Funny childhood ideas of money?

[greekislandgirl]

Did you (or do your children) have funny ideas about money?

When I was little, I always went with my mom to the supermarket, and she always wrote a check. I thought that that was all she had to do. (I didn't realize that there had to be money in a bank account.) So whenever she would say that something was too expensive, I had a very hard time understanding why she couldn't just write a check. I thought it meant she didn't have any checks left.

When I was 8 (so not that little!) my parents were thinking about moving to another house, so every weekend morning they would sit at the table going over the real estate section of the newspaper. One would read an ad, and the other would say "How much?" And the answer would be "Three hundred." Or "Four hundred." Since I had at least a few hundred dollars of my own, I was SO excited, I thought we could afford a huge mansion. I had no idea that they were just leaving of "thousand" at the end. I actually remember going up to my room and jumping up and down on the bed in glee at the thought of moving to a huge mansion! LOL.

[WV_mom_of2]

There was very little talk about money in my home when I was a child. If you asked my parents any question about it you were told "it's none of your business." So I didn't really think about money much.

My dd used to say "can't you just write a check" or "put it on your credit card!" LOL

[PlainCash4]

I remember when i was around 8 or 9 , my dad and i were going somewhere and he stopped at the bank and pulled out his ATM card. This was in the early to mid 70;'s so i guess they were a fairly new thing. MY first thought was "Man ! where did he get that wonderful card !" He just pushed it in the slot and out came a small stack of money !" When i asked him, he told me ( as he tried to keep from laughing) "You have to have money IN your account to use it."

Boy what a let down that was ! LOL

[Ponderer]

Money was definitely not talked about in my house when growing up. I know now just how tight my parents budget was but as I look back, they did a wonderful job of making us feel safe and secure and we always had something to eat and something to wear and a house we lived in that was clean.

Being the youngest of 7 children with a father who worked a factory job and a SAHM, I now see the poor times we had that I didn't realize when I was young.

[pollypurebred39]

Hmmm...Well, my Mom took us with her every week to deposit her paycheck. After which we went grocery shopping because now there was money in the account to do so. When we needed something for school, or like a new pair of shoes, she always had her little EF (cookie jar) We knew that was there because my Mother put money into faithfully every payday. We saw her do it. We also knew that my Mom would work extra jobs in addition to her full time steel mill job, so she could have a bigger EF (savings that earned interest, imagine that!) For home repairs, car repairs, a sometimes small trips.

My Grandmother had her own EF cookie jar. It provided us kids milk money when we forgot ours.

I never had any idea other than you worked for money, and hoped and prayed you had enough, because when you didn't things became very uncomfortable. Where I grew up, everyone was poor, or very low middle class. If you didn't work like a dog, you didn't eat, you didn't have heat, you wouldn't have electric, etc. If you were one of the lucky ones, like my Mom, you had a factory job. Nope, I never once thought anything other than you've got to hustle out there to survive.

My kids on the other hand thought money grew on trees in our back yard. My youngest truly believed the bank gave you money, and my oldest could not grasp the concept that we could not send him far away, to a prestigious college for years. His first choice was to get a masters in library science. He spent his entire senior year pouting over it, and came dangerously close to failing his senior year because of it.

[oheoh's momma]

when my husband was growing up his mom would say if it 2 cents to go around the world they couldn't get out of their neighborhood. He was wow are we really that poor..

[leighcat]

When I was a kid I would get so mad when my mom wouldn't get me something lol. Money was always tight for us. I didn't realize how poor we were at the time. Its fun to look back now and see how different things are to me now that I am an adult. I can see so many times when we were struggling but as a kid it didn't seem so bad. I can remember collecting cans to turn in for money when we were barely scraping by. As a child it was just a lot of fun walking the side of the road "hunting" for cans. To me it was like a nature walk.

My mom always took me to garage sales and grocery shopping. She taught me to be a bargain shopper. I learned thriftiness from necessity. Even though money is tight for me now, I would still be thrifty if I were rich. I think living on little money for most of my life has taught me some valuable lessons.

I have always tried to teach my kids the value of money. It hasn't always been easy but they understand better than they used to.
I don't always have enough money to give them an allowance. I do give them a few dollars each when I have extra. Then I teach them to spend it wisely. They both love going to garage sales and thrift stores to find bargains! If they save up for something but are a few dollars short, I will usually chip in to help.

[cab54]

Haha!! My son did the same thing as you, greekislandgirl. It was back in the 80's and he said to me once, "why don't you just write them one of those paper things?"

[frugalfranny]

There was very little talk about money in my home when I was a child. If you asked my parents any question about it you were told "it's none of your business."

Pretty much the same at my house.........except they took the money I earned from farm work and gave it back to me when it came time to buy school clothes.......buying my own helped me learn about money.

(my mother sewed TONS of my clothes so I never had to buy much except sweaters, etc. Extra "stuff" I wanted......a purse, some special shoes.)

[imagine]

When I was little my funny misunderstanding of money was:

I could not understand why people paid to go to the public pool when the country club swimming pool was free. LOL Now I know better.

I also thought the city swimming pool was actually named "the public pool" not" the city municipal swimming pool".

[Nana2two]

I was california valley girl that her daddys credit card and went shopping. My dad had a great job making wheels for the moon buggy,I was late child all my sibblings were moved out by the time i hit 12. So i was a spoiled child. Left home at 18 but my dads credit cards didnt come with me.But stilled way of what i could pay for. By the age of 19 i had at least 20 credit cards and at least $25k in debt at age 22 this was in the late 80's. by 94 found my self needing my daddys help. He matched all my payemts so if i payed $100 he put in $ 1oo.Got the debit payed off. never did that again.

[frugalwarrior2]

my dad was old fashioned and cashed his paycheck at work. We didn't have a family checking acct until I was 12. Everything was paid in money orders which we had to go and get. I was always confused as to why if they gave him the money then why didnt it just come in cash to begin w/. I didn't understand the diff. between corporate and the actual store he worked at.
And credit-never heard of it until later in school. Ya see if we needed a loan it came from grandma. And we never had a mortgage as dad bought the house cash. So he never OWNED a credit card until Dbro was in college and he had to rent a car!!!!

[xtena]

My ten year old daughter was flabbergasted the other day when I told her that no, I did not have ten thousand dollars in my checking account. She wanted to know how anybody could not have ten thousand dollars saved up. I couldn't exactly tell her that the nearly two year divorce process with $300 per hour attorney; child custody and battle over the right to continue homeschooling her (thousands more to pay an expert witness) has nearly bankrupted me...I just stated that the cost of living is very high and that very few people in our circle of friends have ten thousand dollars in the bank. I think I will need to incorporate consumer math and budgeting into our homeschool curriculum very soon with real life examples of our daily living expenses so she can figure out how much she would have to earn to live on her own if she were an adult today...

[Sophiasmama]

We didn't have alot...but I remember every 2 weeks on my dads payday...we went to a steakhouse for supper...and they had a salad bar where I could have all the cottage cheese in the world...and we got $5 for pocket money...this was late 80's. I always felt happy and loved...but don't remember much else money wise

[josantoro]

I was born in 1956 and my GM had 25 GKS. SO on my birthday and Christmas I got a card with ONE dollar bill in it. That was great, but I had one aunt who would send a card with a check for THREE dollars in it. That was FANTASTIC!!