4 Financial Foundations My Parents Taught Me

My parents, Linda and Craig (when they were young.)

My posts aren’t usually financially focused, but I do get a handful of questions now and then about how I’ve found enough financial freedom not to have been “employed” by anyone since 2013. So, I’ll start folding in some personal money-types of stories into my regular writing. One recent question was, “Did you learn about money from your parents?”

My folks were not great with money. They grew up in struggling families and were able to do more for us than their parents had for them. They shared what they knew and understood to help me get a better foothold in life than what they had. I think they gave me a solid start.

My dad was a heavy equipment operator, mechanic, sand & gravel company owner, and entrepreneur-failed many times over. He was also a Vietnam Veteran that struggled severely with PTSD. He talked quite a lot about his earning ability during my teen years, when I was least interested in listening.

Throughout the majority of my life, my mom was a stay-at-home mom. She was great at it. When my dad would start various projects, companies, and experiments, she was usually the bookkeeper/accountant; she had formal experience with that work in her pre-married life.

We spent a lot of January and February nights together as a family, sorting receipts and filling out large paper accounting…