This Week In Your Wallet – May 10, 2011
I know Mother’s Day was officially over two days ago. But I wanted to rehash something that happened to me last Friday. I had the opportunity to go on the Today show with my mom to talk about the financial lessons I learned from her.
Evidently, I’m not the only one learning from Mom. A survey from Citibank released last week showed 38 percent of Americans say they are more likely to take after their Moms – that’s more than cited their Dads – where their own financial behavior is concerned.
What follows is what I learned from mine. Then, next week, we’ll take you back to our regularly scheduled financial news.
* I learned to save. I’ve often said that it’s very difficult for anyone, children or adults, to learn to save unless you know what you’re saving for. My parents modeled that behavior. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a ton of money. My father was a college professor, my mother taught in various programs, so we saved for the things that were treats. We had a family bank that we all called the pig except I think it was actually a bull. When we started planning to go to Disney World for the first time, my parents decided that we could use the money in the pig to pay for entrance to the park. I don’t have any idea if it covered all of it, but I do remember sitting in the living room and shaking out the pig and counting.
* I learned to work. The key here is teaching your children to work by giving them an incentive to work, which means you can’t buy everything for them. For that same Disney trip, I remember, they told us in advance we’d have to pay for our own memorabilia. I wanted to be able to choose, so I amped up the babysitting. Likewise, for college, they covered tuition and room and board (for which I am forever grateful) but extras from books to pizza were our responsibility. My brothers and I got jobs during the summers to cover these things and then I know I supplemented with part-time jobs in college.
* I learned to come up with creative solutions. I remember small things – one summer we drove cross-country and saw the Grand Canyon and Yosemite and everything in between. It was an expensive trip but I remember my mom stretching the budget by picnicking lunch. We’d pick up a loaf of bread and some bologna and a bag of chips and make sandwiches. It was much cheaper than even fast food. And we thought it was fun. And then when I was ready to go to college, my parents felt really strongly that they didn’t want us to come out of school with loans, so they subdivided the property our house stood on and sold half of it to make it happen.
* I learned to share the load. I often talk about how important it is for both spouses to be involved in the finances. I had a really good example of that growing up. I remember that paying the bills made both of my parents equally cranky, so they’d trade off. My dad would do it for six months and when he was fed up, my mom would take over. Then when she was fed up, they’d switch back. As I got older and out of the house, I realized she was doing a lot more than bill paying. She had a better knack for understanding bonds and other complicated investments than my dad did, so they put that on her plate.
* I learned to speak up. And when my mom didn’t understand things, she’d ask questions until she did. I think being a teacher of everything from first grade to college statistics gave her an understanding of the fact that if you don’t understand something, that doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you. It means that the person who is explaining it, whoever that happens to be, isn’t doing a very good job and either that person needs to try again or you go somewhere else to get your answer. She taught me the very same thing. Even today when I’m reporting, I will often say to the person I’m talking to: “I’m sorry, you lost me there.”
Have a good week!
Jean
