When you were a kid, did you always get the best stuff? Brand new toys? The latest model? Nothing used? Did you ever have to share?
Or maybe you grew up in a palace? (if that’s the case then I really want to hear your story in the comments below – please, DO NOT hold back!)
It’s a been awhile since I’ve written one of these posts, tapping the keg of my past with that free-flowing inebriating fermented ambrosia of childhood reminiscences that shaped my money mindset, so I figured it was time to dust of the hidden vaults of my cobwebbed mind and resurrect a few golden nuggets of wisdom.
Well, not really, but you get my drift.
I have about 20 more posts outlined for this section, but it’s been a challenge finding the time to accomplish what my lil’ ol’ beating heart desires. Fuck man, time just doesn’t seem to obey my wily will.
Who would have thought, eh?
But today, it’s all about sharing and growing up as one of three siblings in a limited income household (my parents probably wouldn’t appreciate me phrasing it that way, but memories will be memories and take on a life of their own).
Although, I titled this post hand-me-downs, I also want to incorporate used, or mid-tier quality. Think of it like pragmatic spending if you will.
That’s kind of how my parents approached spending for us kids. I could never say if they really couldn’t afford to buy us the best stuff (I believe that is part of it – making do on a single middle-class income while supporting three children for a long period of time), but I think it more had to do with doing your best on a budget, or at least that’s how I like to frame it in my own version of reality.
And to be Frank, I believe one of my greatest lessons growing up, was learning you don’t need the best things to be a success at anything. Sure, they can make you feel badass and special, but in the grand ol’ scheme of things, they really don’t matter.
The choices are up to you.
The best example I can give you, in the limited space of the written word, has to do with sports.
Growing up I was an avid athlete. I remember when we’d go to buy sports equipment, my dad would never get the top-of-the-line baseball mitt, soccer cleats, or hockey skates. It would always be that one tier up from the cheapest model. Really, the best bang for your buck deal.
Now, at the time, I wanted the bling. What kid doesn’t?
You go to the store, you see what everything costs and what is out there. Then on the field of play, you see who has what – little Charlie with the most expensive baseball bat, Johnny wearing soccer cleats made from Persian leather that are more expensive than what even the pro athletes use, and that no name kid neighbor from up the street that shows up to hockey practice in jerseys signed by Gretzky.
It’s the beginning of that social measuring stick that will follow us around for the rest of our lives. The rule of law by comparison – that assess where it is you currently stand in life and where you need to go to achieve that ever elusive yet fully addictive hollow feeling of status.
Sure, it’s sad, trite and unfortunate, but nonetheless a symptom of our society’s obsession with materialism and consumption which boils down to fanning the flames of debilitating and insecure egos that prey on the weak and less fortunate.
But I digress.
Hockey was my favorite sport, and I particularly remember there was this one kid on all my club teams that would always have the latest model of everything every single year. When the new line of $300 skates came out, he had them. Latest graphite $200 sticks, yep, he had five. Cutting edge equipment and helmet – damn, that kid looked good in all that new stuff.
Was I jealous? You bet I was. I wanted all that dope shit for myself.
Yet here’s the thing, I couldn’t grasp at the time (c’mon now, I was a little kid) that all that fancy and expensive equipment, wouldn’t make me a better hockey player. I thought it would at the time, but it wouldn’t. What’s the biggest difference from the current year version to the past year’s version, mostly price. Very little improvement or technological advancement is ever made.
It’s all marketing baby. Kind of like signing up for a FI e-course.
So, if the goal was to be the best athlete I could possibly be, using a heavier stick, or learning to push myself in average skates would actually make me the better player. The athlete that can thrive by practicing with subpar equipment will be more skilled in the long run.
Now I say “subpar” tongue and cheek. I never had “bad” equipment. It was just never the latest model nor most expensive. It was always good quality, yet as a highly influenceable kid, I still had equated quality with price. The most expensive must be the best to a 10-year-old mind, right?
It’s also interesting to note, how we try to overcompensate later in life with what we feel we had been deprived of in our childhood.
There was a time in my late twenties when I began to play competitive hockey again, and now that I had a good paying job and means, I bought myself all the top-of-the-line gear: new skates, elbow pads, shin pads, helmet and sticks. I didn’t really need it, but I felt like I deserved it. I had this chip on my shoulder so to speak.
Kind of like the classic I’ll-show-you-now bug twisting at my insides.
And for a good year, I would waste money on $200 graphite sticks that would break every two weeks and keep doling out the money. I had the cash and didn’t care, until I finally came to my senses and started making do with less expensive sticks and buying the previous season’s models at a discount. Having the best and latest gear, didn’t make me a superior athlete.
It felt good to have all that stuff for a while, but then with everything in life, the glamour fades.
I think we do these unconscious overcompensations in life for things we felt were denied us more often than we realize.
Here’s another quick example that I think is a common theme among those growing up in less “wealthy” households. I use the word “wealthy” here loosely and in the traditional monetary sense.
After watching my parents struggle for years on middle class incomes, it was ingrained in me at a young age that I’d grow up and be a high earner – not that I wanted to be, or thought I’d be, but that I fucking knew I would. I had a fire lit under my ass and the grim determination that borderlines the obsessive devotion of saints, that money would never be an excuse for me or set me back. And then, low and behold. I became a high earner to compensate for a deficiency I felt I had experienced in my youth.
Where is Dr. Phil when you need him? Hahaha.
However, it was never a real deficiency. It was only my interpretation of superficial societal values that I didn’t understand.
Like my misunderstanding in my childhood between price and value, I was still chasing the “metaphorical” best and most expensive equipment in life, instead of nourishing my underlying love for the game i.e., developing real values.
-Q-FI
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What was your childhood like growing up? Any key money lessons from your youth that have shaped how you think today? Were hand-me-downs or sharing among siblings ever involved?
“i felt sorry for a man who had no shoes until i met a man who had no feet.” i think i’ve mentioned before, q, that i grew up very rural in what i now can see as a lower middle class town. there weren’t too many comparisons except wanting some levi’s jeans after a certain age of about 13-14. i still can remember starting track and field in the 8th grade and going out and running 4-5 miles in these cheap-o “allsport” leather basketball high-tops. i must have begged enough because once my folks saw i was going to continue with the sport i ended up with the latest nike “daybreak” model of real running shoes with the bright orange swoosh. i was the shit! they skimped on a lot of sporting stuff but thankfully not decent running shoes. on the other hand we had a plastic soccer ball in the garage and a collection of bats and gloves commandeered from the prison where my dad worked.
i’m glad i played a relatively inexpensive sport via school teams. those hockey parents would spend a fortune on club dues, ice time, travel and equipment. the one place i did compensate for my country ass upbringing was trying out a few nice hotels, travel destinations, and food/wine in my 20’s.
This is why I really enjoy hearing how people grew up and money/things affected them. My story compared to yours, sounds like a little rich kid complaining, while in my own little secluded world I felt less than a lot of other city kids. Just shows how important perspective is, and each of our personal experiences in how we view the world.
Yeah, your rural upbringing was night and day from me, but like you point out, I was able to play some expensive sports. Sure, I might not have had the latest cool techy equipment, but so many other kids wouldn’t be able to afford to even play the sports I was in.
Great stories Freddy and I appreciate you sharing. It’s the only way to learn.
Well I will say one of my money lessons I am actually learning now is when to save and when to spend, also the relative value of time and money. My father is a cheap son of a bitch, his words not mine. He’s sitting on nearly a million dollars plus collecting Social Security and alimony but he’s living on maybe 20 thousand dollars per year.
He says he wants to leave me ‘a couple dollars’ when he dies. I tried explaining the Trinity Study, practically the founding doctrine of FIRE, explaining that he could live on 40 thousand dollars per year and still probably leave me more than he has today but he doesn’t believe me.
He pursues cheapness to his detriment, complaining about his cheap apartment being unlivable squalor, yet he is unwilling to spend more for a nicer apartment. He’s been sleeping on an air mattress for the past year because his 30 year old mattress finally gave out.
My father is disabled and near the end of his life, but he is absolutely determined to unironically be the richest man in the graveyard. I see him now and am determined to never be like him. Frugal is good but cheap is very bad.
I think your father was onto something, getting the model a step up from the cheapest. Get the maximum value for the lowest price. But you do have to spend your money on something you value, otherwise what’s the point? The key is figuring out what’s valuable to you and understanding your overall ‘life economy’, how your dollars are valued against the remaining hours of your life.
Hey Dominic.
Being cheap, or changing any habit if it has become a lifestyle, is usually easier said than done. When you become accustomed to living a certain way, making adjustments are challenging. Seems like your pops has quite a buffer, but that’s hard watching someone live a lifestyle you think might be able to be improved. I’d say, by talking to him, you’ve done your part and probably as much as you can do.
I look at it as similar to addiction, the person will only change when they want to regardless of what you ever say. But that’s not a fun situation to be in. Best of luck with helping him how you can Dominic. Yet at the end of the day, it’s their life to live, even with our parents.
Glad you’re learning your own money lessons – I see it as a permanent work in progress for myself.
Nice one. I guess I’d put my parents squarely in the upper-middle class income-wise. I had pretty much everything, but it was never the best. I attended an elite private middle and high school where the kids folks were beyond wealthy and out the other side, so in comparison there was a bit of a gap there.
Anyway, the one thing I did then and still do is keep my material possessions in pristine shape. No idea where this habit came from but it’s the reason I rarely ever replace anything because it all still looks and works great. This childhood habit has assuredly saved me a six-figure sum if you factor in stuff like vehicles, home repair/maintenance, clothing, electronics, etc.
That’s interesting about your pristine maintenance habits, which are great by the way. Maybe you saw your parents do the same or some other older influential person at some point in time. I think in general, it shows a respect and care for your possessions and that you value them enough to keep up that meticulous care. Plus, like you mention, big cost savings in taking care of things.
Thanks for sharing your upbringing MF. It’s cool to see where everyone starts.
Superb thinking post.
Growing up I didn’t get much brand new or top of the line, but I was constantly reminded by my parents that we weren’t poor, as they would tell their own “scary” stories growing up in the projects of San Francisco. At an early age my parents used credit cards to buy us new toys and clothes and I can remember Christmas during those times with tons of presents under the tree. But when they realized they needed to stop borrowing money to live or keep up, things changed quickly. I remember them telling me they overcompensated on us because they had nothing growing up and used credit cards stupidly. This happened pretty early on in my life, 1st grade or so. No cable tv. Cheap baseball mitts. Broke down car I was embarrassed to get picked up in. My father was a carpenter who would get laid off from time to time till he finally got his break in management when I was in high school. Then he started making really good money and finally moved to a good neighborhood.
So yeah things were tight growing up, but it was all I knew. I definitely had want, but I knew better than to complain to my parents at least, internally I would complain. Luckily, I grew up around people and families who didn’t really have more than we did, we were all kinda mid to lower middle class, so the comparison suffering didn’t really hit me till high school. But as a kid, I can remember being jealous of the amount of presents the families had compared to ours, where we’d only get one gift each.
I also told myself I’d become a high earner. I just knew it, like you mention. It was a true premonition. And like you, I’ve achieved that goal, especially in combination with my wife. Funny thing is though, I’m very conscious of not buying my kids new things all the time. I’m scared they will be spoiled. Us being into FIRE, keeps us grounded and my kids are hopefully seeing this. I’m the oldest of three. So I can remember the real deprivation of goods, while my youngest brother reaped the rewards of my dad earning more later on, getting all the cool new things, something I make sure to remind my youngest brother of haha
So, I think it was you Noel, who said something along the lines once in a comment that has stuck with me – “You never know how selfish you have been until you have kids.” I’m slowly learning this first hand now. Everything changes.
I can relate to the car. My sister and I had to share this old dented ugly brown aerostar van in high school, and I was so fucking embarrassed by it. I’d rarely drive anyone around because I was so ashamed. I should have just owned it and made it cool, but I was too insecure back then and fucked up on drugs.
I was similar to in I’d only internally complain as a kid. Keep it all to myself and swallow those insecurities.
Yeah, the high earner thing is kind of funny – well, I guess not funny, but I see it a lot in talking to people. If they came from a more limited background, then they really strive for that financial security that they might not have felt growing up.
What to buy and not to buy kids is something I’ll be figuring out as well. I think though if you’re teaching them about money and finance at a young age, they are already so far ahead of the game. Sounds like you have a solid plan and are raising some great kids.
Thanks for the awesome comment bro! Work has been killing me so I’m a little slower to respond than normal.