying, by her attendants. This story was recalled in the Rochechouart family for centuries…….and not with admiration.

I do think you can overdo the saving. I have a sister like that, and she annoys everyone in the family because she reciprocates NOTHING. I am sorry this has been so painful, but encourage you to go out and occasionally spend freely. By all means budget carefully, provide for retirement, live within or below your means, but also have a little fun!

I think many parents either leave out financial literacy or make the message to SAVE. There is less active instruction in the home regarding how to spend. Money management is more than just saving. Since you can’t redo your childhood financial literacy, make your focus now on finding tools that help you learn it. It’s the same as people who grow up and are spenders having to find info and tools to help them save. I highly recommend some sort of personal software budgeting tool that will help you feel in control of your spending categories. There are many from which to choose.

This story is very similar to my in-laws’ approach to money. They obsess about every dime they spend. They seldom spend on themselves and wouldn’t think of buying anything unless it was on sale. Every conversation somehow comes around to financial subjects. If the stock market drops at all the father-in-law frets for days about how his money is disappearing. They don’t seem to enjoy what they have worked a lifetime to amass.

All we hear from them is how we’ll all benefit when the will is read. It’s very sad to see people so obsessed with MONEY. I admire them for taking small incomes and building a large nest egg but I would rather they enjoyed their money instead of talking about how they will leave a lot to their kids.

I enjoyed the post Anna and I understand why you wanted to be anonymous. I think the whole key is your dad’s vacation comment — he didn’t allow himself (and by extension you) to enjoy what money can buy. That’s the sad part and that is the lesson that is cemented in your brain. I am pleased to hear that you are making baby steps toward splurging. It is a key part of the money balance — spending a little money that you can totally afford on something that makes you happy, even if it’s a cup of coffee.

I don’t think you are bragging, and I don’t think you’re blaming your parents. You’re stating the way things were, and how that impacted the way things are now. My father was similar, except that we never took a vacation. When my mother would ask for money to fix up the house, he woould say, “We can’t do that, we have to put Diane through school.” Which made it, in my teenage eyes, MY fault that my parents were unhappy. It took me years of therapy to get past that.

Anna – Have you checked out Resource Generation? They might have some useful tools & a community of peers facing comparable issues. http://www.resourcegeneration.org

I feel for you. It’s hard and sometimes impossible to shake off damage a parent inflicts. My brother treated his children the way your dad treated you, although my brother had no money; he was just cheap and selfish. His kids are in their early twenties and I see their constant struggle with self-worth and many other issues.

I grew up with a father who had lots of money and set up a trust fund for me and my brother and eventually the grandchildren – millions. We were always told, “Don’t worry about a thing. You’ll have your trust fund when I die.” Well, like a fool, I believed that and never saved money. I paid cash for my children’s college tuition, I traveled, I lived in a condo at the ocean and had high rent, etc. Then my dad married a woman whose daughter and son-in-law were lawyers, and they very brilliantly had my father dissolve the trusts and also take our names off of his life insurance policy – right before he was officially diagnosed with dementia. They knew exactly what they were doing, according to my lawyer. So we got literally zero dollars when my father died, and she ended up with several millions. Lesson learned.

Wow – pretty intense! I want to echo @Morah Mary – our parents imprint us with patterns and un-doing them is tricky. In my own case, seeing a therapist was the best way for me to untangle which I wanted to keep (saving, looking for a bargain) and which I wanted to discard (never enjoying things like travel because its self-indulgent).

I hope one way or another you can find a way to keep the best that they taught you, while allowing yourself to enjoy life, even the parts that cost money.

Good luck!

You and your dad have different values when it comes to spending money.

Your dad is what most people would call miserly (and so am I) and what we prefer to call frugal or “highly efficient with money”. We live this way because “efficiency” is of high value to us. Much higher than a spontaneous purchase of a can of coke. To me (us?) paying 50c for that is a failure to prepare (also a high value, independence) and food may be of low value (it’s just fuel). This is also how we end up with a lot of money.

Now, you have different values. You may still be frugal, but you’re not as frugal as your dad. It may also be that you are average. You may even be spendthrift or even prodigal (though it doesn’t sound like it). You need to live according to your values now despite being raised with different values. This may mean you don’t end up with as much wealth as you dad, but that’s fine too.

The problem is with conflicting values. The easiest solution is simply not to hang around people with values which are far different from your own. Of course, that doesn’t work with family. From a frugal perspective, I sometimes get taken into situations which I don’t like at all (like 50c cola) but which I do anyway, because I like to socialize with average spenders too and consider this part of the cost and a better solution than “not socializing for free”.

Now, someone with an average attitude to spending (what they’d call balanced) would say: 50c is nothing compared to what you have. This is true. It is not about numbers though. It’s about the principle, the value.

The key point there is that we sometimes do things we don’t like (buying ice cream) to do things we do like (making our kids happy). In this case an self reliant person who values integrity will also make a statement to that effect; a more expedient consensus oriented person will not.

It is likely worthwhile to work really hard at understanding the driving values of those around you. It will prevent a lot of conflicts. Imagine if you had a child who is as frugal as your dad. (Happened to my parents … “Let’s go get some candy” “Can I just have the money?” … later “Here’s something for your birthday, now don’t put it in your broker account. Go and have fun with it” “Uh, sure…(buying stocks IS fun to me)”.

Anna,
I appreciate you sharing this story and I’m sorry if other readers react negatively to it. I personally don’t see it as “bragging” about what you have or “blaming” your parents. I will be a new mother very soon and stories like yours make me step back and think about what I would like my son to eventually understand about money and how I might go about teaching him.

I agree with some previous commenters that as individuals we should not “blame” our parents for our adult actions as a way of not taking personal responsibility for ourselves. However, parents have a profound influence on shaping who their children become. The shake it off attitudes of some commenters strikes me as very blase and without compassion. Children internalize much of what they hear even if it was not meant in that way and lessons learned that young can take a lot of time to overcome.

To me it all comes down to balance – the happy medium. If I have a healthy relationship with money, then I will be better able to pass that healthy relationship on. Money is a tool not and end all be all of itself.

Anna, I hope you continue to work to find that happy medium for yourself. Thank you for sharing your story.

I can relate to a lot of the Dad’s habits the writer complains of. My parents were frugal and hippies, we never bought a can of soda, rarely ought ice cream out and about, never bought fast good or ate out, etc. Most of my clothes were hand me down or from thrift shops. My parents never bought new cars and the cars in our family were used until they died – I recall watching the road under my feet because the under carriage was rusted out.

I was always annoyed by these behaviors/habits as a child, although because we didn’t have a t.v. I wasn’t always aware that we were living a very different life. But as I matured I came to realize that this lifestyle allowed our family to spend our summers together at a summer cabin in a resort area, allowed us to live on the water the rest of the year, sail, ski, travel, etc. My parents paid for my college, they have more than enough to retire, etc.

For me, I solved the spending/savings balance. We save a huge amount of money and we have no debt except for the mortgage. I don’t think about my day to day spending except for the fact that I/we have to stay within our allowance. We eat out, we enjoy a glass of fine wine, pick up coffee, etc. I enjoy shoes and clothes, buying gifts etc. I just have to stay within my allowance as does my husband.

I agree that there’s no point in saving a very large amount of money if it’s not used for something worthwhile. I also agree that it’s not good to feel constantly guilty, and I agree that it’s important to enjoy life.

But I am guessing that very few people will agree with me that I think you can do *all* of these things while spending almost no money at all–in particular, while not spending money on most of things Anna mentions in her post, like ice cream, restaurant meals, full-price shirts, etc.

In my personal experience, I have found that the things that bring me the most happiness–and have the potential to bring me the greatest amount of happiness and satisfaction that I could ever want out of life–cost nothing, or almost nothing. These things include spending time with my husband, meditating, having friends over, going for walks, making my own bread, etc. I feel that I could spend my entire life on activities of these kinds, never once eat an ice cream cone or restaurant meal, and have the most fulfilling life possible.

In living this way–or trying to–I am saving a lot of money. I will probably die with a lot of money in the bank. But my plan is to have this all donated to charity when I die. So the money that I save by not eating at restaurants, far from being wasted, will, I hope, enable starving people to eat.

I’ve found that this approach gives me the most enjoyment in my life, while still using my resources in the fairest and best way possible. Whenever I feel like going to a restaurant and decide not to, I feel happy that that $20 will, ultimately, go to feeding a hungry person rather than feeding me food I don’t need (unless I have some unforseen financial catastrophe and need that money for my basic necessities–in which case I’m still glad that I didn’t spend it on a restaurant meal).

I’m not necessarily saying that everyone should do this, but this is how I’ve decided to run my financial life, and I’m very happy with it.

So I would suggest that for Anna there might be an alternative strategy–rather than try to make herself happy by spending more, she could try to keep her spending roughly the same, but change her attitude towards it. She could work to change her attitude towards money, and not experience those negative emotions.

(There may be a few ways in which Anna should change–attending distant conferences could be a good idea–but I’m not sure that restaurant meals and full-price shirts are the way to go.)

One last comment–I did read Chipmunk’s comment when it was posted, and I agreed with others that Chipmunk should spend more money–to fix the broken tooth, to have a nutritious diet, etc. But I think that once basic necessities like that are covered, there is no need to spend more money in order to live the richest and most satisfying life possible.