What % of FI'ers are motivated by childhood memories?

My father worked construction and my mother was a SAHM. My father was injured on the job in the late 1960's and we lived on his disability insurance for several years. We didn't have much money, but we weren't starving either. It was definitely a life lesson in LBYM.
 
My upbringing was middle-class. No luxuries, but also didn't have needs that went unmet.

I am much better off financially than my parents (or grandparents). That isn't the result of being driven by memories however.
 
My parents were both born during the depression (Mom in 1930, Dad in 1932) to families who had relatively little, and were pretty poor growing up. My mom trained as a nurse, but gave up working after getting married. My dad was an engineer at Boeing. They both were extremely frugal. They taught us to plan and budget -- we'd get a number of what they were willing to spend on birthdays/christmas and we'd then go through the Sears catalog (the "wish book" -- amazon before there was amazon!) and put together our lists of what we wanted. Allowance was $1/month if we kept our rooms clean.



Dad had been planning on early retirement at age 55. He died suddenly of a heart attack at 52. That was certainly always in the back of my mind when I started planning my own early retirement (before I even had my Ph.D. and got my first proper career job) after reading Your Money or Your Life.



I retired in 2015 at age 46. Will turn 50 next week. Retired life has been great, and allowed me to spend a lot of time helping my mom before she passed last year. I hope to make it to her age or older (she was 87 but if not for a valve defect caused by childhood disease probably would have made it to over 100).
 
These stories are just amazing! Reminds me of my own 2nd generation immigrant background. My folks and many current friends are 1st generation immigrants from all over. Similar general perspective: challenges confronted inspiring plans for a better future, years of hard w*rk and some luck, followed by Bingo!



I wonder how many here are 1st or 2nd generaton immigrants? Maybe the same perspective comes from Depression -era parents.
 
I grew up in a small town in Pa..We were solidly middle class .My Dad was a state policeman and my Mom was a nurse but stayed home to raise us. My Mom was great with money . We never wanted for anything and Christmas was a big deal .My parents also valued education highly and sent all four of us to College . Looking back I amazed at how they did it without it looking like a major sacrifice .They taught me how to LBYM 's and enjoy it .
 
Red Badger said:
We were middle class. Dad owned a restaurant and catering biz; mom did the book-keeping. I was lousy with money until I met DW. It took some tine, but she got me on the do-right program.

There was no allowance handed out at our house. As a product of growing up in the Great Depression (and then getting shipped off to war), he thought we needed to pull on the proverbial boot straps. He was strict, but loving and fair.

But if one of us kids got whiney, he had the following helpful grammatical guidance, "If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary between sh!t and syphilis."
Click to expand...

That's a keeper!
 
As a kid, we had food, clothing and shelter but not much more. I learned early on that if I wanted more I was going to have to work for it. Started working full time (after school) at ~14 and didn't stop until I was 60.
 
Red Badger said:
But if one of us kids got whiney, he had the following helpful grammatical guidance, "If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary between sh!t and syphilis."
Click to expand...


My mother's refrain, if I ever dared to tell her I wanted something, was "want in one hand, sh!t in the other, and see which one fills up first." She also often said "if wishes were horses, beggars would ride."
 
My childhood memories were just not about having or not having money. It was also about observing how others treated or pursued money.

Our house was not poor, but we managed. There was always food, even if it was not something I liked or wanted to eat. We only got presents at Christmas, and it was one, or maybe one and some small "stocking stuffer". No presents for birthdays, just a homemade cake.

My Dad would often say with a smile, if we asked for something, "Who do I look like? Rockefeller"? But if we really needed something, he managed to get it. My Mom was mostly a stay-at-home mom, but she did go to work if the family needed something major, as both she and my dad hated having "bad" debt.

They both learned enough to be handy people around the house and cars. My Dad got at least 10 years out of every car he owned. My mom knew how to repair things around the house, and taught all of her kids how to cook and sew.

With 7 kids, and me having older brothers, it was rare for me to get new clothes. We had lots of hand-me downs, and my clothes I passed down to my younger brothers. My sisters did the same. But my parents were keen to get clothes that would last well beyond a child growing out of them, and taught us how to take care of them, so we never felt ashamed of not getting new clothes.

All of those contributed to me and my siblings desire for independence. In addition... we lived for many years in a bad neighborhood , and saw up close and personal the results of bad decisions driven by a desire for money, a lack of money, getting into debt to others, or a desire to waste money. By the time I was 14 I was not a stranger to having seen street fights, murders, illegal gambling, robberies (and had been robbed myself several times), prostitution, drug sales and usage, drunkards, welfare, scams, etc. None of this struck me as "glamorous". I saw that, even if one had money, one could do a lot of stupid things with it.

So for me and my siblings, having money AND using it wisely became an important lesson from childhood. We did not think of it explicitly as "FI", but as having enough money to take care of our families and not be in debt to others or depend upon others". Which I guess is a major component of FI :).
 
My mother was widowed when I was about 18 months old. My father had three farms and a grocery store in a very small town. I think he was kind of a large fish in a very very small pond but I’m sure that gave my mother financial security at the time. She also quit her job at some point before the marriage. After he died and the property was divided among the survivors, my mother’s security probably declined considerably. We moved to a larger town and my mother began working in a factory. A few years later she remarried and didn’t have to work anymore.

Lesson learned, if you marry don’t quit your job, still protect yourself, anything can happen.
 
I remember having plenty to eat and good health/dental insurance and even as a kid thinking this is a lifestyle Id like to maintain or improve upon. But I was much "ashamed" that our house was boring brown on the outside when all my friends' houses were a color. I did not appreciate real cedar siding on a house sitting on a hundred acres. I never knew and honestly still don't know if we were considered rich or poor. I prob looked poor bc my parents didn't entertain expensive clothing/vehicles/etc. But we did have ballet/piano lessons/voice lessons/marching band/orchestra instrument rentals/field trip money. But my parents were prob considered upper middle or better. Would now know if from my Dad plowing his garden with a mule in overalls on a regular basis. He actually wore dress pants to my modest wedding which was pretty fancy for him. Ironically, my best friend from college was the same way. On one hand her family seemed almost impoverished, and then on the other hand they seemed to do well. Never did know, still don't care.
 
Dad owned a commercial construction business and Mom was the secretary/bookkeeper. Selling the business was their retirement plan. We lived modestly until things went south when interest rates soared which dried up the building industry and a couple of customers could not pay for their buildings that had been constructed. The results had a profound impact on me. I vowed I would never put myself in a position where my success was so dependent on outside forces.

A high school teacher also had a profound impact on me. I told her I was planning to become a secretary when I graduated from HS. She challenged me to dream bigger and made me believe that I could make it happen if I worked hard at it. At 16, I started working 40 hours/week (nights and weekends) and put myself through college. Was the first in my family to graduate from college.

After college, I got an entry level job at mega corp. I worked hard, practiced LBYM, saved every bonus earned, and put our kids through college. I retired at 55 from a middle/upper management position.
 
Like many others here, I simply did not want to remain poor. Also, I witnessed so many poor decisions and wanted to do better.

I'm profoundly grateful for the opportunities that allowed me to make use of a gift (truly, I did nothing to deserve it) for logic and mathematics. I'm deeply saddened by the children who don't have the same opportunities.
 
I grew up middle class. Mother and Father divorced when I was two. Mother remarried in 1964 to who is now the man I consider my "dad". Mother always worked full time. Always had food on the table and we would get new clothes at the beginning of the school year and at Christmas.

Never missed a meal, but didn't have lots of treats in the house. Mother always found the money for us to go on school/church field trips. Money was never discussed but I did see my mom with pencil and pad in had making budgets for my whole life. (Guess those memories rubbed off on me.)

I am the only child of 4 who learned to manage their money. Sisters are now trying to figure out how to retire while DH and I have been retired for 4 years.
 
We had enough money to keep food on the table and for some luxuries such as above-ground swimming pool and some low-end vacations some year. My mom was in and out of the workforce in the 1970s as the jobs in her field went overseas. She freelanced from home for a few years before going to a trade school to change careers. That was helpful in the 1980s when my younger brother and I went to college, and to pay off the home equity loan from adding a partial second floor onto the house.


When I was a kid, I remember helping my mom go through the bills, doing small tasks such as sealing and stamping envelopes and organizing the bills in her notebook. Her organization, and the way my dad's dad organized his files, imprinted onto me the need to be able to keep my files organized in my adult life.


It as also my mom who got me started with after-tax investing, introducing me to a home-state tax-free muni bond fund instead of using a bank to hold all my savings. It's too bad she died in 1995 (age 59) just when my portfolio was beginning to take off with the 1990s booming economy and never was able to see me as an early retiree.
 
We were not poor, although I remember when I was small my mother would run out of money at the end of the week and bring back the milk bottles to get the deposit back to buy dinner. The memories of hardship were not mine, but what were told to me by my parents and grandparents.

Dad was financially responsible, and taught me to be financially responsible, so I would say that I learned that from him. 5/6 of my kiddos are financially responsible. I drilled it into them. The one who isn't says he takes after his father.

My husband was very, very poor when he was small. (Not this country) No running water in the house, no electricity. His mother would have to take the bread to the baker to use their oven to bake it. There was a kerosene heater for the two room house which had to be turned off at night, and they would bundle up to keep warm. They had chickens which helped, and his father hunted to supplement. DH says his parents would not let the children go hungry. I remember him telling me that he used to walk to town, and watch cartoons through the window of a shop that sold tvs.

When he came to this country (by himself as a young adult) he did have some hungry days and short periods with no roof over his head.

DH is not frugal. He doesn't appear to worry about running out of money, but is always spending on the kids (and me) and is obsessed about keeping a lot of food in the house, and cooking and feeding the family.
 
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Love this thread. I can't say anything better then what has been said. In short, yup. Totally influenced my LBYM. That and a Grandfather who supported a family throughout the Great Depression. When other kids where watching Woddy Woodpecker me and Gramps were watching Wall Street Week in Review.
 
My childhood definitely was influential. For two years after my DF lost his job we lived (5 of us) in a one room basement apartment in a true ghetto. I remember it well and I never wanted to be in a position where a setback would result in that life. To this day I still mention it when someone asks why we saved so much. "I don't ever want to revisit that basement (or that ghetto)."
 
Car-Guy said:
As a kid, we had food, clothing and shelter but not much more. I learned early on that if I wanted more I was going to have to work for it. Started working full time (after school) at ~14 and didn't stop until I was 60.
Click to expand...

My upbringing was like Car Guy's. Got a morning paper route in 6th grade. The rest of it I would rather not discuss here...


Learned a lot in childhood and decided to live a different kind of life. Was able to ER at age 53. DW and I have two wonderful children that both pinch nickels and dimes. They learned this from DW and I. :)
 
My dad died when I was 21 years old and he had $50,000 in business debt - that was big in the 1980s. Being the eldest with 4 younger brothers ages 10-19 and a stay-at-home mom, I became the man of the house. We had a low-budget caterer who provided us budgeted food which we pick up at lunchtime in a 4-stackable stainless steel lunch box, so I pretty much knew exactly the food cost every month. All costs were accounted for. Eventually, eliminated the family debts, put all my 4 brothers to college and they all graduated. I then left home to apply for free scholarships around the world, and ended up with 2 master's degree and a PhD. It's good to go through some of these life challenges.
 
My dad was an alcoholic. Went bankrupt with his businesses 3 times. Had to take our savings from our birthdays and communions and so forth. Almost lost the house. Mom went to back to work full time at age 50.



My husband grew up poor. His dad was an auto mechanic. His mom was ill and died when he was 16. He was even placed in Catholic Charities for awhile with his sisters. He was also an auto mechanic and dropped out of high school.


We still had good work ethic. Both working since we were age 16. Worked our way up. Bought a handyman special when we got married at age 21. Husband got his GED and got a decent job with a Fortune 500 company eventually in his 40's. Frugal and saved money, but still enjoyed life cautiously.



Security is everything to me.
 
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