How My Parents’ Money Lessons Shape My Future Self
CindyParents are role models to shape your future self. I know my parents aren't perfect but they did their best in raising me and my siblings. From when I little and until now, I have changed a lot and learn about the conept of money. My parents use to budget on almost everything food, bills, wants, and so forth.
Money Lessons From My Parents
1. Save Money
Saving money was a big part in my family since the future is so unpredicatable. Anything can happen like medical bills or natural disasters. My parents always had an emergency fund just in case something was to happen. Seeing them work hard to save a lot of money made me realize that earning money is hard. You want to know where your money goes towards. This is when I learn that your needs are always important than your wants. Certain things matter more than others.
Seeing them save a lot of money to provide for the family helped me realize that money is an important tool that should be used wisely like investment or future uses.
2. Needs Come First
Your needs should always go first before your wants. You should pay for all your needs first before spending on things that you want. Even if you want something you should think about it three times before buying it. My parents always put their money towards their needs before anything else. Once every expenses have been paid, they can buy what they want. However, they rarely buy things because they are not materialistic people. They always think long and hard before buying anything.
3. Do It Yourself
You don't need to hire people to fix all your problems. Back then, my parents would find ways to DIY or fix things themselves because they like challenges. If my clothes had a small hole, my mother would sew it back together instead of throwing it out. Clothes would be toss if there were multiple holes or no one can fit it anymore. My mom was an expert at fixing clothes and still is today. If I had any difficult fixing any of my clothes, she is there to mend them back togther.
As for my dad, he knows how to fix everything as if he was a robot. He be mowing the lawn, fixing or making things around the house, and growing things. If there was a porblem, my dad would figure it out. A while back, a coat hanger was broken, but he did something to fix it without tossing it out.
4. Eating In Is Better Than Out
Everyone knows that eating in is always better than eating out because you watch what you put in your food. Eating at home is so much cheaper and healthier than eating out. My parents eat at home the majority of the time since it was so much healthier and my parents want us to live healthy and long. If you start eating healthy from day one, you'll reduce your risk of getting chronic disease. No one likes to have health problems when they are older.
Once in a while, you can eat out to treat yourself. However, my parents always like to stay home and eat, which is why I learn to stay home and eat most of the time. it saves me lots of money and gas all together.
5. Negotiate
If for some reason a bill get expensive, my mom always want to know why. You should always quesiton everything. Bill shouldn't be different if you have been consistent every month. My mom would call the people and ask them why it was different, and if she doesn't like them, she would switch to a differnt company. Just like buying a car or house, you negotiate to a price you want to pay. Same goes with insurance or phone bills.
If you want something, you have to make a call and ask why. Sometimes negotiating with the people can give you a better deal.
6. Grow Your Food
Not many people grow their own food becuase it takes a lot of time and work because I have seen how much work and effort my parents go through. It's always easy to buy things from the grocery store and call it a day. However, everything is so expensive that my parents want to grow some things at home.
I'm always shock how the different types of fruit we have at home. Every season I'll always be looking forward to eating them especially my dragon fruit.
7. Don't Spend Money You Don't Have
My parents and I don't like debt. We would always try our best to lower our debt as much as possble because interest rate is no joke. My parents hate paying the interest rate. If you don't have the money to buy something, don't even buy because you wil be in debt trying to pay it off.
8. Pay Off Debt Soon
Whenever we have debt like a car note or mortgage, we would pay it off as soon as possible because we don't like to drag our interest rate. The longer it takes you to pay off something, the more interest rate you pay for. Seeing how my parents budget to pay off their debt taught me that debt should be pay off as soon as possible especially your big debt.
9. Compare Prices
Whenever my parents need to buy something they always compare prices at different grocery stores like Walmart, Aldi, Costco, Rouses, etc. because certain things are cheaper. We rarely pay the expensive things unless the other stores don't have it. For food, we usually go to Walmart, Aldi, Costco, and the local Asian Supermarket. As for home things, we go to Ross, TJ Max, Marshall, or Burlington. If certain things can't be found at out local stores, we find things online and compare prices.
10. Do More
You should always be investing in yourself and be better every day. My parents who came to the U.S. back in the days did not know English, and they had to work hard to develop new skills and be independent to survive. By learning and developing new skills, you learn to help yourself and others where you don't have to hire someone to help you.
11. Have a Plan
Everyone has goals in life, and so does my parents. People have financial goals and other future goals they want to achieve in life. My parents always have a plan for almost everything. They love their kids so much that they want what's best for their kids. They have emergency fund, life insurance, a will, a trust fund, and other things that I may not know about.
12. Budget
Everything has a
12. Use your Resources
My parents love to use their resources especially when it's free like our local library and community center. My parents were smart with their money, and they love having free resources if it helps them or their kids. We would use our free resources all the time. When we need books to read or print out things for school, the library is where we would always go. If we needed help with homework, we would go to the community center where there were volunteered people to help people who are struggling. While my siblings and I were getting help with homework and developing out other skillset, my mom would also go to ESL to improve her English, so it was a win0win situation.
13. Be Grateful
My parents always taught my siblings and I to be grateful with what we have because they have seen many people in their country who have it worst than we do. They came to America to give us a better life. We should never compare ourselves or think highly of ourselves because what we have today can be gone tomorrow. You should always express gratitude every day because we have money, a home, clothes, food, and a comfortable life compare to others.
Lessons Learned
My parents had raise my and siblings and I the best as they possibly can, and I am super grateful for all the things they have done from the past and even to this day. They have shape us who we are today through their financial habits and attitudes towards money. These money lessons were super helpful to us because it shape us to who we are today. We became responsible and avoid many costly mistakes thanks to their teachings.
She started her blog, The Money Dreamer, when she realized the 9-5 job was not the lifestyle she wanted anymore. After designing for a while, she wanted a more meaningful life, which was freedom, so she decided to venture out. She took action so that she can live her dream life and decided to help people to live theirs by helping them how to save, budget, and invest.
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