Personal and Family Financial Management Points

    I was fourteen years old when I found out my parents were getting a divorce. I remember the exact night that my dad pulled me aside into my room and broke the news to me. I didn’t cry and I didn’t really feel pity for my dad either because I knew that he was doing more harm to my family than good in some ways. The next day I went to school and I sobbed in my best friend's arms. I think I had realized just how different things were going to be in my family. I was the oldest of seven children and my dad had been the bread maker of the family before the divorce. I feel like when my dad was in the home, he taught us to work for money. As we grew up we only did chores as long as there was something in it for us. I remember when my dad left the home, we didn’t have nearly as much income coming into the home and my mom had said that the older children were going to have to help her a lot more to keep the family afloat. I shouldn’t have been as worried about finances as much as I had been at that age. But looking back, I realized just how important it is for families to teach these specific twelve points for personal and family financial management, especially when things don’t go as planned.

    The first point is teaching family members early the importance of working and earning. I think for my family, we were taught to only work for our own gain. My dad made us work for money and with that money, we had to buy our own clothes. Although I see where he was coming from, by doing this, it taught us to be selfish. We only did it if we needed it or wanted it. Instead, if we were taught to work for the family gains, I think there would have been a lot more love surrounding our family.

    The second point is learning how to manage money before it manages you. Learn how to budget within your means. I know that for me and my husband, we struggle with a specific budget. Before I got married, it was easy budgeting my money because I wasn’t worried about paying for housing, I was only traveling a small amount so I didn’t have to pay for gas too much and I didn’t have to worry about food. Now that we are living on our own together, we have to worry about each other's different needs. It’s smart to communicate with each other about what is needed and what is wanted.

    The third point is teaching each family member to contribute to the total family welfare. When we work together, I believe it creates such special bonds and memories that you couldn’t get anywhere else. I remember when I would do chores with my siblings, we would find fun ways to clean. When it came to mopping the floor, my siblings and I would dump soapy water and the ground. We would run and slide on the floor pretending to be penguins and see how far we could get. Multitasking at its finest.

    The fourth point is teaching family members that paying financial obligations promptly is part of integrity and honesty development. I personally know some people who are in major debt because they didn’t try to pay off their debt sooner. I believe the quicker we pay off debt, the better we may feel and it also shows that we are responsible.

    The fifth point is teaching children to make money decisions in keeping with their capacities to comprehend. For example, I think it is really smart to teach children to save up for things that they may really want whether that be a bike, a dollhouse or going on a mission in the future.

    The next seven points are fairly straight to the point. We need to learn self-discipline and self-restraint in money matters. We need to have a budget and stay away from debt. The only exceptions for debt would be education, investing in a home, and other vital investments. We should make education a continuing process. If we are technically done with school, we could be striving to acquire some skill that could be used to avoid prolonged unemployment. We should work with homeownership in mind. By doing so we are investing and could beautify the home for possible capital gain when selling. We should appropriately involve ourselves in an insurance program. It’s important to look out for ourselves and have sufficient medical and life insurance. We should strive to understand and cope with existing inflation so that way we are prepared financially for any economic crises. The last point is appropriately involving ourselves in a food and storage program. I know for my family, if we had a food storage when our income had decreased in the household, we may not have been too worried about buying food when needed.