My Personal Financial History

I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile – I was inspired by Living Almost Large’s Weekly round-up for the PFBloggers. And I’ve finally penned my personal financial history – mostly my job outlook and what I’ve learned from my family. I’ve only been on this personal finance journey for a year, and still have a lot to learn!

Looking back on it, I have worked a lot of jobs. In high school I was a hostess, sometimes waitress at a small chain steakhouse, and at one time an administrative assistant for a local business owner. Oh and clothes folder extraordinaire at American Eagle. In college, I was an after-school nanny for two kids of Harvard professors, babysitter at a local church’s morning care program, towel folder and card swiper front desk gal at a gym, and that’s just the non-professional jobs.

I also interned at a small business publisher in Boston as an editorial assistant. The following year, I was the assistant to a Sony Pictures publicist. And now finally I’m settled into my first post-grad job, working in marketing for a consumer-packaged-goods firm.

None of these are what I’d really like to be doing = writing. I haven’t been audacious enough to pursue this aggressively. I’ve felt the need for a financial cushion before I get to venture out into the non-salaried land of writing the stories and truths I love and think are meaningful to share. I do think it’s important – I just wasn’t raised to rely on my parents for too long. My only worry is that I won’t actually take a break from building that cushion once I get too far down the road.

Though we were more of a doing-just-fine than a well-to-do family, and I wouldn’t quite say my brother or I was “spoiled,” my parents were definitely very giving – they were “we want you to have it” people. Clothes or gadgets or sports gear or some other little trinket, they indulged us, and enjoyed doing it. We weren’t wealthy. Though their sacrifices weren’t always visible to me, I know they must have made them to give that way. That’s one of the things that keeps me a bit scared of becoming a parent – I’m not sure when I’m going to be ready to be that selfless. I think that’s one of the things they taught me: the pleasure of money – being able to spend freely on others, giving them things they like. They didn’t have a lot of self-restraint when it came to buying us things we wanted, and I don’t either now when it comes to gifts. I way overspend on gifts, and I guess that’s where it comes from.

My mom was very diligent about the checkbook – my mom handled all of our expenses. She would do them all at once and mail them off right away. I think that’s the only real lesson imparted that I remember: a general take-care-of-it-first conscientiousness about putting finances in order. Our home was also pretty modest, and I remember it was a very exciting day (and very much known in the house) when my parents had paid off the house. But there was not a great deal of nuance beyond that, and I have had to learn a lot on my own. I do feel like a bit of a bootstraps budgeter at times, but recognize that I’ve had it really good in a lot of ways – no major setbacks and lots of lucky breaks.

That’s my very simple personal finance history. What’s yours? In four paragraphs or four sentences…