What My Parents Never Taught Me About Money
I love them, but I refuse to follow in their financial footsteps
My family was never poor, but we were always broke.
From the outside, you wouldn’t have known it. We had a nice home with a big yard in a growing suburb. They leased new cars every few years and made regular visits to the theater and enjoyed a decent bottle of wine.
If Instagram had been around in their day, they’d be killing it. But, on paper, the story was wildly different.
The reality was that our house was remortgaged — more than once. Leasing cars meant the payments were never-ending. The tickets to the latest musical were paid for on credit. Nearly every aspect of life was lived beyond their means, and eventually, the stress of their debt led to divorce. They sold the house, ditched the cars, and stopped going to shows. I’d say “lesson learned,” but I’d be lying.
When I was seven, I got my first job — a paper route. Since then, I’ve never not had a job — but for the first 15 years of my working life, my relationship with money closely mimicked that of my…
