thelesbianlifestyle.com

Growing up, I was blessed to be raised by very special people. I spent my childhood being raised primarily by my grandmother and father. In my teen years, the extended family in my home was my father, grandmother, great grandmother, and great grand aunt. Yes, I was surrounded by many years of wisdom. To say the least.

During those times, I learned how to shuck peas, quilt blankets from scrap pieces of material. Make cobbler from scratch and cook many many recipes that were never stored on paper. My great grandmother was the child of a slave & his mistress and she could weave stories as good as she could sew an outfit & make it look like it was brought straight from the store… As long as I threaded the needle…

I say this to say that I learned many many life lessons from these older spirits in my life. But there was one that was not passed. I guess because they did not have the experience to teach me on it.

The subject is about credit.

While we had all the love and happiness that a child needed, we were by no means privileged. My father worked long and hard. My grandmother worked long & hard… & I worked long and hard. Bill was always paid but if a bill couldn’t be paid then there would be sayings like… “They’ll get it when I get it…” “Or I have bills & I’m going to die with bills”. Certainly not sayings that I’ll pass on to my children but I’m talking about adults that came from a time when there was no such thing as credit. What you had today was not granted for tomorrow. Money was short & everyone knew it.

They taught me those sayings but they did not teach me the meaning behind them. In all truth, the reason that they were unable to pay things was because they just didn’t have it. As a child, I just thought that they felt that way because that’s the way things were supposed to be.

So when I went off to college, of course I got my first credit card. A struggling student whose scholarship went unpaid by the college, I welcomed that card and used it to pay my day to day expenses. When it was maxed out and the bill was due, one saying came to mind… “They’ll get it when I get it…”

I did not save because I had not been taught the value of saving. I hadn’t been taught the value of saving because they didn’t have anything to save. So there I was continuing a cycle that had been unknowingly passed down. Many years, credit cards, and bills later and I am finally on the verge of getting my credit back in check.

I learned the hard way the value of having a few months salary in the bank. Not to spend your bottom dollar. To pay yourself just as you do your bills… & to make sure that your bills are paid on time. I will teach those things to my children… When I have them.

While we can not foresee the experiences we will have in life, it is important to not just pass the wisdom but the meaning behind the learning. Had my parents, grandparents, great grandparents been able to explain those things to me, I would be paying a much lower APR. lol.

However, I know that it is not their fault but going forward, I will use this lesson to expand in other areas of my life. This tells me that you have to be careful of the things that you say because someone may absorb it without fully understanding the wisdom or lack thereof behind it. Had I known better or had it been better explained, I would have went forward with a clearer vision of how to manage my finances.

As much as I hate to say it, finances are not often talked about. That is something that we must begin to talk about to our children and family. If money is tight and bills have to go unpaid, explain that there is a reason behind it. Every unpaid bill does not mean that you are living above your means. But you must also think of the message it shows if you are spending money on eating out and purchasing new clothing while bills go unpaid.

Just as you teach your children that it is important to go to school, you must also teach them how important it is to save for a rainy day. I work in HR Consulting. Last year alone, my team laid off over 50,000 employees. Yes, 50,000 employees from the same company. Many of those employees came into work and had no idea that there was going to be a severance package waiting for them. Even though most of them were paid to leave, the payments did not come for over 30 days. Some employees had to wait as long as 60 - 90 days with no pay.

You have no idea about the calls I received. I talked with high executives that cried on the phone asking if there was anything I could do to expedite their payment. I had people tell me that they had to park their car blocks away from their home just so the repo truck wouldn’t pick it up. All of this because they weren’t prepared to go without receiving their weekly/monthly pay.

With the way things are today, you HAVE to save for a rainy day. I’m not just talking about it; I’m almost begging you to realize the importance of this. I say this for all of those people who realized it too late and for those of you that still have a chance to start putting away a few dollars each pay check. Let it be the first thing you do with you money. And if saving means that you need to cut down on your cable TV channels or eat out a few less times a month then trust me when I say, it’s well worth it in the end.

Nyki