I wonder if I’d be in debt right now had my parents taught me about money. For some reason, our entire life revolves around money but yet there is this stigma against talking about money.
Maybe that’s why my parents didn’t teach me about it. Or maybe it’s because even to this day they don’t have much of a grasp on money. Either way, becoming financially astute was always an afterthought.
And not only was I never taught about finances at home, but my during my entire education throughout the public school system and even 4 years at a University and still…nothing.
Well except for that one day in 4th grade…I still remember that. We took one day where our 4th-grade teacher gave us a budget to follow in order to teach us about life in the real world…why on earth do I remember the one day out of 16 years of an education where I was never taught about money?
Let’s just put it this way, it was eye-opening. I’ll give you a quick synopsis of what happened.
We were told to pick a career. I chose to be a doctor. I don’t remember the exact income break down…remind you this was the early 90s…but I still think the income was like 80 or 100k.
We then went over a budget of all of our expenses each month. Mortgage, cable (there was no internet then), groceries, utilities, medical bills, loans, etc.
You get the idea.
At the end of it…even as a doctor with the highest income it showed I was completely broke. I remember having to cut out any “entertainment” expenses because all of my income went to bills.
It didn’t make sense to me…and even though I still remember it to this day. I chose to ignore it. I mean honestly it was just depressing. I’d rather pretend I didn’t see that and move on with my life like everyone else.
Now don’t get me wrong, I remember another day or two throughout my entire education where we talked about compounded interest, and although I knew in the back of my mind that I should make that a priority. I also chose to ignore that as well.
And again, none of this was ever taught to me at home by my parents.
And now that I realize how extremely hard my parents worked to make an income and provide for our family, it strikes me as odd that it isn’t something we would talk about.
Now, fast forward 27 years later from that 4th-grade class and here are where my parents stand:
This may seem personal, but it’s important for context.
My father: still working hard with no retirement or very little saved for retirement.
My mother: remarried, considered “doing well” financially by most middle-class “blue collar” folks. I have no idea what type of retirement, etc. that they have but they don’t struggle to pay their bills, live in a pretty nice house, and are currently retired.
This brings up our current day conversations. I can’t help but constantly think about the fact that the stock market is at an all-time high, and just how much money you could have made investing this year.
Conversation with my father: “I’ve never been able to make money in the stock market and don’t know anything about it.” That’s pretty much the gist of it.
Conversation with my mother: For context, I was lucky enough to buy 1 share of Tesla stock (LOL) in early April at about $503 a share (It’s now over 4x that amount). At that same time my mother claimed she thought about investing in Tesla when it was $1 a share LMAO. She chose not to invest then, and chose not to invest in April either.
Even more context here, my mother is not some pathological liar or anything, I honestly think she really believes that she knew about Tesla stock at $1 a share, but this is one of the most ridiculous statements I’ve ever heard.
She’s saying that because she knows literally nothing about the stock market.
Fast forward to recently (when Tesla’s stock has exploded) and here’s the brief conversation I had with her and my stepfather.
Me: “Did you decide to invest in Tesla after our convo!??” (Knowing they would have tripled or quadrupled their investment in just a few months.
Their response: “I heard Tesla was going bankrupt.”
LMAO.
It was at this point that I realized even my financially well-off family really doesn’t have much financial sense.
Now granted, I don’t want to take anything away from them. To be clear, they worked really hard their entire lives and have created a great environment for themselves to retire in.
That being said, they probably could have put down 50k in the stock market rather easily and turned it into 200k, but this isn’t something they gave hardly any thoughts about, before, or after the market blew up this year.
It isn’t just Tesla that has exploded since March. Pretty much anybody who threw money into the market then would have made an insane amount of money on just about anything.
Now, of course, there is risk involved anytime you invest. This is obvious, and this is why most people steer away from it.
But it’s pretty obvious that investing is one of the main reasons why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Rich people invest. Poor people (or middle-class people) don’t.
Why Didn’t My Parents Teach Me About Money?
It’s pretty clear that my parents don’t know a whole lot about money, or I’m sure they would have. We work so hard trying to make a living that by the time we get home from making money, we’re so worn out that we A. don’t want to think about it, and B. want to “enjoy the fruits of our labor” and spend all of our money.
The problem wasn’t my parents, the problem is how society seems to program people to live a debt-fulfilled life.
Why else would we not teach these things in school?
Think about it. Most of our life revolves around making money.
We work 40+ hours a week to be able to “pay to live”, all the while are still in debt. In other works, most of us have been working our entire adult life and still owe people (banks) money for the next 25 years.
Do you understand how insane this is?
If society actually cared about people’s well being then personal finance would be another one of the general classes taught in the school system, it wouldn’t be stigmatic to talk about finances, and we simply wouldn’t be living with so much debt.
Schools Don’t Teach About Money-So We Have To
It really comes down to us making better financial decisions ourselves and then teaching our kids about money. If we don’t teach them, they are simply subjected to far too much brainwashing day in and down out that they’ll probably end up massively in debt like most of us already are.
Yes, of course, there may be some people reading this who are not in that situation now (awesome for you) but the truth is that roughly 4 out of 5 people are living paycheck to paycheck.
We simply need to do better.
If we do what everyone around us is doing, guess what, we’re likely going to be in a massive amount of debt and we’re going to be living paycheck to paycheck the rest of our lives.
So step one is that we need to get our shit together and get our finances in order.
Step two is that we need to teach our kids about money.
These things go hand in hand though. You can teach your kids what you’re learning as you go, and this can be another way to stay focused on your own financial goals.
How To Teach Children About Money
Outside of learning ourselves. How do we teach our children about money? This will obviously vary quite a bit by age groups but having an idea of how to implement ways to help our children become educated about money is highly important. Unless of course, you want to kids saying the same thing someday.
When kids are young it’s a great idea to give them a “piggy bank” to learn about money. When they’re really young that’s about the most you can do right?
But as they get older it’s a great idea to implement some games for them to play. Most of us know about the game Monopoly and the game Life, these are great games to play with your kids but there are plenty more that may work even better. This is a great way to teach your kids about money when they are young because you can have fun as a family doing it.
As your kids get older and become teenagers that’s when you can start implementing some real-life scenarios and have them look at budgets, investing, debt, etc.
The main thing is that it’s important to stay engaged with this and to actually talk about money with them. Get rid of the stigma that we shouldn’t talk about money!
It is our duty to make sure our children are educated about money because they likely aren’t going to learn much from the school system.
One More Story About My Financial Ignorance
You don’t have read this, I just thought I’d talk about it more. Because we need to talk about these things. The more we talk about it, the less ignorant we become right? I think so.
Anyways, I remember being in my early 20s and was looking to get a new car. Well, not a “new car”, but a new car to me. I was telling my parents how I was going to go to a dealership to try to find something.
I remember my mother telling me how dealerships will try to take advantage of younger people and rip them off. That’s basically all she said.
I had so many questions at the time. I mean what the hell was she talking about? Rip me off how? They sell cars and you buy them, they don’t give certain deals to specific individuals right?
I had no clue what she meant, and I didn’t want to seem ignorant, so I didn’t ask her much about it and brushed it off. I mean, after all, leave me alone mom, I’m an adult now! lol
So what did I end up doing? I believe we ended up taking a car payment out for about 14 grand and my interest rate was less than stellar…I’m not sure the exact rate but I believe it may have been 13%.
Now, at the time, I could care less. All I looked at was the monthly payment and the car I was getting. I was just happy they approved me for anything!!!
Looking back, here’s what I wish my parents would have told me (also my fault for not asking more). But here goes, I wish they would have said: “You’re not making much money so you shouldn’t be taking out much debt, they’re going to give you a high-interest rate because you have bad credit so IF you’re going to take out any loan whatsoever it should be less than 6 grand-max, and even then they’re ripping you off because they’re charging a finance fee which could be over a grand itself. Maybe you should save up and look at the private market instead and just pay cash? You would save yourself thousands of dollars in fees and interest charges.”
Now of course none of this was said to me, and I was an adult and still knew about these things to some degree, but when you get to the lot and pick out the car you want those things take a back seat to you getting what you want right then and there.
Car salesmen sell cars for a living. They’re good at selling, and unless you come in prepared and have boundaries already in place you’re pretty likely to be taking out a car payment for more than you should.
All in all, it was my own ignorance and undisciplined mind that set my self up for financial ruin. I mean we need to take personal responsibility here as well.
It just doesn’t help any if your parents and the entire system you grew up in didn’t educate you and may have even discouraged good choices.
Summary
If you’re like me and you’re parents didn’t teach you about money growing up, you’re not alone. 4 out of 5 people in the United States live paycheck to paycheck. It’s almost like that’s how they want it.
We as adults now, and possibly parents now, need to end this cycle and end the stigma about talking about money with our children.
Considering that money is what much of our life revolves around. This needs to be front and center at the dinner table.
What about you? Did you parents teach you about money when you were younger? Do you have any stories where you wish you would have been taught more? Let me know in the comments below!