I think the difficult family situations meadandale and Cbad describe are exactly what caused them to be more financially cautious and learn how to manage their money well. And I absolutely agree that it is the parents’ responsibility to teach this–leaving it to the schools is not a wise options these days. My parents simply didn’t make an effort to teach me. It may have been because I was a girl and even as late as 1980s in my religiously conservative family, it was simply accepted that I had no need to learn about finances, because I would get married and be a housewife like my mother and her mother before her.
I would have loved for my father, who is an extremely good saver and investor, to take the time to teach me about how finances work, how investments and compounding interest work, and why debt is bad. He raised four kids on a firefighters salary in San Diego county and retired with well over a million dollars in the bank, a 90 percent pension, and two houses owned free and clear. He still buys his clothes at thrift stores and only recently splurged on a 1998 chevy truck with leather seats. Clearly TG and others are instilling these values in their kids, and are to be commended for it.
What I went through in terms of screwing up my finances and credit may have been necessary for me personally to learn from the mistake. Had it not happened, my life may have turned out differently, but the same thing would be true if I had gone to Stanford instead of a nationally-recognized party school. It is what it is at this point.
