To be annoyed that my parents never gave me a sense of responsibility when it comes to money?

[spendyspend]

My parents have always been pretty well off - a successful business, rental properties and healthy pensions.

They have never been ones for investing, and although my dad is quite tight, my mum is the opposite. If i ever saw something I liked as a child she’d tell me to buy it, birthday money would always be “oh let’s go on a shopping trip”, there was never any mention of saving it. They never really bought into the saving for your kids thing either.

That attitude carried on, and I ended up in a bit of a mess in my early 20’s because of it, and I’m only just starting to get myself out of it in my late 20’s.

But looking back, I can’t really believe they did this? I’m not in a hugely well paying job but they encouraged me to act like I was - if I ever mentioned liking something they’d just say “oh well buy it”, never encouraged saving for a home etc., and I just feel like it was really irresponsible of them. They’ve not taught me about pensions, investing, anything like that. I feel a little let down by them to be honest. AIBU to feel that way?

I feel really strongly about this sort of thing. Not all parents can teach their kids about finances and so we should be having them get this education in schools but unfortunately they don’t.

That being said, yes your parents probably did you a disservice, but you are an adult and you make your own choices so you can’t blame them. My mum didn’t teach me how to cook, but that’s not why I am fat, I could have chosen to learn…you could have chosen to educate yourself, not make purchases if you couldn’t afford them etc.

Your post makes you sound entitled and you probably won’t get much sympathy here.

It’s a shame they don’t treat you to the breakfast if they have plenty of money. I agree that they shouldn’t pressure you to spend but lots of people have parents who are either skinflint or spendthrift and have to find their own way with money.

I sort of get what you are saying. I could choose to throw money about but i don’t. We have taught our kids to save. Once our first child hit 18 she had her first alone meeting with our financial advisor. We have been very open with the kids about saving and investments.

Budgeting is a learning curve. I always spent my pocket money as a kid, I loved gel pens and writing diaries, sweets, all that tat. I probably blew it straight away. My parents didnt sit me down and educate me but life did as it with most people.

When I started Uni, and overspent on going out and realised rent has to be paid ect. You learn fast. Bills come in, car fees ect. You just have to prioritise. Absolutely you take on what your parents do but you also just learn on the job yourself and mould your own habits. You need to step out of this blame cycle and take ownership for your own spending now really.

Probably because they could afford it?

My father is just like that. It’s ridiculous. He just spends everything he has, big or small, and then my mother supports him when it runs out. However if anything, watching that cycle taught me to budget appropriately and save now as an adult. I do think financial literacy should be taught in school. We didn’t have much education about money either and I wish I’d known about investing and interest etc much earlier. But I’m going to teach my nephews and break the cycle. You have to take responsibility for yourself as an adult and these days education is easily found online.

Talk about blaming others! You are having a laugh surely?

What happened to responsibility to yourself? You don’t have to be taught everything. It’s called growing up.

They could of told you to budget and save and you could of said well you don't, I'm not going to, and now moan about that.

You're a grown up, surely it only takes running out of money before the end of the month once for you to figure what you're doing isn't working.

But you know basic maths, whether you have enough money to pay for x or y? Yes as a young adult some guidance might have been helpful but if you’re old enough to hold down a job you’re old enough to work out you can’t afford everything you want.

There’s a point when we need to accept responsibility for our own choices.

The thing about teaching people about finances is that it’s a constantly moving target. Look at the changes happening to ISA’s next year. As an adult one really has to start learning for oneself.

Your parents had multiple income streams and from the sounds of it were very wealthy. Your mum might have thought your “spends” were for you to buy anything you wanted as they could provide everything else?

Many/most of us have lived the other side of that coin which is that parents had no spare cash to save themselves and wouldn’t have any idea about the tax efficiency of pensions or buying rental properties.

Some of my spends I had to save to pay for “necessaries” like period products.

I know which childhood I would have preferred!

You just sound like a spoilt brat 🤨

you may have a point
my dm wanted me to save a large amount of money that a relative gave me
my df spoke to me at length about getting a pension

but we learn from our own mistakes
you start earning money and realise you cant just spend spend spend

I get it. My parents were successful and could afford to spend as and when. I was always told to work hard, yes but when I bought my own home at 19, I would have massively appreciated being sat down and had my parents explain how it all works and what pensions and investments are.

Ive worked it out now and I make sure to teach my own everything I know about bills, savings and investments etc.

I dont hold a grudge against my parents but throughout the years Ive definitely wish they had taught me more but as 1 parent was pretty absent physically and 1 is still quite clueless about money I get why I didn't get that side of education. Stings though but it is what it is. I do wish they would teach things like this in school. My kids school do life lessons but unfortunately, so far, finances haven't come under that umbrella.

It sounds like they didn’t need to because they could buy whatever they wanted whenever they wanted it and go on loads of holidays AND have a successful business, properties AND healthy pensions. Perhaps you thought you could have the former without working for the latter?

I am teaching myself all this stuff now in my 40s too! I didn't grow up wealthy at all, so my experience is the opposite, I was given a fear about money running out but no education on how financial things work (as my parents just didn't know themselves). Pensions are boring, but my god I will be teaching my DC about them!

The level of financial literacy in this country is appalling. It may be that your parents just didn’t know, or were charmed such that it didn’t matter…

Good on you for trying to change that and figure it out.

But they weren't telling you to save for a home or not when you were a child? Why would they?

And now that you're an adult you should have the nous to not just blindly go round buying things because your parents told you to. Or not saving money because they didn't instruct you to do so.

I'm afraid I think it sounds like it's you making mistakes and then trying to blame it on your parents. You could have applied a certain degree of common sense to the situation.

But anyway it's not uncommon for people in their 20s to spend their money on going out and things they enjoy. That's almost really the correct time to have that attitude. Then you're approaching your 30s and thinking about the future, so savings become more important.

When you become a parent you don't automatically become responsible - you're still an ordinary flawed human capable of ill-judged decisions, lacking foresight etc.
Maybe your mother thought she was making things fun for you. Maybe she had a deprived childhood without nice things. Maybe if you never developed this insight you now have & you went on to have children, you'd repeat the same patterns.
I never learned about pensions etc. Now, as a parent, I try to teach my children to be responsible with money, but we have yet to do our mandatory pension & investment workshops.

I didn’t get a savings account until I graduated uni because I’d been taught it wasn’t important to save.
I opened my own account as a teenager with no prompting from either parent and saved for a rainy day.

Our parents can only teach us the things they know and they recognise we need to be taught. They can’t predict what lessons you’ll most need as an adult or what you’ll learn from modelling vs active learning.

Like others on the thread, I grew up in a poor family so my mum didn’t teach me about pensions or savings as she didn’t have any. She also didn’t teach me about healthy relationships or dealing with trauma because she didn’t know.

I don’t resent her for that, she did the best she could and I’ll do better for my kids now I’ve learnt as an adult. Most parents have blind spots and make mistakes - if you only need to learn about finances as an adult, you had a pretty charmed childhood.

Rental properties are investments though?

I think you need to grow up and not blame your parents for your behaviour with money

Are you an adult? You are coming across as a petulant child.
Learning to manage money is not rocket science.

OMG, blame your parents because they never encouraged you to save ? Well, I tried with my son, I wanted him to invest and I didn’t like his feckless attitude towards money, but he didn’t listen. He did what he wanted because he didn’t care then . Same as you, but now you are blaming your parents!! If you wanted to invest and save or be more responsible you would have . It was all in your hands .