Childhood Money Memories, Part I
The Baglady wrote an interesting post Monday about how childhood memories of money affect your money habits. That post has inspired other personal finance bloggers, including Meg, English Major, and now, me, to think about their childhood money memories.
Here are some of mine:
As a five- or six-year-old, I was a door-to-door salesman. I would pick strawberries from my parents’ garden or make my own books, then go around the neighborhood selling them for ten cents each. I’m not sure how successful I was at this, but I remember thinking my strawberries might be overpriced once I saw how much they cost at the grocery store.
My grandparents gave me a dollar for every A on my report card. I was also usually given a few dollars when I came to visit and told to go buy myself a candy bar. Sometimes they’d give me less than what a candy bar cost though, and I’d think, “When is the last time they bought a candy bar?!?”
When we moved to the country, my sister and I had a lemonade stand. We made elaborate signs and drug a table, chairs and lemonade up to the end of our gravel driveway, which was a few hundred feet from the house. However, we failed to account for the fact that no one was going to stop for lemonade on a country highway with a 55 MPH speed limit, and we went back inside empty-handed. Looking back, it appears that this is where my entrepreneurial streak ended.
In elementary school, I thought we were rich because we had a swimming pool. But I knew we weren’t as rich as my friend Leandra, because she was the first person I knew who had a Nintendo.
In fifth grade, our school took a field trip to “Exchange City,” which is like a fake city where the kids have jobs and learn about money. I applied to be the vice president of the bank, but I ended up being the bookkeeper of the snack shop. I decided that being a bookkeeper is boring, and working in fast food sucks. I envied the kids who worked at the radio station and the newspaper.
In 7th grade, my friend and I were invited to take the PSAT. I was at her house while her dad helped her fill out the application, and when she got to the household income question, he told her they could fill that part out later.I never knew that money was supposed to be “secret” before.
All in all, it seems I was pretty oblivious about money and any financial problems my family might have had up until about 8th grade, when I discovered that having a pool and taking vacations don’t always equate to having money in the bank. But more on that later…
What are your first money memories, and do you notice that they affect the way you handle your money?
5 responses so far
haha very cute. Yeah..I never knew money was secret until I came to America. I wrote about Chinese money habits here though:
http://www.wisebread.com/chinese-money-habits-how-my-culture-influences-my-attitudes-toward-money
i had the pool, too, and the mom who bought whatever she wanted, and it wasn’t until, i guess, college that i really noticed that, umm, my parents weren’t rich, and surmised that my mom must have a lot of CC debt. a lot. oh crikey. now i’m looking at them hitting retirement age and figuring that i have, oh, 34 years to get myself into a much different financial position. debt free or bust!
[...] Thursday, I wrote about my first money memories and how they may have affected the way I handle money today. [...]
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