Badass family!

[socaso]

Sometimes I hear about people in tough financial situation because of their families and I feel so lucky to have the family that I have. My parents raised us to be careful with our money and I have to say, all of us do pretty well managing our money. We had the kind of childhood MMM talks about giving his son. We had a large vegetable garden in the summer, camping trips every year, lived in houses that were an appropriate size for the family we had. My mother canned a great deal from the garden so we had surplus during the year. Growing up I saw my parents pursue useful and fun hobbies like sewing and woodworking and they did a lot of things around the house themselves. They always researched large purchases and bragged a little when they got a good deal. My father retired at 58 with a paid-for house and plenty in savings and my mother kept working for a few years because she likes to but she is retired now.

Because of the way I was raised the ideas of frugality really resonate with me and I just wondered if there were any other Mustachians out there with a background like mine?

[Greg]

I wish!  My background is distinctly un-mustachian but I'm in training.

[homeymomma]

I wish too! Sounds amazing... And exactly what we're trying to provide our kids.

I was raised very un-mustachian. My dear mother recently acted shocked and a little offended when I told her we were saving for retirement (we're 27 and 30). She acted like this was the most ridiculous waste of money she could imagine. I didn't know what to say! Lol!

[SisterX]

Childhoods like that are blissful to look back on.  Yep, another lucky one here from a Mustachian family.  In fact, probably the most mustachian person I know IRL is one of my older brothers.  He subtly taught me about self-control by seeing how far he could stretch his Halloween candy!  He's still a model and inspiration to me, as are my other siblings and my parents too.
Even in my extended family, I can't think of any total spendthrifts.  The only one who was possibly in any financial danger recently started following Dave Ramsey to get out of debt, so no worries there.  My aunt once described one of her sons by saying something like, "He never met a dime he didn't part with without a few tears."  It was a compliment.
I think many of us have very, very strong memories of my depression-era grandmother saving this or that or complaining about any waste.  "Why would you throw away a perfectly good lemon peel?" she'd demand as she pulled it out of the garbage.  It shocked me when I grew up and realized that her family was actually lucky during the Depression, they were solidly middle class still and in no danger of starving or anything.  But even so, it affected her so greatly (she was a teenager in the 30s) that she never gave up the lessons and taught all of us.  I am so, so grateful to her for that.

[tmac]

I had a similar upbringing. Lots of outside playtime, camping, not much in the way of designer clothes or frivolous spending. I don't know that they did it on purpose -- they just don't have spendy tastes. They do spend on things that they value -- frugal travel, hobbies, our education, etc. They don't spend money on things they don't -- eating out, fancy hotels, new cars, jewelry, etc. They paid off the house right after our college expenses were done. They've purchased one new car in all these years -- a Prius, for which they paid cash.

My dad is turning 70 this year, and is talking about retiring in 5 years, but I doubt it'll happen. He's an academic, so he'll probably just keep going to work as long as his brain can keep up. It's a pretty good gig -- they just arrived in New Zealand this morning, where they'll spend two months doing experiments related to climate change and getting to know the place. They make similar trips every year. I completely understand why he'd want to keep working.

My mom retired 20 years ago from a job she was good at but never loved. Now she paints and exhibits her work at art shows, cans tomatoes, reads, manages the house and their investments, and acts as a lab assistant on their research trips.

They've got so much money coming in and so few expenses, they just sock it away, and it'll continue after dad really does retire. I have no worries that they'll be fine in retirement, no matter what the future holds.

Recent anecdote: We're moving closer to them this summer, and I was telling my dad about our plan to ditch most of our stuff (for our family of 5) so we could move up with just what will fit in our two cars and a trailer. He was 100% on board. "A cheaper move and you'll end up with just the really important stuff? Perfect!"

[frugally]

My wife has the same background with one key exception - her dad won't stop working until he drops.  They don't have the concept of enough, and just keep hoarding and hoarding "just in case."  It's really sad considering I'm 100% confident they will never need another dime.

[forestbound]

My Dad is 95 and still working! NOT A TYPO! Yes, you read that corrrectly. He is still working because he loves it. He started his own business in the 1940s and now my brothers run it, he mostly just "hangs out" and naps in the office. It's his hobby and his passion. He and my mom raised us right though, having lived through the Great Depression, they did not waste stuff. They had six kids and sent them all to private school and the offered college to all of them. "Waste not, want not" was a common theme in our home.

Of the six kids, there's not a bum in the bunch. They may think that though when I retire before 60!

[horsepoor]

I learned a lot about frugality from my parents, but it really didn't stick to me, because they had pretty low/uneven income most of the time, so I think I saw the frugality as a short-term necessity, rather than a good long-term strategy.  Even during the time when my parents were split and my mom was scraping by, she never missed paying a bill, and I remember her balancing her budget down to the cent each month.  So I spent plenty of time being rather spendy when I finally had what I thought was a good income, and though I never got into financial trouble, I certainly pissed away plenty of money over about 15 years.  Now I'm not very Mustachian, but am definitely reforming my ways, and it is much easier to do with the upbringing that I had.  I know how to sew, cook from scratch, can deal with the house being cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and generally fix/DIY lots of stuff, which makes it so much easier to save money.

Ironically, my dad now has more income than he needs, and he's very frugal/minimalist for the most part, but he will splash out and splurge on things I never could have imagined him buying in the past, like a $$$ high-speed blender, fancy recumbent tricycle and so on (but he still camps and cooks in his van when driving cross-country each year, and lives in a little converted studio in the garage behind one of his rentals when he's in WA).  I think he's really dialed in the sweet spot of spending below his means, and on the things that will last and provide great utility.

[boarder42]

My family was always very frugal eating out was a treat a couple times a month my parents always saved very well and taught us to save well. 

2 years before i found this site i had planned to max out my 401k for the first time.  Instead I ran the numbers and found i could easily retire at 50 probably even 45(i was 25 at the time)  so i decided to enjoy my money now and bought a boat. (which i sold and bought a better one) 

It wasnt until i ran across this site at 27 that i even considered.  Hey you can retire at 35 - 40 if you save more.  so since then i have been on that path.  My parents were great savers but worked til they were 50 and 65.  I will be done with this corporate gig by 37 at the latest.  So glad i found this site.  Its been super eye opening from a how early you can retire and then how to do it as well.  Wife still doesnt beileve me but I was blessed with a good foundation that MMM just built a house on top of.

[CommonCents]

My family was fairly frugal.  My dad was Coast Guard, eventually retiring as a Captain (06).  My mom became a SAHM after we were born - holding a job w/our frequent moves was difficult even after we were old enough that we didn't need daycare.  (She did subsitute teach later on for a bit.)

We:
- Didn't eat out much.  Probably only a few times a year for special occasions.
- Mom could and did craft up a storm.  Very good at sewing.  I'm learning.  Working on my 4th quilt.
- Believed that things ought to last 25+ years and 10+ moves or it was a poorly constructed item.
- Vacationed 1-2 weeks each summer at the Jersey shore, renting the same house with my grandparents/aunt's family.  My grandparents packed up their entire kitchen I swear to bring it down with them, so we only would eat out one special meal during this vacation.  When we were in AK and didn't fly out for this tradition, my parents instead rented a (small) boat and we motored about the coast for a week at a time instead, for 2-3 years.
- Had plenty of activities, but many low cost.  Swimming (a must for a CG family always near water...), scouts, soccer, etc.  My mom traded gymnastic coaching (she had an MA in physical education and taught gymnastics at the Academy before we were born) for gymnastics lessons for us.  They did buy season passes for us for skiing when we were in Alaska as part of their "don't go crazy because of the dark" budget, but we went often enough it cost about $3 a time.
- Bought all cars but one with cash.  That one, due to some weird quirks, they bought on credit because they were paid more to have the money in the bank earning interest.
- Drive their cars 20 years or so, except in two instances: 1) A car was totalled about a year after purchase by a drugged out kid who hit them headon; 2) It's costly to bring a car to Juneau, Alaska, so they sold one car and bought a used replacement while there, which they in turn sold 3 years later to an incoming person.
- Reuse (such as my habit of washing out plastic bags that drives my husband batty)
- Once every week or two we'd have "Smorgasboard" dinner composed of leftovers
- Just well, didn't buy stuff
- Maxed out IRAs as soon as they were offered

But my grandmother - SHE was a hard core MMM, and my mom tells me these days that she would have been proud of me when I report things like couponing for freebies.  She:
- hung her laundry to dry
- had a huge garden...that was considered much smaller than my great-grandparent's
- seriously never ate out except in much much later years
- couponed well before it was cool
- used things for 50 years and never decided to "renovate" a kitchen or such

My parents are a lot less frugal these days in their quasi retirement than they used to be.  I actually feel bad I eat out a lot more than they ever did - but I also remind myself we both work (and DH refuses to cook), so it's hard to compare exactly.

[Hedge_87]

I would say I learned a lot from my parents. I thought we where normal until I ventured out in to the world and saw the craziness.
We mostly hung our clothes out on the line
Anytime we went to ball games or anything where we were going to be gone long enough to warrant eating while not at home we packed food with us in a big cooler
Didn't have cable until I was in high school
Was the last of my friends to get a home computer (dad finally needed one for work related stuff)
Spent most summer nights out on the patio grilling and playing basketball or football (some times the games got intense and the burgers got burned lol)
They finally traded in the 97 Chevy this year and paid cash for their new used vehicle
We didn't even have AC until one summer my freshman year when it was hitting 100's just about every day

I was pretty frugal before and I found mmm while trying to solve the first world problem of what do I do with all this extra money lol. Then I got digging into it and found even somethings I could cut

[BPA]

:)  My 17 year old daughter hates my frugality.  She is now living with her dad and berates me all of the time for being poor (but I have more money than her dad just a far more modest house, and no car).

Currently she is working very hard in school so that she can have a high paying job (which is totally great), but I know she plans to be Spendy McSpenderson when she has a career.

I wonder what she'll think when she's my age.

[socaso]

:)  My 17 year old daughter hates my frugality.  She is now living with her dad and berates me all of the time for being poor (but I have more money than her dad just a far more modest house, and no car).

Currently she is working very hard in school so that she can have a high paying job (which is totally great), but I know she plans to be Spendy McSpenderson when she has a career.

I wonder what she'll think when she's my age.

There's a good chance she might come around. I rolled my eyes a lot at my parent's frugality when I was a teenager but by the time I was 25 I was obsessed with the Tightwad Gazette and practicing frugality in my own life. Teenagers always think they are going to be 180 degrees from how they were raised when they become adults.

[BPA]

:)  My 17 year old daughter hates my frugality.  She is now living with her dad and berates me all of the time for being poor (but I have more money than her dad just a far more modest house, and no car).

Currently she is working very hard in school so that she can have a high paying job (which is totally great), but I know she plans to be Spendy McSpenderson when she has a career.

I wonder what she'll think when she's my age.

There's a good chance she might come around. I rolled my eyes a lot at my parent's frugality when I was a teenager but by the time I was 25 I was obsessed with the Tightwad Gazette and practicing frugality in my own life. Teenagers always think they are going to be 180 degrees from how they were raised when they become adults.

Thanks. Rebellion is normal, for sure.  Her dad and his wife live a more traditional spendy life and she likes living in the more upscale neighbourhood and having her own bathroom.  It will be interesting to see what she thinks when I retire 20 years before her dad.  Her brother is completely happy living with me, but when I bought a new stove he said, "Wow.  This is nice.  It's like something Dad would buy."  The kids in our blue collar neighbourhood are nicer to him than in his dad's neighbourhood, and he likes his school.  Funny thing is that my daughter prefers the high school here to the upscale one where her dad lives.

[HairyUpperLip]

Those of you that grew up with these types of families...

Did you realize your parents were frugal growing up?
Did they openly explain/teach their methods of saving money to you?
Did you think you were poor/lower class growing up?
Did you enjoy or dislike their methods as a child?

Just curious. Thanks.

[socaso]

Those of you that grew up with these types of families...

Did you realize your parents were frugal growing up?
Did they openly explain/teach their methods of saving money to you?
Did you think you were poor/lower class growing up?
Did you enjoy or dislike their methods as a child?

Just curious. Thanks.

In response to your questions: yes, I knew they were frugal growing up because they would cite money as reasons for or against doing things. For instance my mother would often refuse to buy me frivolous things I asked for and say, "You can't have that but you WILL go to college." They did not explain their savings methods to me when I was young, which I think was  a mistake and I intend to parent a bit differently on that score. I did think we were poor growing up but around high school I started to realize that the reason they didn't discuss money with us was because they were doing better financially than a lot of people in the small town where we lived and they were concerned that we kids might blab or brag. I would say I enjoyed a lot of the things they did. They were more concerned with giving us cool experience than material possessions. I got to go to summer camp quite a few summers and we always took one or two vacations a summer, some camping, sometimes to the beach. Other kids who I thought were wealthier than my family never seemed to go on family vacations or to summer camp and I realized when I was older that this was because they couldn't afford to. There were some times when their frugality bummed me out. More than once I requested an expensive item for Christmas and said that I would be happy if that was the only thing I received but I don't think they ever believed me because I would get a cheap version of whatever I asked for and other presents, too. I think they believed I would always prefer quantity to quality. Mostly it was a pretty idyllic upbringing.

[CommonCents]

Did you realize your parents were frugal growing up?
Not a younger age (except being bummed we didn't go out to eat fast food after church every Sunday like my best friend did).  At about high school, maybe - but I also started to get to know some friends who were much poorer than me at that time, and I realized while some people did have more than us, we actually had more than quite a few of my friends.  (Note: I moved a lot growing up, so it's not like I knew these people all my life and had a sudden epiphany.)

Did they openly explain/teach their methods of saving money to you
Certain aspects, yes, they were clear we didn't buy lots of things in order to save money for retirement and that they had budgets for things.  They didn't explain everything, but enough, and I could always ask questions if I wanted.  I also knew at some point my dad invested in stocks (at least 7th grade, because we had a class project related to it, which I asked dad for help on but he got frustrated that the artificial "rules" were more restrictive than real life).

Did you think you were poor/lower class growing up?
Not at all - I always saw us as middle class.  We had anything we needed, and some things we wanted.  (It just sometimes took a bit to me to realize that some "needs" were really "wants".  I don't think we went around asking for lots of stuff, but my sister probably did more of it than me or my brother.)  This came home to me in high school, when a friend's parents had to declare bankruptcy.  I did in high school realize there were people wealthier than us, but until then it didn't really register.

[ETA: As an adult, I'm actually by some things kids DO demand from parents.  DH's sister apparently demanded they turn her closet into a bathroom at one point, which I think is an incredibly outlandish request to make.  (MIL, a single mom, refused, but according to DH, sister was truly a pain about it.)] 

Did you enjoy or dislike their methods as a child?
I thought it was pretty fair for the most part. 

My sister was probably frustrated that she didn't get more clothes!  I cared less about clothes, so the shopping we did was fine enough for me.  I do remember once absolutely HATING a pair of pants we ordered online (living in AK at the time - shopping was harder) but thinking I couldn't say anything because it would waste money to return it or not wear it.  I told mom that 20 years later and she felt a little bad that I didn't think I could say it to her.

But they agreed to most activities for us, even ones I thought they'd say no to (swim team on top of many other music related activities in high school, and early admission/classes to UCSD my senior year in high school - in retrospect though, had I stayed and gone to UCSD, I probably could have saved a bunch by paying for one less term). 

They just didn't said yes to much "stuff" except for reasonable Christmas/holiday presents. 

And I didn't really notice whether we ate fancy food or not at home - we just always had plenty of food, and some favorite treats.  It also was just "what we did" for not eating out much - I knew it was a treat, but I didn't think there was a lot of life other than that. 

I did hate sharing a room with my sister for many years though.  In high school, we voluntarily shared two rooms (we both wanted a particular one) for 9 months before my mom was the one to call halts to that experiment!

[RootofGood]

I realized my family was frugal, but not that out of the ordinary.  The biggest thing is their high savings rate.  We grew up not dining out a lot, driving modest cars, and with my parents doing a lot of DIY.  The area was somewhat affluent, so plenty of folks had maids, yard service, frequent dining out, the occasional new car or luxury car.  It's not a mcmansion area, just plenty of folks with decent jobs in tech or pharm or college professors. 

I learned how to do a lot of things for myself.  Sew, laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc plus the normal guy stuff like yard work, operating power tools, scraping knuckles underneath the hood. 

[boarder42]

i really didnt realize they were that frugal until more recently. 

For saving money my parents had this awesome system for our allowance.

4 envelopes. each 1/4 of our allowance.

Savings -  this was to save forever
Spending - money could be spent any time
Gifts for others - money for others
Big item - had to save up for an item we really wanted. 

Money could move from any account into savings (excpet gifts for others) and not come out... money could never move to spending but could move out to any account.  big item could go into gifts for others.

when i was 10 they cashed out my dumb savings account at a bank and opened me an etrade account so i could manage money

at 15 when i got my first job my parents offered me a match up to 250 for money i  put into a roth. 

biggest help in college they gave me 2k per year up front and let me decide what to do with it... i'm 27 and this wasnt a ton .. it did increase to 3k the last 2 years... but i had to manage that money all year... i worked as an intern in summers and had scholarships to make up the rest and come out debt free. 

and they just set a good example... i dont know if they ever had a budget but we shopped frugally and rarely ate out. 

[Rural]

Did you realize your parents were frugal growing up?


I did, though I think it took me longer to realize how unfrugal some others were!

Did they openly explain/teach their methods of saving money to you?


As I got older, yes. They could have made it clearer to me that they needed to spend as little as possible but that everything would be okay more clearly when I was three or four.Things were very tight then, and I got very worried. In retrospect, they were building our house (my father built it himself) and all extra money was going there, but I overheard a few worried discussions and observed my mother counting the jars in the pantry a little too carefully, and I got worried. They set me straight in short order once I talked to them, but I worried for what seemed like a very long time to a little kid first.

Did you think you were poor/lower class growing up?


No. I thought everyone ate primarily from their gardens and wore only handed-down clothes from relatives or homemade clothing.

Did you enjoy or dislike their methods as a child?

Mostly, I enjoyed them. There was some conflict over food (I still basically won't eat eggs), but I generally enjoyed almost everything put in front of me. There was one instance of clothing trauma: they bought me new fancy shoes when I started high school as a treat, and some other girl made fun of them. After that I didn't want to wear them anymore, but my mother (and my guilt) pressured me to do so because of what they'd cost. Even decades later I can see those shoes as clearly as if they were in front of me now.


Mostly, though, all was good. Those two specific things stand out in my mind because they were unusual. I still remember every single time I ate out before age 16 or so, clearly, because there were fewer than ten such occasions, and they were all "special." (Most involved fast food.) No way can I remember all the times sitting at the family supper table with homecooked, homegrown food, but it formed who I am in what I think are exclusively positive ways. Growing up in the house I'd watched my father build gave me a real appreciation for him and for what can be done with two hands and determination, just as my mother's garden did.