If you or your mom are a financial badass
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Anonymous
| If you grew up with a mom who was very successful professionally/financially or you are that mom yourself can you tell me about it? What do you or your mom do for a living? How did this impact your childhood or your kids childhood? |
Anonymous
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Not quite what you are asking, but my mom was/is financially literate. Her #1 reasoning has always been an honest assessment of how her mother was not. She grew up watching her mother receive a weekly “allowance” for groceries and vowed she would have her own career. Fast forward, she married at 21yo and continued from the beginning to be the one in the household to make sure the bills got open and paid, to track savings and investments and made sure from an early age I knew how to balance a checkbook and write a check. Examples of things she taught her mother when my grandmother was in her 60s.
I have always had a secure relationship with money, understanding how to make a budget and always paying my cc in full each month. Even though I started out earning less than my husband, I was the one with the stellar credit rating and helped secure our excellent mortgage offer to afford our first home. My parents moved from blue collar working class (my dad was in construction and my mother a teacher) to very solidly middle class and they retired upper middle class. They continue to live frugally with an eye toward their elder care needs and a desire to not be “a burden” to the younger generation. |
Anonymous
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My mom didn't work outside the home, but she managed the heck out of what my dad brought in. He had an average income, and we had an extraordinary life. Not stuff that can be bought like high-end vacations or riding lessons or top shelf toys. But experiences and skills and social abilities.
I learned everything I know about money management from her. The lessons I would share (and do share with my kids) are: Never spend money you don't have (no car loans, no student loans, no credit card balance-- the mortgage is the exception of course.) Evaluate every impulse purchase by the metrics of how long will it last, what impact will it have, and what else we could do with the money if we just wait a bit. Brand names are always a waste of money. If you're wearing a logo, the company should be paying you for the advertising space! |
Anonymous
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As a child, my dad was a cop and my mom was a PE teacher. They barely went to college. (One went to community college and one finished at age 30).
I was always good at math but did not pursue business undergrad. Went to a top ranked school but majored in political science. Thought I would be a lawyer. Worked in a law firm and hated it. Then got an entry level job in business (.com in the late 90s). I liked it. Pursued my MBA full time, then have had a career at 3 Fortune 500s. I now know how to invest, mainly because I learned personal finance is not that hard and does not really involve much math beyond percents and the time value of money. I have a teen daughter now who is very much not into math, but I will help her with personal finance more when she is a young adult. What more do you want to know? |
Anonymous
How can someone totally illiterate financial learn personal finance? |
Anonymous
| My mom sat my sister and me down when we were around 12-13 years old and explained basics to us - debt, how to stay out of debt, how to write checks, how to open an IRA and fund it, how to not live beyond our means. She's an immigrant, very successful - self taught, self made. |
Anonymous
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Great thread.
My parents grew up poor and had good middle class jobs while I was growing up. Neither had any financial savvy - or any interest at all in gaining wealth. They both lived beneath their means and invested in retirement but that’s where it ended. I see tips on social media about setting up certain accounts for kids and how it becomes millions for them later or how to reduce taxes when you die and I don’t know any of these things. I now realize we made a lot of mistakes too. |
Anonymous
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My parents were a cop and a court reporter- both union with pensions. Zero investments, no real working knowledge of money other than pay your bills and leave what's left in your bank account. They absolutely NEVER spoke about money around us and I doubt they even did away from us.
I'm playing catch up now and educating myself at 33yo. I have two daughters and I am going to educate them on finances as early as I can. |
Anonymous
I love this. That so quaint. I don’t mean it to be rude. I mean, a couple now _doung exactly _what your parents did will never get such financial security. I hate how expensive basic life is. The greatest, silent & boomer generations all advanced. For our generation it’s big law, real estate investments, trust funds, big tech but the rest are living pay check to pay check. |
Anonymous
| My mom was a badass successful professional woman. She worked her ass off and spent her 30s and 40s making a name for herself! She’s 75 now and has money invested all over the place. In exchange, however, I was the first kid in at daycare in the morning —then later, latchkey— and the last kid to leave at night I got two weeks with my parents in the summer where we vacationed together, but they would find sitters for me at our destinations because mama works hard and deserves a break, too! The rest of my summers were spent at day camps or overnight camps. My dad got sick and my mom has health issues and now they don’t do anything. I’m sure she’s grateful she spent most of her good years busting her ass for all that notoriety, and to squirrel all that money away that now she can’t even enjoy! |
Anonymous
PP here with the MBA. I feel like people overly complicate personal finance. If you want to learn about it, have confidence in yourself that it's not that hard. 1) Go to the personal finance section of the library. SO many good books. My personal favorites are A Random Walk Down Wall Street (summary - stock markets have had bubbles since the Dutch tulip craze, and buying and hold the broadest swatch of the market is the best return for the least amount of risk.) and Personal Finance for Dummies, but also books by Jean Chatsky, Dave Ramsey, Michelle Singletary, Suze Orman, Ric Edelman, etc. 2) there are so many great and free online sources of QUALITY personal finance advice. I'm not talking Game Stop stock tips or day trading. I'm talking Bogleheads, NerdWallet, Wise Bread, Get Rich Slowly, etc. Reddit Personal Finance also has SOME reputable stuff. 3) there is a Netflix series I will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi, and he has a book by the same. Some great stuff in there. There are other TV shows like Suze Orman and Til Debt Do Us Part, and there are some great podcasts like Smart Money, etc. 4) Take a community college course on personal finance. Totally worth it to learn the basics. 5) Don't pay for investments you don't fully understand. (Example - annuities - they typically have complicated contracts and don't return much relative to their fees, but vulnerable people buy them for "guaranteed" income, not realizing that the costs eat into their returns.) 6) Find reputable financial planners at napfa.org It's like anything you have to learn - give yourself some modest goals (I will read 1 personal finance book each quarter) and see how you do this year. For what it's worth, I'm terrible at sports, so I'm doing my exercise and personal fitness version of this slowly and with reputable sources, and just letting myself be bad at it at first but am gradually getting better. Hope this helps you. |
Anonymous
| My mother was an early IVY MBA really smart and very successful as is my father. They are both pretty badass when it comes to finance. My mother was is charge of all the day to day finances and my father manages all of their investments. My mother is a true badass when it comes to saving money such as shopping at consignment shops, negotiating with vendors, buying used cars you name it even though my parents are wealthy. I don’t have her academic pedigree but I learned so much from her, and my dad, that I manage all of our finances and in a badass when it comes to spending. I still call them and day what do you think when I need some advice. |
Anonymous
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I would also add: women are often better than men at investing because they are less risk taking and don’t follow stupid fads like individual stocks like Enron and stuff like that. they tend to buy and hold, which is generally better for your investments in the long run.
Also, we had a game of the finance guys versus the random dart board picks of individual stocks during my MBA program, and the human individual stock picks never beat the dartboard in returns. |
Anonymous
Wow that’s so thorough and helpful. Thank you! |
Anonymous
May I ask how you are applying this approach to educating yourself about personal fitness? |