Right now I have begun my annual Spring cleaning ritual. I am slowly working through cute boxes of papers, the remaining tiny piles that I still have, and my closets. It’s funny going through the remnants of the past year(s). I find that I feel a bit detached from some of the things that I am sorting through but there are a few exceptions: pictures, cards, and my diaries.
While going through my boxes I stumbled on some of my old journals. It’s not a surprise that I am a blogger. I have been writing down my thoughts for years with varying degrees of depth, eloquence, and honesty. I was particularly surprised by a couple of passages that I read and discovering the role that money played in my life. What reading my childhood journal taught me about my feelings about money:
My Experiences With Money Have
Always Been Negative
This is my ongoing struggle. I was quite saddened by some of what I wrote in my 6th and 7th grade diary. There were of course some funny things about boys and a movie that I went to see…and then there were the comments addressing the role of money in my life at that time.
My parents divorced when I was 7 years old and even before then things were a little tight. After the divorce things were really tight. Everything surrounding money related issues were very stressful and I as a child picked up on it.
Your Children Know What’s Going On
I think that parents want to shield their children from whatever is happening financially. The problem is children pick up on the atmosphere, the tension, and the fear if money is an issue. My mom worked like a dog and still it wasn’t enough. Luckily, we lived in Boulder, Colorado and because of that my mom had access to opportunities for me that wouldn’t have been available in other cities.
I learned all about hard work, focus and drive, and dreaming big…but I didn’t learn about investments, purchasing a home, and savings. My mom was focused on the “now” of making it through each day, keeping a roof over our heads, and keeping us fed. And she did that.
The thing is even though there were a number of people in my family with paid off homes, pensions, and some with very successful businesses conversations about how to make these things happen really didn’t happen. My relatives were told to work hard and not spend what they didn’t have. Which was good advice. Unfortunately, how to grow wealth was not an active conversation in my family at that time.
As I reboot my debt repayment process and dig even deeper I feel even more compassion for people who struggle with money, with feeling a lack of power over their money, and even for people who want to look like they have money when they don’t.
I never learned to have power over money, money has always had power over me. This is at the heart of what I’m trying to change. I have to say that at this moment I am the most empowered I’ve ever been in money dealings with money.
The past 3 years I’ve worked on my “why” Why did I do the things that I did with my money? Why did I believe that I could never have control over my money? Well, it didn’t surprise me after reading my diary.
I wanted to cry for that kid and now I am even more committed to finishing my journey so that I can help other people as they work through their journey. I’m not there yet-but I will be soon.
So, when I read comments asking why people didn’t do something different with their finances I would ask about how they grew up and what conversations were had in their families about money.
And then I would ask-how do we help people to take control over their thoughts in order to be empowered and change their lives?
It has taken me 3 years and a lot of self-reflection to get to this point. While reading my diary was painful, I feel really proud of my mom, of myself, and amazed at how my feelings about money have changed over time.
If you’re struggling with money, maybe you should start with thinking about your childhood and the role that money played in it. If it was a negative experience think about how you can change your experience to a positive one. Work on being the boss of your money. Work on your self-esteem, take classes on money and investments, read books, surround yourself with positive people, and slowly but surely things will change.
And Pay Cash For Everything 🙂
What Were Your Childhood Memories Concerning Money? Good or Bad?
How Do Those Experiences Affect You Now?
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What a great, reflective post. Our money experiences as a child do a lot to shape how we treat money as adults, but as we learn from each other and grow in our financial knowledge I think we change our past and help our futures to be better financially. At least we are making an effort to change it!
As I went through those journals all I could think of was “wow!” Things were definitely not going as smoothly as my mother would have liked financially. I just think that sometimes you have to really reflect and meditate on the money experiences that you’ve had before being able to move forward.
I wish I still had my diaries from sixth and seventh grade but who knows where they ended up (or who read them). But I do have all my journals I stated from freshman year and college and later, and every once in awhile I go through them and have to laugh because there is a them that runs throughout the years that I write: “I need to stop spending money.” I guess having a full time job at the time I ignored my own advice…until I really HAD to take advice from the younger me.
Isn’t it funny the stuff that we know what we shouldn’t be doing?! It’s so annoying and weird. But, those journals are also very funny to read-so much drama.
Money messages were pretty mixed growing up. My dad was a spender. Not crazily so, but if he saw something he wanted, he bought it. My mom was a saver, and that caused problems. I saw her scrimp and save while he spent without much thought.
So there’s a part of me that really hates it when I spend too freely. Not that I do, necessarily, but now that each and every purchase doesn’t have to be agonized over… Well, I’m calmer about buying things that aren’t strictly vital. But there’s still a part of me that will feel too much like my dad, which is not a pleasant association.
I didn’t even want to get into what messages I got from my dad (not good ones) even though he has done very well in life. I just can’t believe how much those childhood experiences still affect me today. Sigh.
I really wish I had some of my old journals from when I was younger. This post makes me want to go back and read the ones I do have.
Thankfully, I did learn how to be fairly responsible with money from my family. They were usually pretty good about saving and avoiding debt. But I didn’t learn much on the earning front. Thankfully I’m figuring out investing on my own, but I still tend to be very conservative when it comes to employment. It’s hard for me to shake the notion that I’m lucky to have a job at all and look for bigger and better opportunities.
Childhood journals are so weird and interesting to read. I’m hardly surprised that I have a schizophrenic attitude towards money given all of the consistently confusing messages I got. I never was taught to be irresponsible with money. There just was a complete lack of conversation concerning money habits and growing wealth. Working hard was always emphasized but long-term money growth just wasn’t a conversation-we were in survival mode. I find your point about having an employer very interesting. My Grandma is having a hard time understanding that I will be working for myself…even though several of her brothers are very successful businessmen. I think she equates employment with security and during the time that she worked that was pretty true. I don’t think that’s the case anymore.