Cris Carter on financial literacy
Posted on September 8th, 2008 – 1:37 PMBy Kara McGuire
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?
6 Responses to "Cris Carter on financial literacy"
If we didn’t need it, we usually didn’t get it.
Conservative to point where no risks were ever taken. I’m still trying to learn my own risk tolerance… I really would like to take risks that pay dividends outside of picking investements in my 401(K).
If you couldn’t pay cash… for cars and such you couldn’t afford it. This hasn’t been my approach but I’d sure like to pay cash for my next car.
MC - be careful with paying cash for the next car. I was able to put nothing down, even when I had the money to put down because I was able to get a finance rate much lower than the return I was able to get, even in a high interest savings account.
I’d say be conservative, but also use the tools that are available to you.
We were taught to always have at least 500 in savings for a rainy day. Also, my dad told me to always keep my checking account with a $100 pad. He had me subtract 100 from my balance and ignore it. odd trick, not really handy in todays world of electronic banking, but the lesson it taught works today. I start to go nuts if my checking account dips below a certain amount AND I am very proud to have several savings accounts that will cover a few months living costs.
Thanks Dad!
My mom taught me to balance my checkbook. Many people think it doesn’t matter when you can check your balance every day, but I’m glad to always know exactly what I have, even if everything cleared at the same time.
The only time I recall being taught this in school was the last week of 6th grade…
When I was 8 and was arguing with my parents about clothing purchases, they set up a “clothing allowance”. I think I got $60 for 6 months, and when it was gone, it was gone. It was a good lesson, but it also encouraged me to hoard the funds — which wasn’t always good.
Once while a high schooler I found a pair of Levi’s on sale for $2.94 and bought them. My dad was so proud. But — they were a hideous mustard yellow and didn’t fit well, so I never wore them — another lesson learned.
I’m more financially conservation than my husband and most of my friends. Most of the lessons I learned were good — but several I’ve had to un-learn.
My parents never allowed me to have a job in high school because they’d both grown up working as kids and thought they were doing me a favor by giving me the time to focus on school. (They also didn’t give me chores or teach me to cook, for the same reason.)
I’m thankful that their financial prudence allowed them to pay fully for my four years at an in-state public university, but when I began working in college, I never had to think twice before buying something I wanted because I had no need to save money for any real expenses.
I wish in retrospect they had allowed (or even forced) me to work in high school, and drilled into me that you put a certain percentage of your paycheck into untouchable savings.
I bought my first car when I was 26 years old and my first house less than a year later. I thought my ability to buy these things meant that I was pretty succesful financially, for my age. But now I’m 29, spending 60% of my take-home pay on my mortgage, and finally realizing that my buy-what-you-want attitude (even when that thing I wanted was the supposedly sound investment of a house) has left me struggling.
