My Parent’s Taught Me Lifelong Lessons About Money
Lessons My Parents Taught Me
My parents taught me lifelong lessons about money. They are still impacting my financial decisions today. And over my lifetime I’ve made thousands of money related decisions. From what clothing to buy for the new school year (yes, I paid for my own school clothes), to purchasing eight cars, two houses, taking multiple international trips, and funding my college education.
All of my moneymaking decisions came with various options based on my decision making. And all of them required money to accomplish.
I was raised by a mother and father who valued education, but were forced to leave school at the elementary level. Many would call them uneducated. And based on the world’s definition, they were. But they knew how to work hard, create multiple streams of income, save more than they spent and leave a wealth inheritance for their heirs. But the one thing I never knew them to be were borrower’s of a lot of money. And by watching them, I learned the value of debt avoidance, frugal living and how to use money wisely.
I’ve Always Been a Side Hustler!
My father used to say “The man has two pairs of pants. One to wear and one to wash”. This was his way of saying, don’t spend your money on something you don’t need. You would not have known it to look at him, because he was a pretty snazzy dresser. But he was an entrepreneur, an investor, a philanthropist and a lender. My dad always had several irons in the fire. And his children were some of his employees way before it became popular in the financial planning arena!
My mother also taught me valuable lessons about money. She never used a sewing machine, but used to hand sew some of the clothing for her seven children. When we were older, someone (I don’t remember who) bought a sewing machine that we used to build a pretty steady stream of income. We sewed clothing, prom dresses, and uniforms for my mom who worked in the school cafeteria.
Over the years, I’ve made sooooo much side hustle money with my sewing skills. In college I even “contracted” with a few sorority pledge lines to sew their “pledge wear”. This was money I really needed to pay my bills, buy necessities and have a little fun during those lean college years. I am still sewing today and earning money by doing so! I need to be in the right mood to actually sew something, but it’s a skill I can fall back on in a pinch! Thanks, Mom, for the lifelong gift you gave me.
Some Lessons Are Harder to Learn
I would like to say that I went on to mimic the principles my parents lived by. But that wouldn’t be true. I managed to graduate from college almost debt free (I had three loans totaling $3824 at graduation), with no car and no job.
Years later, after two Army enlistments, I was working a steady job and had a house and a new car. But I also had credit card debt, a 30-year mortgage, a car loan and no real plan to start saving for retirement and future financial needs.
Over the next 25 years I learned that living in debt led to stress, financial insecurity and the having stuff that added no value to my life. I decided to change the way I made decisions about money by saving more than I spent, investing what I saved, and living a debt free, financially independent life.
I now try to help others to identify and then manage their financial resources for longterm success and sustainability. Learning at an early age to live within your means is one of the best decisions you will ever make!
Coming Up…More Lessons About Money
Follow along in the coming weeks as I share more about the lifelong lessons my parents taught me about money. And about how these lessons continue to impact the financial decisions I made. They were key to (1) my daughter earning a debt-free education, (2) helping me to continue investing after retirement and (3) allowing my virtually debt free lifestyle on half of my pre-retirement income.
