My family is interesting as most families are. One of my grandmothers was adopted, and the other lived a very interesting life. My dad’s side of the family grew up in decent circumstances one thing that made it difficult for them was the number of children they had. They had 6 kids, which made expenses expensive, perhaps they would have been higher on the economic ladder had they only had one child.
On my mom’s side, my grandma worked retail for her whole life, she had a cute little house and a husband with her two kids up north. Where my dad’s side grew up in Detroit. My parents met in college, both went to Detroit Mercy, and both of my parents worked very hard and obtained master’s degrees. However, my father had to take 9 gap years in order to get to a place where he was able to afford to go to gain his master’s. Together my parents bought a house in 2002 with their two kids. My mother was a teacher, and my father was in real estate, that was until he quit so he could take care of me and my siblings. Childcare for four children in the U.S. would have just taken up the majority of one of their incomes so they decided this was best.
Growing up my parents were awful with money; I feel as if this set me up poorly for the rest of my life. Seeing my parents struggle to make ends meet was hard. I thought it was because of the job my mom had, or the job my father didn’t have. I always assumed I also played a role in this, that I was at fault. However, this was mostly not the case. The reason they struggled was due to the amount of debt they had, what this debt was from who knows. Yes, they had student loans, however, they were also quite awful at saving and planning. With so many kids’ difficulties do arise, however I don’t feel as if that’s an excuse.
They are a lot better now that we are all grown up, and don’t depend on them financially anymore. However, I am left here wondering what money is. How does it work? I feel as if I know absolutely nothing about the topic. I don’t know how to do my taxes, how to save money efficiently, how can I be mobile if I don’t know how money works. Even though I grew up in the same home my whole life I felt as if my family had been mobile. From hardly being able to afford things, hearing the term “were on a budget this week” never going out to eat to my parents going out every Thursday, planning trips, and things such as that. It makes me jealous, why couldn’t we afford such things when I was a child? In the future I hope not to move up higher than my parents, however, I wish to make smarter choices when it comes to money
