I also heard some schools are deciding to add a personal finance class for high schools. I’m a little unsure about it, but that’s more because I had to deal with poor examples just during my school years. (Again, had an accounting class that seriously only taught us to use those calculators that print, and adding and subtracting columns.)
My spouse definitely sees me as a similar adjective with money. I’m the main income for our house, but I always want it to be more even. My spouse had money problems growing up and I think that attributes a lot to the attitude. Neither of us are huge spenders, but with my attention issues, sometimes we get into a tight spot. I’m hoping we can also compromise and meet in the middle with things.
I can totally relate. The first time I remember my parents talking about a credit card was when I was like 21. They had paid off the balance but said something like “if you don’t have fun now, you’ll just be older and wishing you did.” It was confusing to me. I opened my first credit card in college and did phenomenal with it for the first three months- because I forgot I had it!
Reading up on finances is really enjoyable to me, but I tend to get stuck in a rut of just reading, never doing. Procrastination should be my middle name, I think. But I’m definitely tired of paycheck to paycheck cycles so I’m going to try my best to break it. I plan on trying a no-spend week soon. Just have to get the spouse on board. I’m definitely glad not to handle my finances the exact same as my parents. I’ll keep the good they did and ignore the rest.
There is definitely a lot to be learned from other people’s perspectives on finances. I am enjoying reading everyone’s stories.
Living below your means is definitely something that seems to go against the norms of society. Most of us grow up in a culture that is pushing us to constantly spend more than we earn and that prices things in “payments” rather than the actual cost.
With the economy in the shape it is in, I am afraid many people are in for a rude awakening.
For most of my life my family was always below the poverty line. My dad was the only income source but things got rough when he got laid off in my teens. All they ever taught me was to only use cash and to try to never be in debt to anything or anybody. Neither had gone to college and retirement was more a fantasy than an actual goal.
Now I have a daughter and I’m trying to teach myself and her the financially healthy traits we BOTH need. I have a budgeting system but I’m not good at it yet but I know each day is more progress than having nothing at all.
Upside, now my parents are learning with me, my Mom is looking to become a Stasher
Mountain Fan, I was raised in a large family…I had two brothers still living, a third died six hours after birth and was the twin to the sister we lost to breast cancer in June. I also had three sisters. I was the oldest since, though I do have a brother and sister I’ve never met from my adoptive father (my mother’s second husbands children from his first marriage) and then two brothers and a sister from my biological father’s fourth marriage. I lived with my mother and adoptive father, and was three years and six days older than my brother. My father was a “cobbler” or shoe repairman as most people call them. He was one of the best in the world and had offers from all over from Australia and New Zealand to Hawaii and even in South America. But, we settled in the Midwestern states. As we each grew up, we had work we had to do. I started with mowing lawns, painting and other things. I also learned part of shoe repair, and also learned how to become an autobody technician. I was also a small business owner in that field. I was always working two jobs. While in high school, I worked at a local steakhouse as a busboy, and would end my shift by 11 PM. I had to be back to start work as a prep cook to get things started for the next person to come in and take over for me. I would leave and drive to the church to catch my bus to a Christian school. During the summers, I worked detassling corn for Summer Brothers Seed Company. I did that for five years during the season, and never had anyone telling me how to invest or split my money except to take 10% to give to the Lord’s work. I usually did so. But, after that, instead of us putting our money in the bank, our father required all of us to give him our paychecks. If we needed money for gas or other things, we went to him to get it. I started a checking account one time, and the bank manager called my father and he closed it. That was one reason I worked so many hours at other jobs, so that some of it would be “off the clock” and paid straight to me in cash. My father wasn’t a bad man, but he just wasn’t good with money or teaching us how to do what we needed to do. It was hard to learn about things when I finally got to be of legal age and had my own business. But, by then, being around the book keeper for our business ( I dated her for a while) I learned a lot about keeping track of certain expenditures and income and taxes. When my father was dying of cancer he explained that since he had started a business with two others (the largest Western Store in the heart of Illinois) he needed money to help pay for our private education. There were some problems with things being taught in our area schools, and that was the reason for us being removed from the public school system. So, I’ve learned mostly from the book keeper and trial and error. Wish schools would teach more about finances to kids these days, and wish they’d have done more when I was a youngster.
I’m the main income for our house, but I always want it to be more even. My spouse had money problems growing up and I think that attributes a lot to the attitude. Neither of us are huge spenders, but with my attention issues, sometimes we get into a tight spot. I’m hoping we can also compromise and meet in the middle with things.
I’m definitely glad not to handle my finances the exact same as my parents. I’ll keep the good they did and ignore the rest.
