Were you money savvy as a youth?

[Bruce Wayne]

What were you like with money when you were younger? Were you afraid of making important decisions?

[Tree0164]

I had my first paper route when I was $13. I think I made maybe $10-$20 a week. My mother made me put 1/2 of it in the bank. My parents taught me alot of saving.

[Snoopy2645]

I was I had a paper route very young too I took over my brothers he was alot older than me I would say I was 7 when I took it over my best friend & I did it together my mom would help us. And from the time I can rembmer I loved money I loved saving it & counting it & I started saving for my first car very young & then after I got that I started saving to move out & buy a trailer or house.

[jmjj215]

I also had a paper route. However, I started saving money only once I was about 17. Then I would save half of everything I took home. Wish saving were so easy now

[miclason]

Sadly enough and strangely enough, I was...I started saving money for a "brand new" car when I was 12...I ended up using the money as downpayment for the apartment when my (now ex) husband and I got married...- I asked for it back now that we sold the apartment, and it went into paying debts! - ...I worked at my parents store since the age of 10 - should have seen the customers' faces when they saw ME at the register!!...LOL! It was an ancient thing and, we had a scale and one of those accounting machines (contometro) next to it, so I would weigh the merchandise, find the price on a list, do the math in the contometro (2lb X $0.50, say) and then input that in my cash register...LOL! - I saved half my money from that...once I started the university, I had more spare time and I started giving English lessons...I didn't save as much, but, I did buy my own gas and my own books for the uni, so my parents (my grandma, actually) paid only for tuition...Later on, when I started working, I saved a fixed amount each payday...I used to save to buy the things that I wanted...unfortunately, bad habits are easy to acquire...ex-hubby was of the mind that why save, if you could just put it into your cc and pay it back in X amount of months (he was disciplined enough to comply with his schedule, though, so if he said he was going to pay for something in 3 months, he did)

[TBH]

Yes, but I'm not sure where it came from. I would get $$ for birthdays from my grandmother, and I don't remember if this was my parents' rule or what but it always went into my savings account. Once I started babysitting etc, that money went in there, too.

My money habits (such as they are) now are mostly thanks to my sister. She is 11 years older than me and she is very pro-budget, pro-saving. She taught me a lot very early about saving, so that the second I got out of college I opened a Roth IRA.

[Armywife]

I was awful when it came to saving money & making financial decisions. It was only until I hit rock bottom that I started learning how to save. Lately I have been spending my time teaching my children how to be smart with money (they have more money than me right now lol)

[cercis]

I was pretty good with money. If my mom gave me $10 for a week at camp, I'd come home with $5+. Unfortunately, I never got to keep that money (my brother actually stole it from me and my parents didnt' really do anything about it). I learned to go ahead and enjoy it and spend it on something I liked because I wasnt' going to get to keep it anyway.

So, then when I got to college, money was so tight that I pretty much needed every dime just to live, but I also didn't deny myself too terribly much - afterall, you might as well enjoy it while you had it, right?

I'm working with my kids to establish different habits. We have a bank for them to save their money - they're saving up for a trip to disney world. What we do is show them that their money is safe and we'll protect it for them (in a few years we'll talk to them about opening a savings bank to put their money there, right now, I put their bday money in my bank and then I put that money into their bank account). I fully expect them to research ways to save money in disneyworld and get the greatest vacation possible.

[robex]

You bet! I started babysitting at age 11, and by 13 had a part time job after school. Within the year I had $1000 saved up. I was always a saver. My older kids (9 and 11) share a paper route and they both like to save. I'm trying to teach them that it's okay to spend some of their money and not feel guilty. I want them to celebrate their hard work!

[marjorie]

I started selling gum to my first communion class! Must have been around 6-7. Had enough $$ saved from babysitting to go to England for a month (staying with my sister) at 16. Once I got married, everything changed, and I learned really BAD habits.

[PrincessPerky]

Yep, good with money as a kid, wonder what happened?

[Fern]

Yes. I think i learned from my immigrant grandparents, my Polish grandmother a dressmaker in a sweat shop, my Polish grandfather a factory foreman, my other German grandfather owner of a gas station and mechanic, Irish grandmother who was a telephone operator. They all saved their money religiously, never got too carried away with spending. Being single also makes you pretty sober about spending, too, cus there's no one else to bail you out.

[tomkat]

Nope. I started making spending money as a church musician when I was 13 or 14, and I spent every dime! Unfortunately, saving was not emphasized in my house. I was not money savvy until I got married 2.5 years ago to a money-savvy man!

[abowers]

I saved money from babysitting and the paper route and mowing lawns, as well as most of the money from relatives for my birthday and christmas. I ended up using most of that saved money toward college tuition.

[dealsaver]

I suppose I was pretty savy. I provided a livery service by picking up fellow students who didn't want to look uncool riding to school in a bus. I usually had 4 passengers and got paid $1 per person per ride. I also had a loan shark business(without the threat of violence). Parents would invariablely pay off any loans that their teenage children were slow in paying(I would throw in free tutoring to clinch repayment).