CashMoneyJesus

Let’s see . . . the only thing I remember about my parents handling of money as I grew up was my mom constantly telling my youngest brother, “we don’t have money for that right now,” and my brother replying with, “can’t you just go to the atm?”

With that in mind, from as early as I could remember, I was earning money however I could (primarily babysitting), and always trying not to spend money, because there would be a time I would have to (car insurance payment and whatnot). Essentially I was taught that we never knew if we were gonna have money for the bills or not, but God always provided in the past and he would the next time as well.

For this reason, I don’t really struggle with “will we be okay?” It’s still a little odd to me that we aren’t struggling paycheck to paycheck - it’s very nice, and I’m getting very comfortable with it - but still a little odd.

as much as i’d hate to admit it, i’m beginning to realize that my parents have shaped me tons. when i was a kid growing up we pinched every nickel. to the extent that i wore wal-mart clothes and shoes until 10th grade when i got a job and we had a 5 gallon bucket of some sort of horse shampoo in the hall closet with a spicket that we filled up our old shampoo bottles with when we ran out. but they were able to invest in some property because of them cutting costs like that. this property will essentially pay for their retirement. they also have been small business owners for most of my life. that’s something that i swore i would never do. obviously now that’s what i do.

i’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this before. my dad was always incredible at financial planning and tracking everything. i mean, i was an only child and i don’t remember ever wondering if ends were going to meet, but at the same time it was always pretty clear that you don’t just get whatever you want. but what i don’t know how to reconcile is the fact that i struggle with basic financial things like paying bills on time and being impulsive. i always attribute this to my artistic/music side which procrastinates responsibilities. but at any rate, i wonder why i didn’t inherit my dad’s incredible ability to juggle those kinds of responsibilities. ??

My parents tried their best to teach us how to save and not waste our money. The problem us, as kids, we didn’t get much of it. A few bucks from grandparents on birthdays, and the big one was a Sears gift certificate from grandmother at Christmas. We looked forward to spending every dime we got because we weren’t able to control much money otherwise.

Fast forward to my first couple of jobs, and nearly every dollar I earned I spent on music equipment. I also bought my first computer and my first (real) guitar with money from my first job. When Britt and I went to a music festival or on a youth trip, we’d eat as little as we had to, so we could use our money to buy t-shirts and tapes (this was, of course, well before CDs). We certainly understood the power of sacrificing one thing in order to save up for another, it’s just that what we saved up for was usually much more immediate.

Looking back, though, my savings goals back then had more to do with music and computer equipment, and I think it is good that I was able to do that kind of stuff. Certainly my financial state right now has a lot to do with how well my natural talents with computers was cultivated as a teenager. While music has never made me any money, I don’t look back on that as a waste.

I think I’m in the same boat as d10 - as much as my parents themselves had good financial discipline - they didn’t spoil us, and I don’t really remember seeing them buy things they didn’t need - I don’t know how well that translated down into their 2nd son. I’m still an impulsive spender. I still have trouble just sitting down each week and making sure that the bills are not going to be late. I’ve relied much more on my earning potential to keep us out of trouble than I have sound financial planning. I’m frugal in some ways, but a spender in others. I suspect we’re all like that to some degree, though. Like when I was younger, I’ll sacrifice in one area so I can spend in another.

Great comments you guys. I suspected much was to be learned regarding this topic.

Though I don’t have kids, I do wonder about the best route for teaching children financial responsibility. I know many books and activities have been made addressing this (I know Clark Howard has a book on it, and I can easily see Dave Ramsey having one/working on one), but a book can only take you so far.

Lessons like:

Save some back for a rainy day/emergency - hard to teach as there’s very little in a child’s life that qualifies as even a small financial emergency. Sure, they may want some toy they see, but that’s really more the next lesson…

Delayed gratification - easier to show, as its very tangible what a child does (or doesn’t) buy.

Spend less than you earn - another tough one, as the concept of debt is also difficult to grasp until it smacks you in the face. Perhaps this is a more high school-age one.

Financial organization - a fancy way to say budgeting and bill-paying. We need some sort of service that has a small monthly fee that you can only pay by check and doesn’t effect your credit for high-school age kids to learn about the joy of remembering monthly payments. Just talking out loud.

etc, etc..

Note that I speak from a position of ignorance as I’ve done exactly 0 research on the available aids to this type of learning. Perhaps some of the above things are simply learned best by doing them (and failing at them a few times). Kind of a crappy way to go about it, though.

Visa has some debit cards that are oriented towards teenagers - the parents can put the teenager’s allowance onto the card, and the card has no affect on anyone’s credit (the parent’s or the teen’s). It’s called Visa Buxx (http://www.usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/visa_buxx.html). I found out about this when I was searching for some kind of solution for us to make it easier to categorize our expenses - this kind of thing would have been perfect, but you have to be a teenager in order to get it. But I do think that kind of thing will make it easier to help teens manage their money.

I don’t know how much you can help young kids learn about this stuff, really. I think teenage years are the years to really get involved with it.

I have seen some parents I babysat for help their kids learn how to deal with money a bit. For example, when I was watching these two boys (age 8 and 12), we got a certain amount of “fun money” each week we could decide what to do with. Some weeks, we would use it to go out to lunch. Other weeks, we would go to the movies. There was always a discussion, however, about what we would do with it. Would we spend some of it, all of it, or save it all for something bigger the next week, like Six Flags? I know it’s just fun stuff, but at least they were learning how to set money aside and only spend what was available.

I also had a friend whose parents encouraged her (or made her, I’m not sure) to put every bit of her gift and babysitting money into a savings account. When she got her license, she had enough to buy a good used car. She was really glad to have that savings when the time came, and it was a powerful lesson on savings for her. All of those little gifts and jobs added up to be something very useful.

It seems like it would be good to help kids with this from a young age- if they get a gift, guide them to tithe on it, then use a certain portion on something they want immediately, and then rest put away for something later. That is one thing I was going to add about my parents- we talked about tithing a lot, and they were really good about encouraging us to tithe on money we received, though it wasn’t much.

I also think that talking about finances- verbalizing our thought processes for our kids at times when it comes to saving and spending- can be helpful. Obviously, if I have crappy thought processes on finances, I shouldn’t say them out loud to my kids. But, if I am developing good thought processes, I can say it out loud and let my kids see me making good financial decisions. For example, if Johnny is riding along with me to the bank, I can say, “Johnny, it’s time to go to the bank! We need to take out some cash to pay for our groceries, and put the rest of our money into savings. It’s so important to save money each month so we always have enough for what we need.” It seems silly, but saying things like that for 18 years is a lot of repetition.

From a teacher’s perspective, it always helps to not only model the behavior (as in the case of Eric’s and d10’s dad), but also to verbalize the process so the learner knows the reasons and thoughts behind the behavior.

Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to be so long…

I love this post Eric! I think we have so much to gain through our parents experience with money. I learned a lot the last two years living on my own, but the value of what I learned there doesn’t even compare to what I am learning here- living back at home with my dad. He is so wise! I have a “heavy hand” when it comes to spending money, but he is teaching me all kinds of things about saving and credit, ect. He makes me want to study finance in school even more everyday. But, just like with the blessings of learning from their triumphs, we also can learn from their mistakes (which sadly, will be me mainly learning from my mom in this area…) I can’t wait to see what else you have to say about that. I love your blog- I will be reading it everyday now!

ps: “alot” is actaully two words- ” a lot”

Amanda