My wife and I were chatting about our childhood days and somehow this led to a conversation on how our finance perspectives have changed over the years.
Measuring wealth by the weight of piggy bank !
Going back to my primary school days, the measurement of my wealth was
initially by the weight of my piggy bank rather than by conventional numerical digits. Then, my father would give me a $1 coin every day for my pocket money and at the end of the day, I would drop all the coins into my piggy
bank which is really just a plastic cylindrical can. It brought me tremendous joy upon hearing the echo of the coins as they dropped in. After that I would hold the can in my hands to feel the difference in weight. Every slight
increase in weight made me feel richer as days went by. After the can has been filled up, I would proudly declare to my parents that it was time for them to get me another piggy bank.
Learning to earn “free money” !
It was not long before the national bank came to our school to help young
students open a bank account. My “wealth” was suddenly transformed into a small and thin book. It was depressing at the start. However, I soon found out, to great joy, that the bank system would make a mistake at the end
of every year by sending me “free money”. At that time, it did not make sense why somebody would give out money for free so I was pretty certain that it was a mistake on their part. Nevertheless, I don’t really care
as long as my “free money” comes in every year. It was only later on that I realised the “free money” is in fact bank interest that I had “earned” by putting money in my bank account. The thought of more money
coming in motivated me to save even more. You could say that this was the start of my investment journey.
Learning the “Art of Financial Prudence”!
At the start of my secondary school days, I began a serious negotiation
for a “pay rise” with my parents. When asked about the amount needed, I confidently replied “$2”. Deal! This negotiation felt like a coup as my pocket money suddenly doubled. Interestingly, I became even more cautious
of my spending after that. Soon, I found myself drinking more from the water cooler instead of buying soft drinks. I also began to target the more “value-for-money” food stalls. When my parents saw that I was prudent in
my spending, they trusted me with more pocket money which increased my wealth further. So this was the “Art of Financial Prudence”!
Looking for Value-For-Money !
I started to socialise more in the 2nd half of my teenage years. Expenses started to rise while my income (pocket money) remained stagnant.
Negotiation with my parents for a “pay rise” failed. This was the time when many of my classmates started to wear more branded items such as Ripcurl, Stussy, Nike etc. Many times, I almost succumbed to peer pressure. Somehow
I resisted the urge to touch my bank account and instead, decided to be more creative with my limited budget such as buying things that look more expensive than it seems (but never illegal goods!!). My teenage experiences
helped to build up my mental resilience and more importantly, shaped my belief in buying only “value-for-money” items. Even better is when the quality item comes at a price that is way below its value. This was the same
philosophy that I adopt for my investment now.
Strong Family Finance to retire together !
My views on finance has changed ever since I got together with my ex-girlfriend-now-wife.
The key shift is in perspective, from an individual (I) to family view (we). This is why we decided to share about our 3 tips on building a happy family financial relationship in our earlier post. In essence, we wanted to
build a strong family finance so that we can retire well together and spend time doing the things that we love.
I hope you enjoyed my sharing and would love to hear how your financial
perspectives changed with time!
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3 Tips on building a Happy Family Finance Relationship
Hi GoHuat,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this article. It brought back childhood memories for me too. I remember that I signed up for POSB bank acct bcos the squirrel mascot was v cute at that time! Luckily I didn’t ‘squirrel’ off the money I saved :p
I guess how your finance management turns out to be depends largely on your parents influence. I’m sure your kids will follow in your footsteps as well :)
Hi EzHuat (bro!),
ReplyDeleteNice to hear your comments! Yea, parents really have a large influence on young children knowingly or unknowingly. It is therefore important that we remain mindful of our actions and words as this would have some form of impact which might seem subtle then but could be permanent in shaping a child's life. We hope that this post will also be a good reminder for ourselves too.
Glad to have you come by and hope to exchange more thoughts with you!
Hi Go Huat, Thanks for sharing your investment journey since childhood days. Parents have a big part to play in nurturing good values eg savings etc to our children. These values will become part of their philosophy in life when they grow up.
ReplyDeleteDear Grace, thanks for your comment! Agree with you that parents have a big part to play for our values in life. :)
ReplyDelete