What My Parents Taught Me About Money

What have I learned about money from my parents, many things, actually, some of them good, some of them not so good. I'm going to go over four of them. Four principles that I've learned from them that I learned from them. Number one first, do not sport ever. Doesn't matter if you're making a quarter million dollars, your house is paid up.

Don't splurge on anything. And I only laugh about this one because I remember going. Going to restaurants as a kid, which we didn't do very often, maybe once a month maybe. And, uh, I always wanted to spray always, always, always, always. And, um, I was never allowed, my parents never want us to have soda. I'm not kidding.

I can't even think one time. My whole entire childhood, we ever went up soda and I was low key. Very, very sad, not so sad, but. Righteous indignation against this. And it was hilarious. Second one. I remember going to McDonald's I'll switch, you know, great health food for your kids growing grain. Right. And we would be given one option and only one option burgers, not even fees, burgers, just hamburgers, no cheese.

And they were 49 cents, which tells ya, man, there's some gray in my hair. And the, you know, when you go to McDonald's, so you get the burger and fries. But no, no fries. And I laugh because I look back and it's such a small thing, cause it really doesn't matter. But man, again, right. Just ignorant mission. My brothers and I, that we weren't allowed to have any fries.

It made us so angry. And uh, I look back and I think why, but, but just why, why no dollar fry, why? And, uh, that was just how they were. That was just how my mother and father were. They would not support on anything. Anything, anything, anything minivans, older sedans, nothing brand new, nothing shiny. It was just hilarious.

Hilarious that we live in this beautiful, beautiful I'm in a beautiful neighborhood and everyone's data driving a portion, Mercedes, which was not an exaggeration. And my dad was driving a Nissan. I remember being seriously embarrassed. In sixth or seventh grade that my mother was driving a golden minivan or being so embarrassed.

And I look back and I think to myself, well, how superficial was I? How idiotic can someone be to where if I'm not driving a fancy SUV, which was about what I thought those were back in the day. Um, I wasn't really cool. And I remember thinking, I just looking back upon it. Wow. I was superficial. Second principle.

Pay yourself first and save, save, save. My father had saved a decent amount of money. The first house I lived in when I was younger, bought a home in a nicer neighborhood, uh, when I was a few years old and put a lot of money down because he saved, saved, saved, and it wasn't just for real estate. It was also for the rainy day that may come because there are any day, always, always calms.

He's had a few different real estate. It jumps in my, in my, in my lifetime. And one that he was terminated. Which is not fun for everybody. So he get 90 days. I'm not working. And honestly, I don't know. I don't even remember this. I must've been too young for it. They tells me that. And he said, yeah, it was pretty, it was pretty, uh, pretty difficult.

I mean, anxiety driven. I mean, we're gonna use the word anxiety back in that day. It was, it was simply a, a bad situation. It was bad. It wasn't terrible. It was bad. And thankfully through his withdrawing or. Lack of shiny things, lack of fancy stuff and lack of payments. He was able to go through that with a family of six, which bloody hell six people surviving off one income.

I commend your father. Third one is shiny. Things are for poor people. Now. He never told me that, but he definitely taught me that he drove a Nissan Ultima. My mother would grow up with gold first off, a gray minivan, then a gold pump Voyager and a. That was up. That was that. And I remember this car scratching and being dinged and dented, and that he just wouldn't care.

Like seriously, like things are so replaceable. And I remember thinking, but it's, it's a card so shiny and shiny things didn't matter if anything didn't matter. And then still don't matter. I mean, it's still very much alive and well, they don't matter. And. Those who have really shiny things. Most less they're buying on credit and have no money in the bank.

And I learned that very, very quickly. So it taught me. Hmm. It's a good idea. So in turn, I ended up buying my first car calf when I was 17 for almost $6,000 cost. That was mind blowing. I shaved it that for like two years, it was crazy. And then lastly is keep cash on hand. Banks are great, but what happens when a riot or pandemic comes and they shut the banks down for a little while, what happens when there's unrest and the ATS and the banks are completely closed.

Keeping a little bit of grain on hand is necessary and very, very useful because when everything's shut down and you still need to feed your family, having that money is 100% necessary. So don't keep a ton. But I was taught to keep a little bit trust in case these things happen.

Finances and money. What did you learn? What are the best principles your parents taught you?