Money Matters
Ducktale
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Raised in a MM home?
Out of curiosity, did you grow up with parents who were careful with their money? Assuming a lot of us get our spending habits from our families, is that true for you? Did your parents teach you how to be good with money? Or perhaps they were not good with money, and from seeing their poor financial decisions, you work hard to make better financial decisions? Or maybe you picked up some poor spending habits from your parents and as a result, this is an area you've really had to work hard to improve on? Just wondering how the way your parents approached money/spending/borrowing/saving affected you.
Re: Raised in a MM home?
I grew up in a home without very much money, so I would certainly say I picked up day to day spending habits/frugal-ness from my parents. They often used coupons, and did not buy what they did not need. We never had the nicest newest stuff, bought lots of stuff used. Definitely from this, I picked up the attitude that I do not need nice things, or need to "keep up with the Joneses". We rarely went out to eat except birthdays, they did not buy us toys or other things except on special occasions, and we did not go on big vacations. So I know a lot of these spending habits carried over to me. They also worked extremely hard to make an income to support the family and they were always able to pay bills, and I was never aware of any financial problems as a child. They did not, however, talk to me/teach me about about a budget. As far as I know, they did not have a budget they tracked, but I could be wrong, I have no idea.
That being said, something I did not pick up from my parents was long term investment strategies. They did not do much in the way of saving for retirement until later on, education funds, etc. They did not invest money really at all, and as far as I know, paid the minimum on their debts. Part of this is because they just did not have excess money for some of these areas, and part was because this was just not on their radar until they were older and did not make these things a priority. DH's family is the same in this way, so we have had to work hard and done our own reasearch to figure out good investment habits on our own.
Great question! My parents to this day don't talk to me much about their financial situation but they are VERY well off. I grew up with taking family vacations, the ability to do different activities, had an allowance, had a car when I was 16, college fully paid for except books and always received gifts for all holidays/my birthday. I did have chores to do at home and I had a job as soon as I turned 16 (aside from babysitting earlier than 16) and had to pay my dad monthly for car insurance, my own gas etc. My parents used coupons as well as saved their money. They don't have a huge house and fancy cars, but i think a lot of their money is in retirement. I definitely learned to start controlling my spending once I moved out on my own at 23 and had to pay bills. When I lived at home I usually bought clothes and all kinds of crap but that stopped after moving. I did get into cc debt when I was in my early 20's ($3,000) but paid it off and learned really quick. To this day I have no debt except for a mortgage. I use coupons, budget money, and am always looking to get things cheaper. I also have money in the bank. I do thank my parents for giving me good advice along the way. My dad even gives me advice on my 401K as well as other things when it comes to money today. I am really lucky!
H on the otherhand, came from a family that didn't have much money and today they are paying off tons of cc debt. Luckily he is nothing like them when it comes to financial stuff thank god! that really is so important in marraige.
With my parents, my dad is a saver and my mom is a spender. My mom isn't a spender on herself as much as too generous. She will help someone else out even though she couldn't afford it.
Between my siblings and I, we are pretty much split down the middle on how we handle finances. I am more like my dad and need the sense of security from being financially stable.
Since I have seen both money styles, it was very important to me that my husband and I had similiar money styles. Thankfully, we are both savers and generally see eye to eye when it comes to financial decisions.
I do struggle sometimes with feeling more like a hoarder and not a giver, so we have budgeted money monthly for charity. That way I feel like we can balance savings with giving.
My childhood was interesting, and I got to see both sides—saving and spending. When I was little we lived in Miami and didn't have much money. We lived in a multi-generational house and both my mom and grandma stayed home to watch me/clean house/run errands/etc. We couldn't afford a car so we rode the bus everywhere, rarely went out to eat (grandma's cooking was better than restaurant food anyways!
). I remember spending lots of time going
to the park or the beach, swimming at the community pool, all sorts of things
like that, that cost no money. Lay Away was how they afforded Christmas and
birthday presents. My parents always made it a priority to put money aside for
my college fund though and we always had at least a little bit of money in
savings just in case. Those were happy times surrounded by family even though
we had no money.
When I was about 11 everything changed when my dad accepted a job offer across the country. Suddenly we were on our own, dad was making 6 figures and started traveling a lot for work, and my brother was born around that time too. Looking back it was almost as if my parents started buying stuff to make up for all the thing's they'd never been able to have before. They ended up buying a huge house (which they are now upside down on), 3 SUVs (granted one of these was my 16th birthday present), a boat, etc. and they were constantly "upgrading" their stuff after a couple of years (they just kept rolling their old loans into the new ones for all their toys) and we were always taking awesome vacations every year. They started opening up credit cards but since they had never had one before they all had high interest rates. Even though my mom paid them on time every month I think she only ever paid the minimum so they started digging themselves into a hole. His company gave him an AmEx card which he maxes out every month on top of his ridiculous salary and they still live paycheck to paycheck. Currently I think they have about as much in savings as they did when I was little and my brother’s college fund is practically non-existent.
It’s really weird to watch things from the outside and I’ve learned that my mom can be a bad influence on me and my spending habits. She always gives me the, ”You deserve it. It’s only X Dollars” speech and tries to talk me into spending more money than I should (she recently bought an $800 cosmetic package on Groupon and in the same breath told me how she wasn’t sure she’d be able to pay for my brother’s school books this week).
Anyways H and I tend to err on the side of saving more and not buying things emotionally, that is unless my mom is around me (but I’m getting better at saying no). The house that H and I bought is very reasonable and we’re able to afford it and all of our bills on my salary alone, so it gives us the chance to put most of H’s salary into savings. I don’t do coupons since we don’t use most of the stuff that we get coupons for, but we make almost all our food from scratch. We have retirement funds set up for our future, college funds for our god-children (and some money for my brother), and various other stocks and investments.
H’s parents have always been good with money so we go to them for advice often and they’ve been a big help. Even though his dad makes about as much as mine they live in a modest house (paid off), their cars were bought used and are paid off, they have plenty of money in savings and mostly shop thrift stores or places like TJ Max for stuff. Sadly H is the only one of his siblings that seem to have inherited his parents’ thrifty habits—the others all spend their money just as fast as they make it, like my parents.
Sorry that ended up being much longer than intended!
My parents weren't terrible with their money, but they could have been better. We always had food on the table, clothes on our back, and a roof over our head. But it was hand-me-downs, and we never received toys as gifts (always clothes). It wasn't until I was in high school that my parents were better off. Now they do very well for themselves, and live a lifestyle that I hope I can live someday. We also discuss finances with them, and bounce ideas off of them, but they are very hard workers and earn every penny they make. So that meant more to me than what they actually did with their money.
H's parents, on the other hand, are terrible with money. FIL has asked us for loans, and has tried to tell us what to do with our money. He has a lot of debt, no retirement, and spends frivolously. But he paid for 1/3rd of H's college. So he thinks he's great with money. We would've rather he didn't pay for it and put it into retirement, so we don't have to take care of him later on in life.
Guess we both are like my parents. Even H has said that he learned his money management skills from my parents (we dated all through high school). We also both went to college for business management, and we feel that helped us to be more financially responsible. The difficult part is having a conversation with FIL, because he thinks he is responsible with money. So he will tell us to get a certain credit card because the interest rate is lower. Then we'll tell him that we never carry a balance on a card, so the interest rate doesn't matter. Which then causes some tension.
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Now that I have a son, I still want to send him to Catholic school and hopefully have some extra to allow him to participate in some sports. That being said, I don't want to stop saving for retirement and having some money for date nights etc.
It took me from the time I was 13 until after I filed for bankruptcy when I was 31 to learn how to handle money better. I am still learning and feel that it is a life long process. I listen to both Dave Ramsey and Susie Orman. My wife and I tend to take the middle path between the two. We are focused on debt repayment but still want to enjoy life. We are trying to pay cash for wants and save up for smaller needs.
My dad was uber MM. I wish I took more after him in that regard than I do. We don't do too badly, and I'm pretty good with money, but my father was a rockstar when it came to savings.
I'm currently facing the challenge of blowing our meager emergency savings to save a sick pet, or deciding to put her to sleep. I know what my father would have done, but he grew up on a farm and had no sentimentality towards animals. But that's a whole different discussion.
My parents were ok on MM, but not the best. They saved some, we went on vacations, but they didn't plan for the future. They are paying for it now being on a fixed income with retirement and not being healthy enough to work. My mom is/was big on putting everything on CCs and making payments. I've also learned they took out a Home equity loan that basically sat as a savings... so no way they were getting more interesting in the saving then they were paying on the loan.
I'm not sure about H's parents, they refused to talk any money with him. His mom refused to show him how to write out a check (which doesn't make sense to me at all).
He got into a lot of debt with his first wife, and tanked his credit. I took over our finances about 2 years ago and it's slowly being fixed. I make sure we talk money a lot, budgets and future plans. And I plan to teach our kids about it when we have them.
Love: March 2010 Marriage: July 2013 Debt Free: October 2014 TTC: May 2015
My dad grew up not having much but was taught the value of hard work and education. He was the first in his family to go to college. He was always a saver (so much that it drove and continues to drive my mom crazy how frugal he is). He drives cars into the ground. He wears dated and sometimes clothing with holes to casual family gatherings. He put my sister and me through college at private schools with no financial aid and he is loaning my sister all the money she needs for her OT masters degree.
Mom is a spender. She came from a spendy home with $$$. She could probably pay her bills on time, but she doesn't have a good meter for being responsible with savings. She thinks in the short-term gratification instead of the long-term security.
This difference between my parents is interesting to observe as they are 1-2 years away from retirement and they each have varying perspectives on how those years will go.
Dad taught my sister and me to be MM. We are spendier than he is, but we know a lot about finances, IRAs, retirement, debt and insurance. Both of us are very responsible with money and have had no money troubles. He actually helped us get out first CCs when we each turned 18 and he showed us how they worked and how to pay them of in full each month.
What he has learned over the years he has passed on to us.
Long story short, it's a 9 year old cat (which is considered elderly) they thought had lymphoma. I didn't think paying $3000 for exploratory surgery for them to do a biopsy and putting our cat through two rounds of chemo at the cost of another $3000 was worth a best case scenario of 6 months survival. Lymphoma is not curable in cats, and I think it would be cruel to put her through that much pain and suffering just so we could get another 6 months--not to mention that it is financially unsound.
Turns out they believe it is IBD. Her treatment has so far has cost us $1400, which I'm still not pleased about, but at least she has a chance at another good 4-8 years through diet and medicine. Of course they still want to do that $3000 exploratory surgery, but I disagree with the vet on the necessity of a biopsy when the palliative treatment for Lymphoma is the same.
She could strike a bargain like nobody else --- it was anything from a Communion dress to a car.:)
I was taught to save my money. My brother, however, was a fail when it came to that.