You can chose your friends, but you can’t chose your family, right? Good, bad or indifferent our parents are our role models and we soak up their knowledge, wisdom and (sometimes) bad financial habits.
Ever since I can remember, my dad has been a financial disaster poor money manager. He and my mother have very different financial, “styles” and philosophies about money. Mom is/was prudent and frugal. Dad, not so much. Mom wanted to pay down the mortgage as fast as possible and live debt free. Dad, didn’t want to have debt, but saw it as necessary. Mom wanted to save for tomorrow. Dad wanted to live for today. How they married without talking about these, “silly little differences”, I’ll never know.
Here’s the 30 year timeline detailing how my dad’s financial decisions shaped my financial outlook:
- My mom and dad divorced when I was 6. In part, due to financial differences, among other things.
- When I was a child he’d pop by from time to time with gifts. I thought he was great because he’d always bring me presents (mom was a single mom and couldn’t afford a lot).
- When I was a teenager he lived in a cheap motel, I suspect this had something to do with bad credit, but I’m not exactly sure.
- When I was in my late teens my best friend and I visited him in Florida. He didn’t budget appropriately, ran out of cash and had to ask me for gas money to drive her and I back to the airport.
- I sold my car to him when I was in my mid-twenties. I had moved to NYC and no longer needed a car. He took out a loan from the bank and gave me a bank check. He later asked for part of the money back because he hadn’t planned appropriately for fixing some of the dents in the car (they were minor and strictly cosmetic and I had told him about them before he purchased the car).
- A couple years back he told me that he’d, “finally” been approved for a credit card again. I thought to myself, “Oh no, that’s trouble”, but didn’t say anything. The next sentence that came out of his mouth was, “And I bought a big flat screen”.
- About 6 months ago he sent me a text message asking for my new address. I asked why he needed it and he said he was planning his will. “Hmm that’s interesting” I thought to myself. His next text message was, “You better hope you’re step-mother leaves you something, because I’m broke”.
Of course my dad has his own interpretations of how each of these situations unfolded. But that’s not the point of this post. I share these examples, not because I want to, “throw him under the bus”, embarrass him or pass judgement (he knows I’m posting this and is fine with it). He’s a great father and I love him very, very much. He’s just not the person I model my finances after (he and I have talked about this at length and he’s really proud of me-in fact he jokes I get my financial, “smarts” from my mother).
All of this simply to say, don’t let your parents dictate or determine your financial failure or success. We’re not stuck with our parents financial mistakes (well unless you signed up for debt with them, and then you ARE responsible for their financial mistakes, but that’s a different story!) and we don’t have to life their financial lives. You can and should shape your own financial future.
Did your parents set a good financial example? Or did you learn what NOT to do by watching their mistakes?
Image: PSD
