Money Lessons I Learned From My Parents

I do love my parents.

I learned a lot from their mistakes. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the extremely valuable lessons I was learning until I was much older.

This is definitely not a bashing article – but it is somewhat of a release for me. These are all things that I now, as a woman in her forties, know that my parents could have done differently. My dad is in his early seventies and is still working, but he says he enjoys it and wants to continue – which I believe.

He could stop now and they could go on with the income they have from different sources and get by. However, they do like to spend on certain things and I do know they aren’t completely debt free.

After reading an article online about how the parents of some blogger showed them how to save correctly and make all the right money decisions, I decided to write an article on how my parents did the opposite. They didn’t teach me anything about money before I moved out. I don’t blame them from some of my poor decisions in my early years. I take full responsibility.

Take a walk with me down memory lane and let’s go through some money lessons I learned from my parents.

Selling A House After 20 Years And Having Little Equity

Over the years, I’ve been tempted at least a couple of times with taking out a home equity line of credit. Most likely if you own a home, you receive notices in the mail that you have X amount of dollars in equity you could be using to make improvements or pay off other loans. They’re extremely tempting.

I even get them now from one of my credit card companies.

I’ve chosen to never do this. I am not saying that it’s the right decision for everyone. What I am saying is that I saw my family use this money as a crutch for years. They eventually sold the home I grew up in after they lived there for 20 years and had a super small amount equity although the value had gone up tremendously.

Not Preparing Dinners

We did sit around the table and eat, but it usually consisted of us all saying we were hungry and someone rushing out to grab food.

My mom really didn’t like cooking and I never saw her read a recipe book.

I think there are so many dollars lost in not preparing your weekly meals in advance. It’s so easy to run out and grab something or have your food delivered by placing an order online.

You have to create a system that works for you. I use emeals. I tried many different recipe websites. I did find recipes that worked, but it was difficult for me to go back and forth from the website to my shopping cart and I often screwed it up. With emeals, I use their app that is connected to my Walmart and Kroger accounts. They’ll automatically put everything in my cart for the recipes that I choose.

What I like best about this is the fact that I simply have to add the recipes I find attractive. Everything else is done for me. I can then go into my cart on the Kroger website and review the items and make sure it’s nothing I already had in the pantry or refrigerator. I can also add miscellaneous items that we need around the house. Note there’s a fee for their service but it’s 100% worth it for me. I pay annually as it’s pretty cheap. I can’t remember the last time I went inside of a grocery store to purchase something.

Only One Working Adult

My mom never worked the entire eighteen years that I lived at home.

When I was 29, I had two children in daycare and the amount I was paying for that care was very close to the amount I was bringing home each week. Looking back, I could have stayed home with the kids. I’m not sure how that would have changed the career path I eventually went down, which I am very proud of.

When all of my parent’s children started school, my dad was still the only one working in the household. My mom stayed home, did chores around the house, and waited for the rest of us to arrive.

I do believe it is your personal choice to work or not to work. Some adults may be forced to stay at home for medical or other reasons.

On to what I learned…

In my particular parent’s situation, my mom never tried to advance her skills or create something to sell or come up with some side gigs she could have possibly taken on. They were content with the way things were; and I am definitely not saying they should have done things differently.

What I am saying is that I look at this and see an opportunity. There are so many ways to earn creative income that are non-traditional. I keep myself busy and I like that side of myself. I come up with different ideas to occupy my time that can hopefully contribute to my early retirement as well.

Not Teaching Children About Money

My seventeen year old daughter asked me about equity today when I was sharing details about this article I’m currently writing.

Although I’ve tried to share as much as I can with her, I haven’t covered every aspect in finance and I am super proud that she comes to me with questions when I’ve forgotten to teach her about something.

I’m also very thankful the high school she attends has personal finance as a required course.

Kids who are taught about money at home are at an advantage. I did not apply to one scholarship because I didn’t know that I could if my GPA wasn’t that amazing. My dad earned too much for me to qualify for financial aid (I think?) so I acquired personal loans for my first year of college. I then dropped out with personal loans and nothing to show for it. (Finished the degree later in life. 🙂 )

Now that my daughter is attending college in a year, I’m educating both of us on everything there is to know about paying for college and scholarships. This has been a learning journey for both of us.

Allowing Children To Continually Borrow Money Into Adulthood

I have two brothers that took advantage of my parents for years. I believe one of them still borrows money and takes advantage of their services.

I stopped talking to my brothers years ago for this reason.

I do believe that my parents enabled their children to continually take advantage of them. When their kids were in their 20s and 30s, they still asked to borrow money and my parents still agreed.

At some point, we have to say no to our children. If we are unable to say no, we need to help them get to the root of the problem. If we keep allowing them to borrow money without any questions asked, they will continue their cycle of asking for money.

Let’s shift our thinking and instead of supporting them with money (or in addition to), let’s support them with guidance and long term solutions.

Taking Vacations

I believe that vacations are important.

Vacations can be very expensive if you let them be. Staycations work just as well as vacations do for me.

We work, we go to school, we grind day after day. I believe that we need to reward ourselves by slipping out of the day-to-day and doing something different that frees our mind.

When I take vacations now, it’s almost like the reset button has been pressed. I remember again why I love doing what I do every day and I’m excited to get back to work and into the grind.

Being burnt out is a real thing. Don’t cash in all of your vacation time at work – use it and enjoy it. Press the reset button.

Savings And Available Money

Emergencies are definitely going to happen. Christmas is going to happen every year. Birthdays are going to happen.

Some things you’re able to predict and some you aren’t. Have savings for both. Create a budget and stick to it.

I’m not saying my parents weren’t able to pay for things when emergencies happened – they did. However, I’m not sure if this was saved money or placed on credit cards as they never talked about money to the kids.

I saw my parents at a store once trying to pay for something and they only had a certain credit card that the store didn’t take. I learned from this.

Now, I always try to keep some amount of cash on me and two different types of credit cards plus a debit card.

Concluding

Wow – This was 100% the easiest article I’ve ever written besides the blog update posts I write. It all just poured out of me.

I think I had been holding a lot of this in. I knew exactly what my parents did that I do differently. I learned from many of their mistakes. I’ve never discussed any of this with them – as they rarely let me in on anything about finances.

The biggest thing I learned from them was to be open and share with my children everything I know about money. Recommend books to them and teach them the value of saving and watching savings grow with compound interest.

I know we all have money lessons we’ve learned from our parents. Do you have one you’d like to share? The Comment box is below if you want to get it off your chest – It helped me!

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