When I was growing up, our money situation was strange. My dad worked part-time and my mom didn’t work, but we were squarely middle-class.
See, my father won the lottery when I was very young, before the age of 3, and then he semi-retired by working part-time at a local shop, while footing the bill for my mom to go back to school and to hopefully get a better job than what she had. Using his winnings he spread out the money over a course of about 10 – 20 years (I don’t know how much he has left now, if anything) and paid for our living expenses as we grew up and moved out.
I didn’t find it weird. I just found it normal that dad was there when I got home and mom was at school. I never questioned it.
It didn’t affect me because I seemed to have the same things as other kids, and we never seemed to go without the basics.
If I knew then what I knew about money now, I would have definitely been confused about how my parents could not work and still afford 2 cars, a big house and food on the table with extra necessities (nothing for us.
My parents never talked about money, except to tell us kids they didn’t have a lot of it.
All this meant to me that we had enough to cover what we had, but no real luxuries such as taking a vacation together or being able to buy anything expensive like a pool.
This was somewhat strange to me, because he paid a bill for a $10,000 vacation once, when my mom and I toured countries together. Still, I just assumed he and my mom had saved a ton of money just to be able to send us on that trip, so I figured that frugal lifestyle we lived with my dad nagging us to eat less (we were pigs!) and trying to conserve utilities (heat, water, electricity).
We never sat down as a family and went through how much my parents made (net) as an income, and where all the money was distributed. Money was always there.
My mom had no money advice for me
She was an ostrich (slowly becoming financially aware however), and when I was growing up, she had no idea how much anything cost. It’s changing now, but she didn’t even know how credit cards worked until she got into a $3000 debt and realized after 6 months that by paying the minimums, she wasn’t actually paying down the debt, but paying the interest
My mom knew that money was important. She asked my dad to set aside money for each of us, for our tuition, kind of like a tuition nest egg.
My father may or may not have done this and reaped the tax benefits, but I certainly never saw a red cent of it when it came time for us to go to college. My parents promised to foot the bill for my education, but when push came to shove, they pretended they never said a word and we were all left with having to apply for student loans and work full-time during college. Not that it’s a bad thing, but when you tell your kids something, you damn well better back it up. I think the experience made me even more honest than I may have turned out in the end, and it has helped me realize how important it is to talk about money with your children on a regular basis, and to never promise what you cannot deliver.
My father’s only advice to me was never to carry a credit card balance, so I never did
He did teach me how to be frugal in terms of turning off the tap, wearing more layers in winter to save on heat, and never wasting electricity.
Now that these habits are ingrained, I cannot imagine living any other way.
But aside from that, there were no lessons on income minus expenses, the meaning of being frugal or smart with your money, why we save money, how to save it, where to save it, why retirement savings and emergency funds are important and the magic of compounding interest.
I learned these lessons pretty quickly after I graduated college, and I still have twinges of regret of how much money I could’ve saved… but wasted on living a ‘normal’ life, rather than a college student life.
Better late than never.
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
According to Suze Orman, there is probably one childhood memory which shaped our views on money. My family never really had any money when my sister and I were kids, so I dare say Suze is correct on this count, at least for me.
It’s not that I resent my parents for not having money, or the other kids for having it. What I resented was knowing that, as military personnel, the other parents were in the same pay-range as mine, yet somehow they managed to live what looked to me to be a “normal” life.
Read more at my blog: http://www.theworld4realz.com/2012/03/15/suze-orman-step-one/
My husband comes from an upper middle class family and I came from a lower middle class one. His father is a savvy investor and his mother is frugal to the point of being miserly. My husband is the much longed for son, and has never been in want of anything. Money was always kind of tight for my family, and I didn’t have a lot growing up.
Funny thing is that both of us are equally hopeless with money. My husband couldn’t care less cos he knows his parents will always bail him out. As for me, I have a love- hate relationship with money because of my childhood. I know the importance of managing money but i still succumb to emotional buying. I earned a decent salary before i got married but blew most of it away trying to buy myself happiness.
Now that i’m going back to work again, i must remind myself that I have to save for my daughter, and that i have to teach her not to make the same mistakes that i made.
My parents never really talked about money much. I had no idea how much they made, I just knew we didn’t have a lot. My mom shopped twice a month for groceries, I heard “we don’t have the money” all the time. I had no idea how they budgeted or if they even had a plan. No clue! I do remember my dad also telling me not to ever carry a credit card balance, so I rarely did. I just wish they had been more open and explained things rather than letting each of us just fumble our way through trying to figure it out on our own.
I started working when I was 15. I spent every cent I earned on something frivolous. I wish my parents had told me to put some into savings for later, or maybe to not spend it all? I don’t know – some sort of guidance would have been nice. I think back to how much money I wasted on stupid things and I cringe!
I totally get what you are saying about wishing your parents had followed through on paying for college like they told you they would. My parents told me they would pay for my son’s braces and then when it came time to get the braces on they wouldn’t do it. I will never do that to my child!
Nice post! I grew up in a working to middle class immigrant family in Toronto, and it was my Mom who was the sole breadwinner. My Mom was always stressed about money, and my Dad was ashamed to not be working (although he never did much to change). Even though money was tight, I grew up very privileged since it was my parents’ wish to prioritize their kids. We lived frugal lifestyles but were able to take dance, swim, art, language, sport, and music lessons, and also travelled at least once a year to places like the Caribbean and NYC. We also had a big dog and our university tuitions were paid for as promised. All of this on a very tight 1-person income for a family of 4, living in a 4 bedroom house and driving a beater of a car (we were always the family with the worst car on the block!). My Mom was able to do this by truly sacrificing her needs, which saddens me because it also made her sick. She attributes it to being lucky though, as she always had steady employment and bought a house before the market got crazy. Now that her and my Dad have retired (early), and have 2 financially stable adult children, I’m hoping they’ll let lose and worry less about money. But old habits die hard. As a result of my upbringing, I grew up being very money conscious and frugal, but sometimes too much. I have problems spending, unless I am travelling or taking a course, then somehow money leaks out of my pores. I guess it’s because I was taught to spend more on experience and learning than to buy a bunch of STUFF.
Cool story! That’s
kind of a unique situation to grow up in a family having won the lottery. My family situation was a lot more basic. Dad worked and Mom stayed at home. We didn’t go without, but money was tight. I didn’t really realize this until high
school when I learned that there would be no money for me to go to
college. That’s when my attitude towards
money and work really changed. I decided
I would do whatever it took so that one day my kids could go to college
anywhere they could get accepted and never worry about it. Now I’m only 10 years away from having to fulfill
that promise.
I was given pocket money for doing set household chores in order to save up for things I wanted to purchase as a child. When I was thinking of moving out of my parents house as a late teen, my Dad taught me about household budgeting in order to confirm if it was something I could realistically afford to do. My parents were comfortably well off but careful with their spending and being shown how to budget (early on) was one of the best life lessons I’ve ever had. I’ve since helped other people to realise how easy it can be, it’s a shame this basic knowledge wasn’t / isn’t taught in schools…
Growing up my parents never discussed money with me. I grew up mainly upper middle class. The only time I knew there were financial troubles was a long time after my parents were divorced. My mother for lack of a better word is a spender and she over charged on all of her credit cards to the point that she had to take out a second mortgage on the house we were living in. I also remember her being very upset with how much it cost just to have me in her life. The only thing I could do was to get a job which, I did a paper route. She told me that the money I earned would be mine and put it in an account for me well….needless to say I never saw a dime of it.
For me I have vowed to instill in my daughter a need to save and save as much as she can even if it is just $5 or whatever it will add up. I am still struggling with debt but, it is getting better.
My parents never discussed money.
Years afterward, when my sister and I were discussing what we both remembered as the best summer of our lives (because Dad was always around and drove the family to a nearby lake where we swam and picnicked virtually every day that summer), we discovered our parents remembered it, too. Dad (a longshoreman) was on strike and all they had to feed us was hotdogs. They thought of it as a truly awful, poverty-stricken summer. Go figure!
Gosh yes, money can be an ugly subject, but I’m glad I learnt so much and still learning.
My dad grew up not rich but spoilt in post-War Germany, his aunts bought him everything and he came to expect living at a higher standard than he really could easily afford. My mom grew up with very sensible and frugal British working class parents who never lived above their means and were wonderful people who taught me a lot (eventually and by example).
So my dad was spendy and my mom didn’t have a clue or care about money or numbers – she doesn’t notice a 0 or two more or less. When I came along they were 19 and 23 and poor as church mice. My dad got bored easily and lost a lot of jobs, my mom always had to work, and I was often left alone (I have no siblings). Later, they both became teachers and earned pretty well, but as my mom wasn’t interested in finance, my dad managed the money so he got all he wanted and my mom’s occasional wants were ok (they were rare) and I never thought to question it or ask for stuff. I certainly wasn’t deprived, but when I wanted a riding lesson each week I was made to feel it was extravagant – it was actually a very small sum but it couldn’t go to one of the car payments (my dad had a different car at least every 6 mths, he thought it was a bit of a joke). They ended up doing ok for themselves, though, and are both comfortably retired, albeit separated/remarried. They didn’t teach me a thing about money – saving, investing, budgeting, nothing.
I had my first child as a single mom at 19 and had to figure stuff out myself. Luckily my husband who I met shortly afterwards is financially very savvy and taught me a lot. Nevertheless, together we didn’t always make the smartest financial decisions, I was quite unaware in many ways and he didn’t want to say no to me so we wasted a good deal, I can say looking back. Mid-30s I realised I needed to learn more and that money management appealed to me and I have done much better ever since, although I am far from “perfect”. I also haven’t been very good teaching my kids about money. The older two were born when we didn’t have much and are both very good at finding a bargain, though not always thrifty or able to save well, while the youngest was born when my husband’s career took off, so she has never known not having something until recently, when we hit a bad patch 2010. While when I was growing up, brand names weren’t part of it, my youngest in particular is quite keen on them, but she has to learn that they aren’t necessary and you can’t have everything.
The older girls both married young and have had to learn to budget and save with their husbands/kids, but the younger one will have an eye-opener when she starts earning – I hope to guide her better, though!
We grew up very poor. I had parents and step parents and for about 5 years my mum was a single parent. She worked full time to provide for us. Money ( the lack of it) was constantly talked about, worried about and fought about in both houses. My mum was very frugal so I learned a lot from her about saving money.
Because of the way kids treated us at school I grew up determined to never be poor again. Eachof my siblings is the same – I’d never want any kid to go through those feelings of shame & humiliation.
As adults we found out that apart from when mum was a single parent, that we weren’ t actually poor, there was plenty money, but parents made choices to spend/waste it on things other than us kids. I think that pretty much did all our heads in for a few years!
The good thing is that it made me determined to have my own career, my own financial independence and to provide well for my children. They went on every school excursion and participated in all the regular things kids do growing up. The first thing I did when I left school was to save $1000 ( 3 months wages then) for myself. I’ve taught my kids not to use credit cards and that they have to rely on themselves and no one else for their finances.
My parents were very poor with my siblings, and by the time I came around they were getting quite wealthy. I wasn’t taught any lessons in frugality or anything like that – they never spent a ton (besides school) but didn’t scrimp either. The biggest lesson I was taught was when I was a freshman in college and my dad compiled a list of everything he spent on my brother (from birth through college) and threw it at him to show my brother how much he owed my dad for life. They had gotten into a fight (not over money), and it became very apparent then to me that money was a method of control.
It taught me to never count on my family for money because it would be used as a point of control and abuse in the future. Who has the money, has the control. I wish I could look at all the monetary things I was given as a child as a positive, but all I see is something that has been thrown in my face. It’s why I’m very fond of personal finance, because I don’t want to be in this predicament again.
My parents never really discussed money in my family either & my brothers & I also had to pay our way through schools, applying for loans, etc. If anything, I think it taught me to be quite frugal at a young age – which I suppose isn’t such a bad thing!
Middle class. I think my parents had some CC debt and one point or another, but they got smart and paid it off. My parents both worked, and hard. My dad started his own business when I was in high school, and this ended up causing tons of issues over the long run (it didn’t work out), but eventually, they pulled through that as well. We didn’t directly talk about money, but the idea was: working hard can secure your financial future, get a good education (that we paid for ourselves – but this was no surprise), and middle class things like car loans and brand name stuff was typical/normal.
Of course, there is no “right” or “wrong” way to teach your children money, but here are a few tricks my Dad tried with us:
-My brothers and I got a weekly allowance that was equal to our age. This meant every year we got a $1 weekly “raise”. -There were certain chores we HAD to do. But there was also an “a la cart” list of chores that each had a monetary value attached to it. If we chose to do these extra chores the extra money would be given along with that week’s allowance. -Every year my parents set the expectation of what items of clothing, personal care products, & extra curricular activities (like dance lessons) they would provide. If we wanted anything on top of that we had to buy it ourselves.-When I was age 16-20, every year Dad would sit me down and talk me through how to make a budget for myself on an Excel spreadsheet. I didn’t appreciate it much at the time but it came in REALLY useful as I got older!-My Dad opened a credit card in my name when I was a teenager and periodically charged something small (like a tank of gas) to it, then paid it off each month. I never saw the card until college. But he did this to help me build a positive credit history at a young age.
I appreciate my Dad’s teachings. Naturally, I still acted stupid and got into tons of debt in my early 20s, but at least when I “woke up” and started acting responsibly the groundwork had already been laid, and it wasn’t that hard to straighten up. I do wish Dad had taught me more about compound interest and investing, though.
We didn’t have money. My parents were very frugal. Country living, garden, hanging clothing out, no vacations, small cars, hand-me-downs, never eating out. My parents didn’t really talk about it much until my dad got laid off and mom went back to work and then things got REALLY tight. So, I learned to not buy anything that I couldn’t afford. I didn’t learn anything about credit though, which bit me later. I never really learned to cook with so many older siblings, so later I ate out a LOT (to the tune of $800 a month or more), but I’d never pay off my cc. I’d pay off MOST of it, until my boyfriend (now husband) said “if you’d paid that extra $25, you wouldn’t have to pay interest.” Duh. So we’re pretty frugal and don’t spend on things we don’t need or really want.
I have a friend who is still a bit bitter because her dad promised to pay for college and reneged. Yeah, it sucked for her to have to live at home while going to school. But all of that shapes who you are and now she’s surely going to be totally honest with her own kid.
Your family was indeed fortunate to have won the lottery! It’s awesome that your parents made the money stretch out quite far! But then again, I’ve never heard of anyone else winning the lottery, and I have no idea what people usually do with lottery money. It’s too bad that none of it was set aside for college! At least you’ve paid off your own debt at the moment.
My family has always been a very responsible family that lived within their means, as far as I can remember. However, when I was born, my dad was a grad student, and his small stipend and help from my mom’s family was all the money that we had. I think that because I was born at the very beginning of their careers, I have grown up to be quite frugal, and someone who makes good use of everything I own. (I try to finish to some degree every video game I buy. =P)
And then as I got older, my dad’s career went extraordinarily well – my family is in the upper middle class. We enjoyed luxuries that we never had enjoyed before. As a result, my brother who is seven years younger than I am does not have the same sense of spending responsibly that I naturally did (he doesn’t finish as many of his video games) – but he is learning quickly now that he’s older. My parents once told me that I was the child born in poverty and my brother was the child born in abundance. But it makes me happy to know that I do not have to worry about my family financially – ’tis a great weight off my back now that I’m older and starting the beginnings of my own career.
I grew up in an upper-middle-class society. My parents both had high-paying comfortable jobs, and they were both small business owners and ran their own charity, but they never once spoke to me about money. They always assured me that I could have anything I wanted if I worked hard. Even if I didn’t work hard they still told me I could have anything, and they bought me anything I wanted since they wanted me to know luxury from a young age. I grew up with all the toys, gadgets, and best food imaginable. They paid for my college tuition without thinking twice- in fact they told me not to get a job and concentrate more on getting good grades.
After a while though, I started to get restless since I didn’t feel like I deserved any of this wealth and love. I knew my parents grew up with nothing (they were third world country immigrants) and worked so hard to get where they are now. While they never spoke to me about money per say, they told me stories about war, fear, and famine, and now I understand where they are coming from. I looked at myself and realized I could not provide my future children with all the luxuries my parents are now giving me (my current career trajectory is a bit disappointing to say the least). At the very least now, I am committed to working hard, valuing each purchase I make, and respecting money now more than ever.
If I were to summarize what I learned, it would be to respect value and do what I can to earn it, which includes money.
Wow. How cool that you can say your dad was a lottery winner. I am still living with my parents, and I grew up a little similar. My dad had an inheritance that he stretched or something. The only issue was no one discussed it. My mom is just now being a part of the picture, and it is because they have no retirement. Crazy how this stuff works.
Since I was not taught how to budget or much of anything, I basically have taught myself. I’ll have to look through your site for self-taught investing. Right now, I’m just learning how to balance my paycheck with my preferred spending 😉
I grew up in a comfortable middle class household. Dad took care of the farm and Mom worked full time as a nurse. Growing up, we always had enough, but we never had anything extravagant or extra. We didn’t get name brand clothes that some of the other kids had, or all the toys, but we always had enough. I learned the value of things from my Dad (I still find myself quoting him and calling things ‘dear’ when they’re overpriced), and the nuts and bolts of expenses and living below your means. Every month, he would have me sit at table with him when he was going through his bills and we would talk about them and get everything organized for his files. Probably the important thing my parents taught me though, was how to be happy with what you have.
In my household money was never really discussed. My parents split when I was fairly young and I was left to grow up mostly with my mom. She tried her best to provide necessities and even a few wants but it was always a no or a yes, no explanations why.
I became financially aware quite surprisingly as I wanted to provide for my future family and work less at my choosing.
Now that I am older and more financially aware, me and my mom chat about money and even though her situation isn’t at the top of the financially smart list, she does have some good habits set up, I only wish she was able to do them earlier but it’s tough being a single mom to two kids. My dad is the complete opposite and isn’t even close to having his financial game in control. If anything I want to go as far away from my dad’s path as possible and be more like my mom.
My situation was much like yours with the exception of winning the lottery. My parents never discussed money other than to say that we didn’t have any. We lived in poverty for a while and my dad worked menial jobs because he had to leave college. He was 21 when I was born. My mother didn’t work or drive. My dad is a poor manager of money to this day and my mum is complicit, probably because being so is now habitual for her. My dad always has debt and trashes every car he ever buys resulting in constant and continual car payments to this day. As for me, I didn’t know what a check book was, even in my 20s. I didn’t know how to run a household, how to budget, how to grocery shop, how to cook or how to save. When I say I had NO clue, I completely mean it. I used to give our baby son our supply of checks to use as a coloring book and my spouse would be absolutely speechless at my naivete and thoughtlessness. He wouldn’t be able to pay bills without the checkbook and so would have to order more checks and wait for them to come in before bills could be paid. That is how much I knew about money when I left my parents’ house. My financial dumbness continued for years until 4 years ago when I finally, too late, ‘got it’. Money used to be like a hot potato in my hand.
We started out lower middle class (as did a lot of Koreans post 1970s up until about the mid 1990s) – my dad worked in government and my mom was a professor at a university – but as my dad rose through the pay scale became solidly upper middle class and very well off. I don’t ever recall (even when we were poorer) feeling deprived or anything – I do remember my parents not buying me a certain toy because it was too expensive, or things like that when I was a kid, but I never felt like we were less well off than other people around us.
However, my parents have always been very frugal – even when my dad worked a higher ranking job and got to move overseas (where lots of expenses were paid for by the government) – they saved a lot, thanks to my mom’s great financial acumen (she has a talent for being frugal and resourceful, as well as a great eye for investments). They paid off their debts at the beginning of their marriage, paid off and now own 3 properties, supporting my grandmother (and my grandfather before he passed away) and are both retired at age 60 with a comfortable cushion.
In my 23 years, I don’t remember the one time my mom ever bought anything designer or expensive just because she wanted something, but I do remember getting most things I wanted (within reason) and going on great vacations and such. I also remember them not hesitating to pay my tuition in full, and not hesitating to help my cousins out when they couldn’t afford the school of their choice. I was incredibly lucky because they were always there to support my education and offered to bail me out if I screwed up (although I kind of wish they didn’t bail me out so much, looking back on the choices I made) – they gave me everything they possibly could give me, because they didn’t have anything growing up in post-war Korea.
I wasn’t so wise or grateful in my late teens and did act like a spoiled brat through university, and it wasn’t until I started working in my last two years of university I realized how hard it is to work up to the level my parents did. My parents (mother in particular) tried to teach me a lot about saving and how to live below my means – but it wasn’t a lesson that stuck until I realized how challenging it can be on my own.
Now that I’m older and a little bit wiser, I realize what a great example my parents were and I am very grateful they did what they did for me – I hope that one day I will be able to become a good example for my own children and be able to be as generous as they have been. The only thing I would probably do differently, would probably be a bit stricter about the financial lessons I would teach my children, and teach them the difficulty of earning a dollar for themselves earlier on.
We were solid middle/lowermiddle class. My parents worked hard. all the time. My dad had a summer business and a winter business and 16 hours days were common for him. My mom worked inside the home raising four kids on a single family income. We didn’t have a lot of the fancy things our friends did. We didn’t go on big holidays. Ever. We went camping in the summer. In tents. I remember chips and pop being a special occasion treat. We were never taught anything about money or budget or finances. I can remember getting my T4 for income tax the year I graduated and seeing how much I had made (and spent) and thinking, why didn’t anyone teach me how to save this? or why didn’t I have the common sense to figure it out myself. They did pay for some of my university and I am forever grateful for that.
Growing up my parents were very frugal and they always took the time to explain to us why we didn’t have certain things, such as brand name clothing – because normal clothes did the job. There were many occurrences growing up when I would hear my parents fight – usually about money, and I often wondered that if we had more money, if they would stop fighting.
Now that I am a grown up, I really enjoy researching and making my own decisions on money. I find it very empowering, and I also find it important to understand the role of money in my life. I have adopted my parents’ frugal lifestyle and I have done my own research to take it a step further, and educate myself in investing, RRSP and other vehicles of acquiring assets and saving for the future.
Now, my family and I talk about money more openly. We talk about our plans for money, how money we earn, and how we can better utilize money.
My father taught me a lot, and my mother taught me a lot about what not to do (she is in a financial mess). Because of them, I would say that I am very capable of managing my finances.
I owe a lot to my dad!
My parents more or less screamed at each other about how much money they didn’t have. So I developed a very bad relationship with money that I still struggle with every day.