Yes but some financial advisors will literally tell you that money in savings is slowly decaying and that (besides an emergency fund) you should invest it.
The type of investments they’ll recommend will depend on your risk tolerance and financial goals of course, and probably isn’t likely to include NFTs.
But I could see some 19-20 year old reading a post on instagram that says you should invest instead of saving, and with a very superficial understanding of what that actually means, might easily fall for the very next post or sponsored ad that says “Hey you! Yeah, you. The dumbass who hasn’t bought [inset memecoin here] yet. Why don’t you have any [memecoin]?!? Anyone who’s smart has some already, and look how rich they’re getting! Don’t miss out by being a coward. Own your future. Grindset. Yadda yadda.”
I’m not saying that makes them intelligent, but simply telling them to be “smarter with money” isn’t going to solve the problem, and might actually exacerbate it.
Just telling them to be smart with money is not what I’m talking about though. What I’m talking about is actually modelling and teaching some amount of knowledge about how to save.
Because of course you can’t expect a child to learn a bunch of vital and complex stuff when you don’t attempt to help them. My original reply here was concerning people who actually had been taught something, rather than those who heard some useless vague advice in passing.
I see. That makes sense. Sometimes I forget that some people actually grew up with effective parenting.
Finances were one of many taboo topics in my house growing up. I never even knew a remote approximation of my dad’s salary, or what things like groceries, utilities, healthcare, etc. cost; until I became an adult and had to face those things for myself. I felt pretty blindsided by how expensive life is.
When I was a kid my parents gave me three envelopes and said one’s for saving, one’s for giving to church, and the other’s for spending. Or at least they claimed they told me that, a year later when they found out I was putting all my allowance in the same envelope. But that’s the first I recall ever hearing about their little system.
After that, there was no oversight. No checking in or auditing to make sure I’m doing it right, no instructive moments when they found out I’m doing it wrong. Just scolding and blaming, and shortly after I stopped receiving an allowance because it “wasn’t working” to teach me financial responsibility. As if all it takes is saying “do this” one time and then forgetting it.
It was the same with everything. Hygiene, chores, etc. They thought they could tell a kid with single-digit age “do this” one time and then forget about it and assume it immediately becomes a failproof habit. And then scolding and blaming when years down the line they find out that’s not the case. “I taught you better than this! You’re just being lazy!” Stuff like that.
It’s a foolproof way to instill something: oppositional defiant disorder.
So yeah, sometimes I forget that to some people “parents taught me [such and such] good habit” actually means “modeling good behavior and checking in to verify and make gentle corrections until it actually becomes learned.”
Thanks for this response. I do think our parents were more similar than you’d think. And I hadn’t really examined what I was taught about money as closely as you. I was never taught in anything in a systematic way, it was more like thousands of little interactions about saving money (because we “couldn’t afford” something I wanted, often; or if it was my money, what about things I wanted later?) and also just always knowing we were struggling financially.
For me, it was more than enough to think twice about spending large amounts. Then over the years I combined that sort of thinking with specific saving strategies I taught myself. For me, the constant barrage of recommending I save my money, or that we couldn’t afford something, or that we had to help my dad make some extra money, was enough to make me think about it all before going hog wild. Then I built up an untenable credit card balance in my early twenties and that was a wake up call too. I felt I knew better, so I swore off spending money I didn’t have unless I “had to”.
My siblings though? They didn’t learn shit. They blow most of their money on whatever and afaik they are both still in debt. Every time they get unexpected money they see it as free money to spend. Maybe I should blame my parents more, because they needed more/different guidance? It also doesn’t help them that my parents bail them out financially every couple of years.
Your parents sound eerily like mine though in some ways. A core memory I have is when I was probably about ten I was handed a paintbrush and told to paint my closet. I started about doing it without any instruction whatsoever and was scolded for doing it wrong! I responded that I literally had no idea what I was doing, they didn’t teach me, and only at that point did they teach me to use a paintbrush. But it was like you say, reactive to doing it wrong and nothing proactive at all… I don’t understand how I came out as functional as I did. Because they too did a lot of teaching the lazy way, tell you nothing ahead of time and then get mad when you didn’t know…
Yes but some financial advisors will literally tell you that money in savings is slowly decaying and that (besides an emergency fund) you should invest it.
The type of investments they’ll recommend will depend on your risk tolerance and financial goals of course, and probably isn’t likely to include NFTs.
But I could see some 19-20 year old reading a post on instagram that says you should invest instead of saving, and with a very superficial understanding of what that actually means, might easily fall for the very next post or sponsored ad that says “Hey you! Yeah, you. The dumbass who hasn’t bought [inset memecoin here] yet. Why don’t you have any [memecoin]?!? Anyone who’s smart has some already, and look how rich they’re getting! Don’t miss out by being a coward. Own your future. Grindset. Yadda yadda.”
I’m not saying that makes them intelligent, but simply telling them to be “smarter with money” isn’t going to solve the problem, and might actually exacerbate it.
Just telling them to be smart with money is not what I’m talking about though. What I’m talking about is actually modelling and teaching some amount of knowledge about how to save.
Because of course you can’t expect a child to learn a bunch of vital and complex stuff when you don’t attempt to help them. My original reply here was concerning people who actually had been taught something, rather than those who heard some useless vague advice in passing.
I see. That makes sense. Sometimes I forget that some people actually grew up with effective parenting.
Finances were one of many taboo topics in my house growing up. I never even knew a remote approximation of my dad’s salary, or what things like groceries, utilities, healthcare, etc. cost; until I became an adult and had to face those things for myself. I felt pretty blindsided by how expensive life is.
When I was a kid my parents gave me three envelopes and said one’s for saving, one’s for giving to church, and the other’s for spending. Or at least they claimed they told me that, a year later when they found out I was putting all my allowance in the same envelope. But that’s the first I recall ever hearing about their little system.
After that, there was no oversight. No checking in or auditing to make sure I’m doing it right, no instructive moments when they found out I’m doing it wrong. Just scolding and blaming, and shortly after I stopped receiving an allowance because it “wasn’t working” to teach me financial responsibility. As if all it takes is saying “do this” one time and then forgetting it.
It was the same with everything. Hygiene, chores, etc. They thought they could tell a kid with single-digit age “do this” one time and then forget about it and assume it immediately becomes a failproof habit. And then scolding and blaming when years down the line they find out that’s not the case. “I taught you better than this! You’re just being lazy!” Stuff like that.
It’s a foolproof way to instill something: oppositional defiant disorder.
So yeah, sometimes I forget that to some people “parents taught me [such and such] good habit” actually means “modeling good behavior and checking in to verify and make gentle corrections until it actually becomes learned.”
Thanks for this response. I do think our parents were more similar than you’d think. And I hadn’t really examined what I was taught about money as closely as you. I was never taught in anything in a systematic way, it was more like thousands of little interactions about saving money (because we “couldn’t afford” something I wanted, often; or if it was my money, what about things I wanted later?) and also just always knowing we were struggling financially.
For me, it was more than enough to think twice about spending large amounts. Then over the years I combined that sort of thinking with specific saving strategies I taught myself. For me, the constant barrage of recommending I save my money, or that we couldn’t afford something, or that we had to help my dad make some extra money, was enough to make me think about it all before going hog wild. Then I built up an untenable credit card balance in my early twenties and that was a wake up call too. I felt I knew better, so I swore off spending money I didn’t have unless I “had to”.
My siblings though? They didn’t learn shit. They blow most of their money on whatever and afaik they are both still in debt. Every time they get unexpected money they see it as free money to spend. Maybe I should blame my parents more, because they needed more/different guidance? It also doesn’t help them that my parents bail them out financially every couple of years.
Your parents sound eerily like mine though in some ways. A core memory I have is when I was probably about ten I was handed a paintbrush and told to paint my closet. I started about doing it without any instruction whatsoever and was scolded for doing it wrong! I responded that I literally had no idea what I was doing, they didn’t teach me, and only at that point did they teach me to use a paintbrush. But it was like you say, reactive to doing it wrong and nothing proactive at all… I don’t understand how I came out as functional as I did. Because they too did a lot of teaching the lazy way, tell you nothing ahead of time and then get mad when you didn’t know…