We have a 3rd grader and an 8th grader and have yet to see the schools (Del Mar Union and San Dieguito Union H.S. districts) teach anything about how to deal with money matters. I agree that it would be a great idea, and is a critical life skill. I’m hoping that when our oldest starts high school next year, she’ll run into something about management of finances within her four years of high school, but I’m not too optimistic.
In the meantime, we’re not waiting for anyone else to teach her.
I grew up in an upper-middle class east coast family where talk of money was somewhat tabboo and considered tacky. I never had a clue about how to manage finances and had to learn the hard way when I had a similar experience to the original poster. When I went off to college, my dad deposited my spending money into a checking account, gave me a checkbook (okay, I’m dating myself…this was in 1980 before kids used credit cards). Although I intellectually understood that it was not possible to get more money out of the account by writing checks in excess of the balance, I still did it…I, too, lived for a short while in blissful ignorance, stuffing my unopened bank statements in a drawer somewhere until I got into major hot water with not only my dad but also several stores where I had written bad checks. It took me a few other missteps with newly ordered credit cards soon after I landed my first job before I truly learned my lesson.
I think what finally helped me become more aware and careful of my finances was that I started working insanely crazy and difficult hours in a very intense and competitive career in NYC…in the beginning, I wasn’t making much money at all yet was surrounded by people who were. I was scraping by to make rent and buy food and began to have this “me against the world” kind of survival mentality about it all. It all felt so difficult, but in a way, it was also a great feeling because it was my first true feeling of being empowered, knowing that my success, financially and otherwise, was solely up to me. I’m sure others here had a similar realization early on, but it took me until my late-20’s to really “get it” and I wish somehow I could magically instill in my kids that knowledge that it’s up to them and them alone to really make it in the world, and that successful money management is a big part of making it – obviously, there are many other important core values/skills, but that’s one that will truly help them feel empowered and secure in the real world.
As a result of my early missteps, I became almost paranoid (in a healthy way) about spending money and not having enough. After a few years, I started moving up the corporate ladder and when I finally was making big bucks, and could afford to spend pretty freely, I realized how hard it had been to make all that money and I didn’t want to let go of it so easily….also, I still had/have that healthy paranoia and memories of not having enough and screwing up with credit cards. As it turns out, I realized that watching my savings grow brought me far more satisfaction than most material stuff. I also realized that things that bring me the most joy don’t cost money anyway (totally hokey but true).
In contrast, my husband learned his lessons early and they stuck with him. He paid his way through college, even though his parents were well off (his father believed that kids shouldn’t even get an allowance so my husband always earned his own spending money). As a result, he valued his money and managed it extremely well throughout his entire life, probably because it was never handed to him as casually as mine was in the early years. He’s not cheap, but he’s definitely thrifty, as I am. We don’t buy stuff, even though we can comfortably afford to buy whatever we want, and we truly do question every purchase…most of the time, we won’t miss the material things we think we want.
Back to the kids…it is tough to teach them because if we lecture about money, it comes out like “blah, blah, blah” and they won’t get it anyway. Still, we don’t want to avoid discussing it because that doesn’t work either. So, we try to not only freely express our values as they relate to money but also make sure that we show by example. We don’t harp on it, but we do let them know that we work hard to be able to live in this wonderful area, have the things we choose to buy, the trips we’re able to take, etc, etc.
We also do a few other things like we’ll match any money that the kids choose to put into their savings accounts. It’s always a dilemma when they either earn or are given a chunk of money as a b’day gift. For example, our older daughter had $50 from babysitting and she realized that she could make it $100 by putting it in her bank account or spend the $50 on random stuff. Hard call for her, but it will hopefully show the benefits of saving.
It’s tough because most of the other kids she goes to school with are given most of what they have and never have to earn it…and these are not small ticket items! Many, many of the kids in 8th grade these days have Blackberries, iPhones, designer sunglasses, $200 jeans, etc, etc, etc. I don’t know if the parents can afford it or not (I imagine most of them can), but still – WHY would they do that?? If our daughter needs jeans, she’s not getting $200 jeans. If she needs sunglasses, we’re not getting Chanel sunglasses. It floors me that most of these kids have this stuff! We can definitely easily afford these things, but we choose not to use our money that way. It’s very difficult for her (and sometimes for us, on her behalf) to resist succumbing to the pressure. Believe me, I do not want my daughter to be the oddball whose parents go overboard by depriving her of any cool stuff. We do buy her her fair share of cool things as gifts on birthdays and holidays, but the amount of material junk these kids amass today is staggering. And then, if they have older siblings, these kids are getting cars and pickup trucks for their 16th birthdays. I always thought that the brand new BMW on the 16th b’day was somewhat of a SoCal myth, but now that I have a child approaching that age, I’ve seen it happen myself. How do we expect these kids to understand the value of money by doing something like that?
Okay, I’ll stop my rant but as you can see, this discussion hit home for me because we grapple with it frequently. The question of how best to prepare our kids for the financial realities of the world is a tough one, and one I also wish the schools would help address.
