Growing up in a family of seven on welfare, former Vikings All-Pro wide receiver Cris Carter didn’t know much about money as a tyke. “My experience financially was to be frugal because there was never going to be very much.” Today, with kids starting their “adult life so far behind” because of education debt, he said it’s more important than ever to “live within your means.” He has a son who started college this fall.

This is one reason why he said he signed up to promote Visa’s financial education game “Financial Football.” Read all about it in my column from yesterday.

And play the game and share what you think.

As a kid I learned that I should never charge more on my credit card than I could afford to pay off. But I wish I’d been required to make more of a financial contribution to big purchases so I could have learned the meaning of sacrifice, choice, and the value of a dollar. And I still struggle with the desire for instant gratification, since I was fortunate enough to grow up not wanting for anything.

How about you? What did you learn about money at home and what bad habits from home did you carry into adulthood?

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 1:37 pm and is filed under family finance, kids and money, online tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.