What Did My Parents Teach Me About Money

Will Chen over at Wise Bread, recently asked,

What did your parents teach you about money? Did they give you words of wisdom or did they teach you by example? How did their views affect your perception of finances later on in life? If you think their influence has been less than positive, how did you overcome them?

This question got me to thinking. What did my parents teach me? It really wasn't much. I remember them constantly saying that we didn't have enough. They wouldn't even let me play "little league," or several other activities I wanted to participate in, because we didn't have the money.
Granted, I had medical problems and went to Kansas City for numerous check-ups, but what the insurance didn't cover an organization known as Crippled Children did. Including my back surgery in 1983. But, that is another topic. What did my parents teach me? Well, let's take a look.

My parents really didn't teach me anything about money. I hate to sound mean about it, but that is the straight dope. They were always hard up for money, and never talked with us kids about money or budgeting.
I remember the Catholic church bringing food baskets at Christmas time to our protestant home. I remember us buying clothes at garage sales or being given used clothes.
As kids, my parents gave us an allowance of 50 cents a week. Mom kept this allowance in a coin purse in her purse. We were never taught how to save the money (not even in the piggy bank). If we wanted to buy something with our money, we still had to ask her, for "our" money. All to often though, she would borrow from our money and have to "pay us back."

One thing I did learn about money was in church that we are suppose to tithe 10% (or more) of our income. Never once did I actually see put anything in the offering plate. At one point, I even mentioned to mom, that they never donate at church. Her response was that I didn't know what they did in Sunday School. My response was that her actions (what I see) speaks louder then anything she said she did.
Much of what I have learned about budgeting has been in my adult life. Most of that has been in the last couple of years since I started studying John Cummuta and later Dave Ramsey.

I started this blog in March 2006, and have been learning more about money as I write about it.

So what about you? What did your parents teach you about money? I would love to hear each of your stories.