Money Matters: Learning the hard way
Posted by revdonc on May 17, 2008
I’m curious about what young people are being taught about money. Is anyone teaching you how to earn it and how to manage it once you get some?
Money was a constant struggle for me when I was growing up. Mostly, I didn’t have any. What I needed for school activities I sometimes had to swipe from my grandmother before she used it all to buy alcohol. When I got to college I was often just as broke but at least had work study on campus. It was in graduate school that my education, the hard way, began. I had a nice apartment and car but a very small graduate fellowship. Therefore, I lived on loans and credit cards. Not once had anyone told me that I needed to live within a budget! I met the man who was to become my husband and we doubled the debt. He hadn’t been taught any more than I about how to manage finances. It seems obvious but I learned a couple of things. First, if you buy something with a credit card, the company eventually expects you to pay. Second, you will never get out of debt by paying the minimum on credit cards and continuing to use them. It took bankruptcy and years of being treated like a criminal to fully understand that. Naturally, when I had children money was at the top of my list of subjects to teach. So, why does it sometimes seem as if [young] people have to learn the lessons the hard way instead of listening to wise counsel? Must we always touch the hot stove for ourselves to see if what we are told is really true?
Tell me where you are regarding money. Are you learning the hard way or are you listening to what is being taught?
Garry Cooper said
Money management is one of the unfortunate lessons that are best learned from advisement, but more well understood from first-hand perspective. Just like sports, academics, child rearing, etc. children will always think that they can do better than their parents — mainly because they will not make the same mistakes. Personally, I have tried not to make the same mistakes as my parents, but I have made mistakes, that my parents might have never made.
Most lessons would be best learned from a point of view, that protected the pupil from harm. But such is not life. Sometimes we have to touch the stove, not just to see if its hot. But to see how “hot” it is, and to see if we can withstand such a “burn”. Money is that personal voyage that we have to not only discover for ourselves, our rights and wrongs by experience, but uncover personal boundaries within the walls of “rights and wrongs” to see what is doable.
revdonc said
Does this hold true of all life lessons, Garry? Must one take drugs to see if they really will ruin your life? Must one have unprotected sex to discover if one might get AIDS or another lethal disease? Or is it possible that a person might say, ‘Mama said I shouldn’t do this so I think I won’t?’
Sofia Kim said
Credit card debt is on its all time high with today’s economy. Hopefully people can obtain the help they need to get out of debt.
Charlie Dickerson said
I am living off a credit card at the moment I was doing good by patying more than the minimum earlier in the year, however my aunt threaten to kill me if I didn’t. Now I am almost maxed out and I don’t have a job that will bring me back to where I need to be, I am looking but I still do not know how to wisely give myself a budget because out of the ordinary things happen daily.
revdonc said
Honey, you are on the way because you know that you need a solution. Do the following.
1. Put that credit card somewhere that you will not be able to get to it. You cannot continue to charge things if you hope to get out of the problem.
Pay that on the credit card.
2. Pay SOMETHING every month. Pay at least the minimum balance.
3. Find ways to earn extra money (honest, Godly ways
4. A budget takes into consideration everything so that rarely would you have ‘out of the ordinary things’ to happen. There are many free tools online. I recommend that you go to Crown Financial.
5. If you’ve never done a budget I suggest you write down EVERY DIME YOU SPEND for at least a month. At the end of that time, analyze your spending log. Where did you spend money that you could have saved or used for your bills? This can be very eye-opening!
God will help you with this but you have to be disciplined. Debt can be real bondage! God made you to live free!