Financial Role Models

[disneychrista]

Did you have good financial role models growing up? Did you follow in your parents footsteps or did you take the opposite road when it comes to finances?

 

[Forevermarypoppins]

Did you have good financial role models growing up? Did you follow in your parents footsteps or did you take the opposite road when it comes to finances?

I think my husband and I each had good financial role models in our parents. And I believe we ourselves did better in some of our financial choices.
My parents each had a 4 yr college degree, my dad a Master's degree also. My mom never pursued a "career" . Myself and husband each have 2 yr Tech degrees. My MIL was a RN, my FIL a pastor. Between all of us, I think we were/are financial more stable.

 

[ronandannette]

Well, this might not be the type of answer you're looking for, but I will say YES! Not because they had any financial acumen at all - they were very simple and unsophisticated rural people. They really had no concept of wealth management or financial growth. They really taught me nothing about spending, saving, investing and credit. But yet their approach to money was stellar - work diligently, be scrupulously honest in all your dealings and be sacrificially generous, whether the amounts were big or small. It benefited them tremendously, through many incredibly lean times. They were greatly loved and respected and they ended their lives with assets beyond anything they could ever have imagined; they really didn't even know how much they had.

When my DH and I had to start over from less-than-zero, we decided that was how we were going to live too; those values mean everything to us. We really had no clue what would happen but we figured if we didn't waiver from those principles, somehow things would be OK. And they are. Thanks Mom & Dad.

 

[slpeters]

I think so. I don't know that my parents really taught me much in the way of savings, investing, credit and the like. But they were always honest, worked hard and were generous. I grew up Mormon and my parents always did a lot of volunteer work, and they tithed--ten percent of their increase to the Church. As I got older and my politics changed and especially when I came out I wasn't really comfortable donating to the Church any more. I told my Mother that and she said that she could understand why I would feel that way, what she encouraged me to do was to look out at the world and find the organizations that I thought were making the world a better place and give the tithe to them--which is what I've always done. She was a wise woman.

 

[amcnj]

My parents were both depression babies who also lost their fathers during that time period. Those events greatly affected their lives, and as a result, we grew up in an environment which valued working hard, and as much as you could when you could, saving, frugality and having the money to pay for the things you bought.

I’d say on the whole we all followed along those lines more than not. Whether or not this is a good way to be is open for debate!

 

[RamblingMad]

I follow Buffett and own Berkshire shares. And I got a lot wrong.

 

[disneychrista]

For me. I’m the opposite of what I saw my parents (my mom mostly) do. Mom was a spender and lived beyond our means. It wasn't until I got older that I realized just how poor (low income) we really were. As far as I know there was never any savings. My parents didn’t have 401ks or IRAs.

I’m a saver. have always lived within or below my means. I have a difficult time spending money, even on things that are needed. If I can put off buying something I will.

 

[mnrose]

Well, my parents never had money. So, "saving" was irrelevant to them. However, what I did learn from my mother was frugality and making my pennies and nickles count.

 

[L&Lfan]

My parents, also Depression and WWII era kids, were hard workers, thrifty and good savers. I think their biggest lessons to me were to pay off your credit card each month and don’t buy something unless you have the money. Two lessons I’ve learned well. At their passing, they had accumulated quite a bit of wealth, but you’d never know it from the way they lived. They were also quite generous to our church and their favorite charities.

 

[Kitty 34]

Definitely, my mother.

 

[snappy]

My dad was a good role model for me. Taught me the importance of saving in mutual funds on a steady basis. He described it as dollar averaging I think. Don’t worry too much about market fluctuations as you can buy more mutual shares when the price goes down. Works when you are young anyway.

 

[J'aime Paris]

My parents were good financial role models in the sense that they never carried a credit card balance, and DH and I have always followed that advice.

But my mom has become almost obsessed with not spending since she has retired. She's really missing out on having fun and enjoying her retirement. My stepdad has assured me that they are comfortable with savings, investing, etc.

DH and I enjoy our life and spend our money. But we never over-extend ourselves, and are on our way to a very secure retirement life. We try to strike a balance.

Dh parents were not good with money, and still are not. They will die with incredible debt. I won't 'air out' their dirty laundry with the details...
But I'm sooooo glad that DH was determined to do it different.

 

[Christine]

My parents knew nothing about investing or making your money grow. They were fairly risk adverse. But my mother was/is probably the best role model in modeling: never spend more than your lifestyle allows, don't be frivolous in spending, and save. She also had her joys though: one vacation a year which was either a week at the beach or a road trip to various places on the east coast. Even back in the day, she also taught me, as a woman, to never rely or depend on another person for financial support--that I needed to have something *I* could do to earn a living. So, yeah, she was not a fan of the SAHP thing.

 

[mjkacmom]

My mom grew up poor, and she was great with finances (her parents survived the depression and my grandmother was always very frugal). My dad’s parents were pretty wealthy, he attended boarding school and got his degrees from two Ivy League schools. She was a SAHM until we were in high school, he had a good job, traveled overseas often. They taught us not to spend more than we have, never have credit card debt, and to save. They never bought new cars, vacations were mostly time spent at my dad’s parent’s big shore house (although they did couples trips), we spent 2 weeks in Florida every winter, 1 at the grandparents snow birding spot, 1 week at WDW We drove from NJ).

i think we’d go out to eat once a year, pizza twice a month, Macdonalds when dad traveled. My dads company was bought out when he was 52, all of the executIves were let go with only partial pensions, he did a little real estate, my mom worked part time, and they were fine financially.

 

[merlib]

Nope, I certainly did not get my financial sense from my parents! They lived through the depression but obviously didn't learn a thing from having to scrimp for pennies as they both continued to have to do that until the day they died. I have always vowed (and kept that vow) that I wouldn't have to live like that.

My DH and I always pay our bills on time and always pay our credit cards off each month. Now we have great credit ratings and live comfortably. My DD would say we are both "frugal" or "cheap" in that we often will try to get a good bargain. It's worked though, 'cause we've been able to go on some really nice vacations and such without having to worry about how we would pay for them

 

[PollyannaMom]

I think we both had good role models, in some ways similar and in some different. - From his folks, we learned how to be frugal, and from mine, we learned when to be.

Both of us had bankers in the family, so we grew up understanding savings/interest, how credit cards actually worked, balancing our checkbooks, etc.

DH's dad advised us (when we were just starting to work as adults) to contribute the max to our 401Ks that our companies would match as soon as we could, and we were so glad we listened! And both families cautioned us against borrowing as much as we "could" on a mortgage, which I think has also been a very good decision.

But we've been a little more indulgent with vacations and things than DH's parents were at our age. My mom passed away before she and my dad could do some of the things they'd planned for, so balance has always been in the front of my mind.

My family also had more ups and downs than DH's (which was more like a steady climb financially). My dad owed his own business when I was young, so there were easy times and tight times - and it really taught me to be comfortable with the different financial phases of life, and find the joys belonging to each one.

 

[georgina]

Yes and no. My parents were depression-era folks, so were quite frugal. Plus they had 6 kids on one average income. We did not eat out, our vacations were tent camping within a 2 hour drive from home. They paid for Catholic schools through HS, I was on my own for college. I did learn some important lessons, including to always pay off my credit cards each month and never pay interest. My dad was an extremely conservative investor though, T-bills were where he kept his money. It served them just fine, but when I grew up and was investing in stock mutual funds I had to learn on my own. It was funny when I met DH, his parents were the only other people I knew who were also that frugal, although they had quite a bit more money. That depression mindset never went away.

 

[runwad]

My parents were depression babies too, so knew how to work and save, they laid that foundation. I don't think they really knew much about investing. Dad had a pension, so I don't believe the mindset back then was to try to amass a large sum of money, they relied on their pension to take care of them; and it did.

I luckily learned how to invest at my first real job where I worked in the finance department of a big company. My boss was my mentor. I worked and learned from him from the ages of 21 to 30 before I moved on. I owe all that I know to him taking me under his wing.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Pretty much everyone in my family made for good financial role models; think it's in the blood of Brit West Indians of a certain period, LOL. The exceptions was my father who went in for wild schemes and his youngest brother who inserted too much religion into his life philosophy for my taste and left his baseball team children ( Yes, there were 9 of them and as my grandfather let slip once, he should have given them a TV instead of paying the rent ...) with not much of anything.
Never understood how my paternal grandparents deserved those useless sods they raised.

My mother was excellent at stretching a dollar and never shielded her children from the importance of living w/i existing funds whilst still planning for the future. She'd show you how much money she had to buy food and let you help make choices at the food markets when possible. Must have white go go boots? Save your money since that was a want not a need.

 

[hereyago]

I would say my Dad and my DGF(Mom's dad).

My dad had to help provide for his mom and siblings after his dad passed.

And my first "savings" lesson came from my DGF as he showed me to always save my change as he said for a rainy day.