Money Management Skills

The down stairs floors got scrubbed, the rest got vacuumed. The food cupboards got cleaned and tidied along with an informal inventory of their contents. Today the fridge and freezer will get a little bit sorted out.

There is still burghal and dahl left over from Friday but we are tiring of it by now. I must learn to cook in smaller quantities, but with two teenage boys the natural inclination is to cook more not less. However this will not be wasted, this morning I will pack them left overs in plastic boxes for freezing. I have frozen cooked burghal before and no-one noticed the difference but this is the first time for frozen dahl. My family are easy to cook for because they pretty much eat everything but they don't like to eat food which has been frozen after it is cooked. In some cases I can agree with this but with burghal and dahl I think they don't deteriorate but maybe I don't broadcast my intention to freeze to the whole family.

Yesterday afternoon we went to visit a friend who was telling me about her step son in law. He gets bored easily and cant keep a job. He also has a tendency to fritter away any money he gets on new cars and whatever else he wants. He has now lost his house and is going bankrupt after the latest failing project. He is around 50 I would guess. My friend has tales of woe from other areas of the family as well and they mostly revolve around poor money management skills. Later on my sister tells me about an acquaintance of theirs who is 4 years from retirement and has had to sell his house to pay off all his debts. He is staying with his mother but has invested what little was left from the house sale in a small holding with his son. Apart from the loss of independence we hear that father doesn't like son, mother doesn't like daughter, son and daughter cant stand each other, and parents are not especially keen on each other either. I think my family could all live together without any problems. We have never had a disagreement or falling out and we very often go on holiday together but a family who cant stand each other? I feel everyone living on the same small holding will be a disaster of soap opera proportions.

I am concluding that poor money management skills leave you very vulnerable and take away any security you may have. I already knew this but I am shocked that i see it everywhere i look. I live in an area of high employment so if people cant manage their lives around here then what happens when things get real tough? I am more determined that ever to pay off our mortgage early and give us our best chance at financial freedom. I don't want money because I like to buy things.In fact I hate having to give in and buy something. But I do want to earn enough in the short term to pay off the mortgage and give us some security in later life.

Later on I will recount all the stories to the kids because I think it means more to them to understand that things happen to real people that they vaguely know than it does to just tell them 'be careful with your money' 'debt in bad'.