things I learned from my grandparents about money, part 1

Most of my relatives have some very different ideas about money, and by relatives I am including the wide range from my wife to my parents to my in-laws, etc. I realized a long time ago that it is very easy to pick out the flaws in other people’s philosophies or actions while failing to recognize them in your own thoughts and actions. However, I still find it a fairly useful exercise to try and determine where people make good decisions and bad decisions. Even more important is trying to understand the ‘why’ behind those decisions.

My mother’s parents (my grandparents), for instance, have always been very frugal. They were both raised on farms in the 20s and 30s and suffered through the Depression. My grandfather left home to join the Army pre-World War II, serving in the horse cavalry (hard to believe the US still had a horse cavalry less than 70 years ago, isn’t it?)
Here are some of their views towards money that I think are interesting, both good and bad, and my take on them.

• Investing, a good habit. My grandfather was an early fervent believer in investing. Coming from a rural background and suffering through the Great Depression you might expect him to be very wary of investing, but he was quite the opposite. He invested heavily in the market, and on a schoolteacher’s salary did very well over the years. He did this although he had a state pension and could have chosen to spend that money. From him I learned a very conservative study-buy-and-hold approach. Although I didn’t know it at the time I learned it from him, his approach was basically the same as Warren Buffet’s. While it didn’t make my grandfather a billionaire, it did make him a huge ‘extra’ retirement fund on top of his pension and my grandmother’s.
• Never selling, ultimately a bad habit. My grandfather maintained an almost emotional attachment to some of his stocks and held them year after year, even in times of declining prices, shrinking dividends and their own advancing age and deteriorating health. They saved these stocks thinking they could pass them on, but as they have moved into more and more expensive housing (nursing homes are much more expensive than regular apartments, obviously) it has become obvious that all of that money will be gone soon, regardless. Had they moved it into a savings account paying 5% ten years ago they could have been earning steady income.
• Never really spending, good and bad. Although they amassed such a gigantic fortune (relatively speaking) on retirement my grandparents never really spent much. They constantly talked of wanting to pass it on to my mother (an only child) and my brother and myself. They never traveled, although my grandfather dreamed of returning to see a peaceful Germany. They did ‘live large’ in some senses – they ate out almost ever day, they bought new cars for cash every few years while they could still drive and they were almost insanely generous to my parents and my brother and myself. They gave us stocks, cash and other gifts for years. However, it is hard for me to look back on their 20+ years of retirement and think that they never really did much after retiring. I know that part of that is my perception, since I love overseas travel, but I am not sure retirement was meant for watching TV and eating out. That’s a judgment each person has to make individually, I guess. But when my mom was younger and living at home they were very frugal, and even late in life my grandfather’s frugality could be amazing. A heavy, heavy smoker for his entire adult life, he quit cold turkey one day because he thought cigarette prices had finally gotten to high – and hasn’t smoked in 15+ years now. He never worried about the health aspect as far as I know, but paying $3 for a pack of cigarettes instead of $2 was apparently one dollar too much.
• Avoiding debt, extremely good. My parents and grandparents gave me one gift that I realize is invaluable after I read many personal finance blogs: the fear of debt. I have been convinced since an early age that going into debt is practically a mortal sin, a stain on your character, a flaw. While I think it may have been overstated a bit, this philosophy has made me somewhat unique in a sense: I have never carried a balance on a credit card, EVER. I have had only two debts in my life: a car loan one time and a mortgage on my current house. Other than that, I have never bought anything I couldn’t pay for with my existing funds. So debt has never been a headache for me, which is a great gift.
• Charity begins at home, mixed. I know this may run counter to many people’s beliefs, but another closely held belief of my grandparents was to take care of themselves and their own before others. This philosophy meant that there was no ‘automatic giving’ to charity until everyone in the family was taken care of. They gave (and still give) to their church every week, but I am sure without ever having seen it put to the test that had I been in need for some reason they would have given that money to me, instead. I know this is a somewhat selfish approach, but I think it’s right. Give when you are able. I do not subscribe to the Christian teaching that I should give ALL I own to the poor, and apparently from the number of Mercedes I see in church parking lots I’m not alone in rejecting that teaching. It doesn’t mean you can’t give to charity – I certainly give to several children’s charities – but take care of your family first.

Those points are really just highlights. The important lesson to remember is that anything your family or your friends teach you about finance is valuable. Sometimes you may learn by avoiding their mistakes, sometimes you may learn by taking their advice to heart – but it’s all learning. From my maternal grandparents, I learned to save and to avoid debt but also that sometimes you need to spend money, too, because there ARE things and experiences in life worth the money. The truly important thing was never the money, it was the security the money bought, and being able to give back to their family, that mattered to them.

Tags: children, family, frugality, health, income, investing, life, money, saving