Money Talk: Did your family have a budget? How did you feel about it?

Are you kidding me?

My parents did not talk about money, expenses, or anything related to what things cost to run a place or feed us kids.

I had ZERO CLUE WHAT THINGS COST.

I had no idea you had to pay for water, a phone, not until I got to the end of high school. Can you believe this? I had no idea about anything, not because I was dumb but because I just wasn’t conscious.

To me life was just happy.

I had stuff to eat, my parents bought me things, everything was great. I didn’t or couldn’t understand what it meant to work to make money to pay for fixed expenses and then fun things ( NO ONE TALKED TO ME ABOUT THIS ), and I think if I had a parent who was more like me today, I would have been much farther ahead financially.

Like by a lot.

I wasn’t made aware of what the situation was, that things cost money, people go to work, etc.

But I guess it makes sense in hindsight my family had no budget because how could they possibly explain and have it make sense to us kids that my father worked minimum wage PART-TIME and my mother was unemployed and in school, and we could afford ALL OF THIS?

It still doesn’t make sense. My parents really lived beyond their means and my father did not understand the meaning of hard work, compounding interest and basic savings principles especially with a growing family he had to clothe and feed.

That is probably why I am so so strict on myself even after years of being out of debt, that I still track every penny I spend…. and more than that, I invest it.

Did your family have a budget? How did you feel about it?

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You can read the rest of the Money Talk questions here.