My story is similar; Dad was "demoted" from his job managing a district of a large steel company when he was 54. He and Mom landed on their feet- they'd always been savers. They moved to Myrtle Beach, Dad tried his hand at being a stockbroker, became disillusioned for many reasons, and even tried a short stint managing another steel company that was circling the drain. He couldn't prevent it. Mom died in 2016 and Dad is 89 and failing- likely to be moved to a skilled nursing facility after he gets out of rehab due to a stroke over Easter weekend. The resources are there- my siblings in the area have identified a good place and are not frantically searching for a place that accepts Medicaid (he doesn't qualify and we're happy about that).
So- it was an early lesson that you cannot assume that you'll be employed as long as you want to work. I ended up retiring at 61 when politics got toxic. It was a very good decision.
My spending is the "bipolar" type described earlier. I can be a real skinflint in areas that don't matter much to me: clothing (I have plenty, why buy more?), cars (buy used, maintain them, keep till no longer reliable), cleaning my own house and mowing my own lawn. I save my money for Business Class plane tickets and small-ship cruises. Right now that's all on hold, of course.
Another comment on a common theme. Grew up poor, my mother was the rare mom who worked. Dad high school dropout due to horrific family life and not infrequently laid off for lack of work. Kids always sick, lots of medical bills. They didn't make bad decisions, just no opportunity to get ahead. I did lots of reading as a kid and saw that some people fall into good luck, some work hard and are rewarded, and some have terrible outcomes no matter what they did. This terrified me and was determined to not struggle for decades like my parents at least to the best of my ability.
Sold greeting cards door to door at age 10, then did a paper route, got a part-time job after that. Never without a job since age 10 other than the first 2 weeks after our union went on strike in the 80's (after 2 weeks I got a part-time job in a store). Not always good jobs, but employed nonetheless.
Growing up with almost nothing cured me of "wants" - my brain figured out when a long stream of "wants" just goes unsatisfied, it's best to stop wanting. A middle-class living seemed luxurious and still does. A house, a reliable car, a good-paying steady job, enough food? Still incredibly and sincerely thankful for those things. I will not compare myself to others - if I do, it's marveling at how much I have that so many others don't, through no fault of their own in many cases. I will never believe I did it all on my own and thank God for my blessings. Saving for the proverbial rainy day was a top priority so I didn't have to take out terrible loans like my parents did just to survive, keeping them in debt for years.
Drifting a bit off-topic here but for a reason...
When my career blossomed I was able to start helping my parents financially. My dad insisted we could not afford to do it but we forced him to let us help. Some years later we visited my dad a few months after mom passed away. We knew her SS check was no longer coming and had a frank discussion on raising our monthly assistance. At first it was more stonewalling but I just laid it out and said no matter how much he pinched pennies, he cannot afford to live adequately on $19K a year when he's paying $6K of that in rent. He knew I had a good job but I never talked hard numbers with him about our finances. He needed more income but he truly believed we were going to suffer if we gave him more than we already were. So I told him, "Dad, we have a million dollars saved. I promise we can afford it."
He said "No, you don't, you're just saying that to get me to take more money." I asked my wife (in the next room) if it was true that we had a million saved, and she said yes. Then he believed it, and started to cry like a baby. I mean sobbing (the memory makes me tear up even now just writing this). He could not process the idea that one of their kids could ever, EVER do that. So we solved that problem.
We can afford to buy more things and do more things now, but our wants are really nothing. If we go out for a steak dinner, it's still a splurge to us, yet doesn't even register on our budget. But when we can help a friend who is in a bind financially through no fault of their own, and make a real difference in their lives, that's worth more to us than a trip around the world or a new car. We don't need more stuff and we have literally everything we need. So now our tips are much bigger, our donations are bigger. We can read the newsletter from the local food bank and see that more people are being helped and know we were a small part of that. So less frugal in that sense, I suppose.
... At 17 years old and just out of high school (1961), I left this mess behind and went to live on my own. I got a job, bought a $50 car, lived with a school friend, and made it pretty well until Uncle Sam called me for an extended vacation in South East Asia at age 20 ....
I feel like the circumstances of my youth just sort of conspired to make me frugal. We lived in a rural location during my formative years and the main play activity for my friends and myself was to just go outside and play in nature. Build forts; play "baseball" using a broken branch as a bat, pine cones as the ball, and bushes or trees as the bases; football games with a nerf football; hiking and general exploring; that sort of thing. My parents gave me an allowance, but they didn't take me to the store very often, so I didn't really have much to spend it on, or much that I wanted (probably because I wasn't exposed to very many products). I had a happy childhood, so over time I think I came to the subconscious realization that I didn't need to buy things to have fun.
To this day, that seems to have stuck with me. I'm not necessarily actively frugal, I just don't feel a need to buy much.
I think one's level of frugality is a combination of nature and nurture, to varying degrees. Some people are very frugal by nature, they were born that way and that is how they are no matter how they were raised. If someone is extremely frugal by nature it will not matter how they were raised...if they were raised with frugal parents they will cite their parents as their role model, whereas if they were raised by spendthrift parents they will say that they learned from their parents what NOT to do and that their parents' example taught them that they never wanted to struggle with money when they grew up.
I was born naked, wet and poor. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and am now a shining success story and my family worships me.
The End.
I was born naked, wet and poor. I pulled myself up by my bootstraps and am now a shining success story and my family worships me.
The End.
Yes, but I made them myself from a grizzly bear I'd killed and skinned when I was 5.You had bootstraps. Luxury!
Learned it all as an adult by reading finance blogs and books.
My family growing up was the same as everyone else's that lived in our neighbourhood, so I didn't feel like we were poor or anything, but we certainly weren't rich. Dad was an alcoholic who earned good money but pissed it up against the wall before he got home on payday. As an adult I realised that renting for life and worrying about money like my parents had done wasn't the only way to live, so once I decided that I wanted to buy my own home I read as much as I could about how to save and manage money. When I tried to talk to my husband about saving up to buy a house and stop wasting money on drugs, alcohol and junk food he disagreed most strenuously and our marriage broke down as a result.
I moved out with two very young children into a rented flat behind the shop where I worked and started saving like a mad woman. A year later I had a better job and the deposit and a loan approved to buy my first home, as a single mother of two.
Marriage got back on track after that and although my husband and I had different values and goals, I never wavered from wanting financial independence. As my marriage went on the rails once, I realised it could do so again so I was driven to economise and save where ever possible.
Happily the marriage is still on track 41 years later and we have a good retirement fund, own our home, 3 cars and caravan and have enough cash in term deposits to live on for 2 years if we have to. We both retired at age 57 and are living the dream. I still prepare a budget every year and track expenditure closely because it helps me sleep at night.
I learned how to be frugal and we live comfortably now, whilst still spending less than most of our friends. It is a habit that I'll continue to practice till I die.