Do you ever wander down memory lane and start thinking about how and why things were so different back then? When I was a kid I thought my Light Brite was pretty high tech and now 8 year olds have smart phones and robots that answer all their questions within seconds.
While I miss my Teddy Ruxpin and Cabbage Patch, I don’t exactly miss some of the mentalities about money that were the norm back then. Many of these contributed to the money mess that myself and so many of my friends have found ourselves in. We live in an age where we have more information available to us for FREE without having to leave the house and yet we continue some of the negative patterns that we learned from our childhoods that aren’t serving us.
So let’s break down a handful of the out dated money mentalities you should avoid:
You will learn about money at school or from your parents
How many times have you said something like “I wish they would have taught me about taxes in school instead of parallelograms!” While many schools do touch on personal finance, there simply isn’t enough time to devote to the subject to teach everything you need to know. So if you have kids, be ready to teach them! These are important life skills they won’t get if we’re not taking charge of learning for ourselves so we can pass it on to them.
The most common story I hear on this subject is that their parents did the best they could but they didn’t know anything about money so they passed their bad money habits and attitudes on to them. The good news is we have access to everything we need to know for free! You can start learning today!
If you work hard and are a good person you’ll do fine financially
I wish this one was true. I really do. While hard work is so important, some of the hardest working and nicest people I know are still broke. I tend to be a free spirit and have a very optimistic outlook which hasn’t served me in this area. I just always assumed everything would work out. But the harsh reality is, if you don’t make enough to cover your bills and put money away, everything isn’t going to be alright. If you don’t create and stick to a budget, you’re going to forever be wondering where your money goes.
To avoid spending money, stay out of stores so you won’t be tempted
Have you ever accidentally ended up at Target with a cart full of Dollar Spot stuff? Ok me too so I definitely think staying out of stores is a good idea. However, our parents weren’t marketed to the way we are today. Even if you stay out of stores it follows you. Heck there are probably ads right here on this blog post staring at you. Emails, instagram, easy click to buy websites (ahem… Amazon), it’s constantly in front of you. The good news is, just like you can stay out of stores, you can delete apps from your phone, you can unsubscribe from that Old Navy email list that sends you sales on the daily, and you can unfollow instagram accounts that have you feeling like you need ALL.THE.THINGS.
You have to get a 4 year degree in order to be anything in life so do whatever you need to do to go to college
I am super pro education so hear my heart on this one. I think college is a great thing for a lot of people. If you want to be a nurse, or an engineer, or a lawyer, then yeah, duh. College will be necessary for a lot of people. But for a lot of other people, especially those who aren’t sure what they even want to do, insisting that they take on upwards of hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt if they want to have any chance at a successful life is coocoo for cocoa puffs!
I took a super informal poll on my instagram page a while back asking people to answer 2 questions:
- Does their current job require them to have a specific degree? (ie if you want to be a nurse you have to have a nursing degree)
- Does their current job require them to have a degree of any kind? (meaning it doesn’t matter what their degree is in, but they need to have some kind of a degree for their job.)
Want to know what the results were? It was just about 50% yes/ 50% no for both questions. So while college is great for some kids, why are we stressing kids out and strapping them with crippling student loan debt when the likelihood that they won’t be able to get a job without it is very slim?
As a mom your 2 choices are to be a stay at home mom or a working mom
This is one of my favorites because while it used to seem like there weren’t as many options for moms, there are so many ways for a mom to be a little bit of both. I mean just a few weeks ago I bought coffee at a coffee shop owned by a mom, had a playdate with a stay at home mom and her kids, bought a new dress from a mom that has her own online boutique and then met a friend for drinks who works Monday through Friday in corporate America. What a time to be alive! When I was growing up my mom needed to work for us to be able to live comfortably and there really wasn’t any work from home opportunities, or even flexible work schedules. I think she would have jumped at the chance to find something that allowed her to work when, where and how she wanted. I know we have a ways to go when it comes to work/life balance but we’re a lot closer than we used to be.
When it comes to your money, outdated advice can be about as bad as some of the fashion from the 80’s. At least with bad fashion, you only get reminded of your mistakes when you bust out the pictures. Bad money mistakes can last a lifetime. So keep learning, and keep working on getting this area of your life solid
. You’ll thank yourself 20 years from now.
<3 Krista