Influences on how you think about money

[brewer12345]

Dang!  They had potatoes too!?!  Life really isn't fair.  Worst part about eating squirrels is it takes so many of them to fill you up, and there isn't hardly any meat on the bones.  It's almost as bad as eating snake.   

Oh, I'm pretty sure they ate possum, too. Plenty more meat on possum. Plenty more stink, too.

 

[unclemick]

Hmmmm

Fish and potatoes here. Parents went thru post WWII period waiting for the 'the shoe to drop' even though things got steadily better until they passed.

This year I'm get some minor twinges at times - due to my unfrugalness.

Latent influence Perhaps!

Twelve years of practice and FireCalc says I'm still ok.

But??

heh heh heh heh - arithmetic and emotion are not the same.

 

[Rustic23]

I have to say Parents also, however, reflecting on my siblings: Oldest Brother – spent every dime on hobbies, Next Oldest – not what you would call a saver, inherited about 9 Million from wife’s family (I guess if I knew that I wouldn’t have been much of a saver either), Next oldest believed in Credit Cards “Inflation will make it easier to pay them back” He must have seen the light before he died, house paid off, and no dept to speak of. Sister declared bankruptcy two or three times and will have only SS in retirement. As we all had the same parents, you would think we would have about the same saving and investing habits.

 

[starry night]

Like so many others, it was the good influence and example shown by my parents ("The Greatest Generation", coming through Depression and War Years to build the backbone of America -- gotta love 'em for what they did and mourn their passing).

Reading recommendations: "The Richest Man in Babylon" by George Clason, "Affluenza, The All-Consuming Epidemic" by Scott Simon, and OK, I admit it, I like Paul Krugman's work.

For me, the great emancipation factor is having a greater desire for saving than you do for spending. Remember, it's not how much you MAKE that determines your wealth....it's how much you DON'T SPEND!!

 

[Jarhead*]

Dang!  They had potatoes too!?!  Life really isn't fair.  Worst part about eating squirrels is it takes so many of them to fill you up, and there isn't hardly any meat on the bones.  It's almost as bad as eating snake.   

Justin:  No doubt about it, you are a bona-fide "knuckle-head".

But the fact that you're obviously bright, have a sense of humor, and you're so young, I will restrain myself from further comments.  (Besides that, it's good practice for the times my kids and I get together).

Rock On, Kid

 

[HFWR]

http://www.cmoore.com/funstuff/humor/mp.script.weweresopoor.php

Aye.  In them days, we'd a' been glad to have the price of a cup
    o' tea.
GC: A cup ' COLD tea.
EI: Without milk or sugar.
TG: OR tea!
MP: In a filthy, cracked cup.
EI: We never used to have a cup.  We used to have to drink out of a
    rolled up newspaper.
GC: The best WE could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
TG: But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
MP: Aye.  BECAUSE we were poor.  My old Dad used to say to me, "Money
    doesn't buy you happiness."
EI: 'E was right.  I was happier then and I had NOTHIN'.  We used to
    live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House?  You were lucky to have a HOUSE!  We used to live in one
    room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture.  Half the
    floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for
    fear of FALLING!
TG: You were lucky to have a ROOM!  *We* used to have to live in a
    corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin' in a corridor!  Woulda' been a
    palace to us.  We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish
    tip.  We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting
    fish dumped all over us!  House!?  Hmph.
EI: Well when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered
    by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and
    live in a lake!
TG: You were lucky to have a LAKE!  There were a hundred and sixty
    of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TG: Aye.
MP: You were lucky.  We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in
    a septic tank.  We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the
    morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down
    mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out.  When we got home,
    out Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury.  We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in
    the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to
    work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad
    would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we
    were LUCKY!

 

[Nords]

When I am worried about money, career, etc., I like to remind myself that I am only 2 generations away from havig squirrel and potatoes for dinner (couldn't afford to eat the livestock they raised).

Dang!  They had potatoes too!?!  Life really isn't fair.  Worst part about eating squirrels is it takes so many of them to fill you up, and there isn't hardly any meat on the bones.  It's almost as bad as eating snake.   

When I was in college the campus squirrels used to eat peanuts out of your hand. Or at least within hand's reach.

One day we smelled a distinct cooking odor coming from a good ol' country boy's room. He had a hankering, and he couldn't believe how much ammunition he was saving at the cost of a bag of peanuts...

 

[dusk_to_dawn]

My parents were a big influence because they spent everything they had. When times were good, we bought lots of new stuff. When times were bad, we cut back on everything. I knew that I didn't want to live like that.

After college I lived in europe for a year and I had my dad bring me some investing books. I told him that I knew that I didn't have any money, but when I did, I wanted to know what to do with it. He brought The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need by Andrew Tobias and A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton Malkiel. As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Those books changed my life. Later I read other books and one that got me started on the FI quest was Your Money or Your Life. I have read many others, but those three hit me at the right times and put me on this path. I later found the Early Retirment Forum and was happy to learn that there are lots more crazy people like me out there.

 

[thefed]

I have no idea what influenced me. y mom was usually broke,def a check to check person.My dad(divorced)was selfemployed, and usually had pocket change to throw around (50 to 100 bucks). I loved THAT ability to jsut drop 50 on dinner if you please, and his freedom from a 9-5!

Other than that, I don't know! I have ALWAYS had a NEED and DESIRE to HAVE money. only later in life did I think i NEEDED things that $$ could buy.

Right now, amassing wealth makes me happier than buying stuff.

 

[justin]

Justin: No doubt about it, you are a bona-fide "knuckle-head".

But the fact that you're obviously bright, have a sense of humor, and you're so young, I will restrain myself from further comments. (Besides that, it's good practice for the times my kids and I get together).

Rock On, Kid

How does that saying go? "A bad day being a young knuckle-head is better than a good day being an old Jarhead."

 

[chrisdut]

Nords:
I seem to recall that you were originally from Pennsylvania. Were the squirrels that you mention at Penn State's University Park Campus near the Old Main Building? When I was there, you could get them to eat out of your hand.

I read a Suze Orman book about financial freedom where she mentioned that many people's thoughts about money were shaped from their first money memory. My first money memory was when I was about 4 or 5 years old and watched my dad clean out his wallet. He inadvertantly threw away a $10 bill (do not ask me how you do that). When I brought it to his attention (by pulling his $10 bill out of the trash and asking him why it wasn't "good" anymore), he "rewarded" me by giving me a quarter. If I would have kept my mouth shut I could have been that much closer to retirement. I have no idea how this would have shaped my thoughts about money. Any shrinks out there want to offer their opinion?

 

[Jarhead*]

How does that saying go?  "A bad day being a young knuckle-head is better than a good day being an old Jarhead."   

 

[retire@40]

The ER spark came to me when I was a teenager.  I had seen old people work until they died without enjoying their lives much nor enjoying time with their families.  I knew I didn't want to suffer the same fate and I was determined to do something not to go down that same road.

Then while I was watching a Sugar Ray Leonard fight on TV (I think the Leonard-Hearns fight in 1981), the commentator stated how Leonard saved every single dollar he had earned as a pro fighter and would only live on the investment income.  I decided then that I was going to try to save as much as I could and try doing the same thing.

 

[Sheryl]

I mentioned my Dad's encouragement about investing, but I think the point at which I realized that FIRE was actually possible for me personally and not just some crazy dream was after reading Your Money or Your Life.   That book totally changed my outlook from spender to saver.

 

[bpp]

I never learned anything about money as a kid, except that I somehow picked up a rather passive "feast or famine" attitude about it. After college lived on credit cards for a while. Managed to dig myself out of debt before getting married, but still had no real idea of saving money. My wife, who is a natural-born saver, is really the one who managed to change my attitude. Her brilliant trick was to put me in charge of the family finances. That got me to go from being a spender to being a saver, but still using only ordinary bank accounts. The impending arrival of offspring gave me the kick needed to really think hard about the future, so I called my father and asked what suggestions he had for earning more than a passbook savings account, and he said, "well, you probably want to look into mutual funds." I didn't even know what a mutual fund was, so I started studying up on the net, and eventually made the transition from being a saver to being an investor.

Bpp

 

[SamHouston]

I'm sure that, as most of you have already said, I picked up my inclination to save and prepare for the future from watching how my depression-era parents did it when I was a kid.

But the odd thing to me is that my younger brother grew up in the same exact environment and is a spendthrift to this day...at age 54. My wife has only one brother, and he barely makes it to the next payday, but she's as frugal as I am. I wonder if being the oldest child in each of our families had anything to do with that?

 

[dusk_to_dawn]

I don't think being the oldest has anything to do with it. I am the youngest of my siblings. Dad frequently brags about how much my oldest brother makes but Dad has had to bail him out on many occassions. My other sibling spends everything that comes in. I don't understand how siblings can be so different.

 

[Nords]

I don't understand how siblings can be so different.

Maybe they have different parents!

My brother and I look absolutely nothing like each other. Other than a Y chromosone, there seems to be zero genetic overlap. When we were growing up, people assumed that I resembled our parents and that he was adopted.

When I joined the Navy my family moved from Pittsburgh to Denver. When I'd visit, neighbors/friends would assume that my brother looked like our parents and that I was adopted.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

A mailman joke would obviously be tasteless here.

Oddly, my money influences are...odd. We grew up pretty poor, clinging to windowsills because we couldnt afford floors. Actually we didnt have hot water in any of our apartments and didnt have it until my dad bought his first house, which was a real knocker-downer. The basement used to fill up with about 3' of water a couple of times during the spring rains and there were huge tree trunks with screw jacks on top of them holding the house up

My dad was a depression baby and stock market investor in the 65-75 suckage period, so it was EE bonds for him as an investment plan.

I was on my own from about 16, didnt have a pot to piss in until my 20's. Once i had income I promptly ran up a huge pile of debt with credit cards and a car I couldnt afford. Consolidated that, paid it off, and with few exceptions learned my own lesson about debt. Tried a little investing at the suggestions of a couple of managers, but didnt have much luck with it. 20-something disease...if it didnt work for six months I was done with it and sold. Dumped my retirement plans every time I left a company for cash and took the penalty hits. Started making great money in my 30's and spent most of it.

In other words, about as far from the 'save and invest' route to FIRE as you can get. Stock market and real estate windfalls and a years pay with benefits to walk away from the job thrust me into the position.

Difference I guess is about a million people were similarly thrust and most of them didnt know a good thing when they saw it.

I'd have to say that on whole, my greatest investing/money influences have come from right here at the forum over the last 3 years.

 

[KB]

My dad remembers the depression, being born in 1920. His father was a DDS which was a luxury, not a necessity. So he remembers being poor and was cautious with his money as an adult. He had a good income and invested well, and is in great shape today at almost 86.

He taught me not to get into debt and to invest for the long term, which was the greatest lesson for me. I did run up about 2K credit card debt was I was in my 30s. Once I had 2 kids to support, I was very careful to get out of CC debt and worked on paying off my mortgage as soon as possible. Raising 2 kids on my salary was very tough, so I lived below my means as my salary went up. It all paid off thankfully !!

 

[Outtahere]

The best advice my dad ever gave me was in the form of a question.

I was single, my mortage was at 18% (yea the good ole days) I was going to refinance for a lower rate and thought adding a car on to it would be okay since the one I had was on it's last leg.

His first question

Him "What happens if you can't make your car payment?"

Me " They come and take your car away"

Him " what happens if you can't make your house payment?"

Me (as the light bulb turns on) " Oh............ "

I refinanced down to 13.5% then went for a car loan.

 

[retire@40]

I'd have to say that on whole, my greatest investing/money influences have come from right here at the forum over the last 3 years.

So what are you going to do now that JG is gone?

 

[Trace]

Growing up poor and seeing my parents struggle was a huge motivator for me.  The four-year degree in Finance was also a big influence (time value of money).   I am 36 and should be able to retire in my early 50's. 

 

[Ginger]

Parents were a big influence. They always paid cash for every item. No charge card for them until my dad was in his mid-70's and the bank sent him a charge card. We were out to dinner, and he took out the card and my mom started elbowing him and whispering to him "not to use it." It was really funny, and we all knew it would be dad's first and last time he charged and that he would pay the bill off immediately. Amazing generation that paid for everything in cash, no cell phones, no cable, etc. lived simply.

 

[LRS]

Interesting that someone brought up JG, because he reminds me a lot of my dad.

I spend a lot of posts here ranking out my family, which is not exactly fair since you only get my side of the story. Actually my dad is one of my influences for converting from spendthrift to saver.

Dad was a depression child, and frugal to the point of miserliness. But he never really wanted anything. Material objects had little appeal for him. He retired at age 56, had a paid-off house and no debt. He had a credit card, but as far as I know never used it.

Dad liked to take long walks around town and pick up things he found in the road. He had a collection of tire weights, of all things. He was the sort who would dicker at a garage sale and come away with all sorts of useful objects, books, coats, etc. for next to nothing. He enjoyed riding his bike along the river. He didn't like to travel and pretty much stayed at home doing "nothing", if you call living your life nothing. We would call his savings and income from a pension, ss, and investments inadequate, but it was plenty for him and my mom.

My mom, on the other hand, loved to spend money and chafed at Dad's miserliness. She could really tear through a pile of dough. I guess we kids were grew up confused about money ... I'm glad I finally figured out how to save money and stay out of debt, despite the mixed signals.

And I want to agree about becoming overly miserly: at some point it becomes an obsession, and it is not an attractive one. I'd like to find the balancing point for myself. I'm still searching for it.