It’s no secret that, in the traditional household, mothers are more financially conscious, especially about household spending. The nuclear family model sees the mother’s role in a household as someone who ensures the house is well-stocked with essentials and necessities without causing a dip in the household’s finance.
Society has come a long way from these traditional households and gender roles. With more women pursuing careers, we now see both partners contributing to homes in terms of finance and financial planning, among other things.
Regardless of the shortcomings of the traditional family systems, the way mothers segmented finances for the entire household carried wisdom. This segmentation, undoubtedly, involved some mum finance secrets that most mothers were privy to, and they passed them on to their children later. Today, we’ll be looking at some of our mothers’ best-kept secrets and the impact that these generational secrets can have on our financial futures.
Many financial analysts give the same advice that any of our mothers did. Some of these finance secrets are listed below.
1. Look at Your Finances Without Any Fear
The best way to manage your finances is to face them without fear. You can’t keep hiding from the number on your bank account and hope that it goes away or randomly increases without you having to put in any effort. Mums never shy away from informing children of the realities of their situations, and your mother likely had to plant her entire month while understanding the finances for which she had to face the amount that she had to work with. This is excellent advice since once you can look at your finance, you can decide whether you want the number to go up or down. Once you’re aware of direction, you can then find ways to proceed in that direction.
2. Manage Your Money
It’s a common mum practice to return borrowed money as soon as possible. It would help if you incorporated this practice into your life. If you have credit cards that need to be paid for, pay the money the month of purchasing so you don’t have to pay any interest on your purchases. Credit cards make it very easy for you to lose focus and start spending willy-nilly entirely. Thus, learning a way to manage this will save you a lot of money in the long run.
3. Model Your Mum’s Money Behaviour
Your mum isn’t the only one with the slick money-saving practices, your grandmother has likely lived in war times, and no one would tell you how to make ends meet better than Grandma. Comprehend how your maternal figures think about money and see if it’s applicable in your life. Asian mothers are different from American mothers, so once you understand how your mother saves money, switch stories with another friend to see if you can pick up more mum finance secrets.
4. Knowledge Is Power
For our parent’s generation and the generation before theirs, going to college and gaining an education meant that their finances would be taken care of. This thinking has trickled into their belief system, even now. However, it’s not entirely incorrect. College graduates tend to earn more than their less-educated counterparts. So, if you can afford college without putting yourself into racks of debt, pursue an education. If you’re someone who can’t afford college, community college is just as good and doesn’t show up negatively on your credit score.
5. Live Below Your Means
Teaching your kids to live below their means from a young age informs them about the responsibility of money. The economy now isn’t what it was 20 years ago. So, having an emergency fund for any massive expense can also save your life. Living below your means also helps you remain humble and achieves your goals quicker than you may think. There’s a reason that your parents could buy a house and car in their lifetime. Still, it would help if you had some metrics for this lifestyle. Living below your means shouldn’t equate to starving yourself.
6. Value Saving and Education
Smart mums would also ensure that not only are you saving your money but that you’re investing it. Investing money wasn’t something people could do fifty years ago; still, people value saving by buying gold coins and land, etc. Due to the economic crisis, many twenty and thirty-year-olds still rely on their parents’ money to get by.
Informing your kids about investment and methods of value saving at a young age means that they can secure their financial future at a young age. This security helps them take more significant risks when they need to. You should also teach your kids the method to limit debt while knowing when to take out instant loans like the ones offered by Nifty Personal Loans (www.niftypersonalloans.com.au/) when necessary.
7. Instil Work-Life Balance
Our mothers and parents didn’t work with any of the multiple network devices that allow us to be wired into work constantly. Once they left work, all of their attention was towards home or play. With the COVID-19 pandemic, the line between work and play has blurred even more. To regain some control, you should ask your mother how she managed an entire house while also working. Overworking has been known to cause health problems, and you need to be healthy to earn money. Having the right work-life balance is necessary, and you should ask your parents to share how they maintained a work-life balance.
Final Thoughts
Mothers have spent many years being treated like they weren’t working because they weren’t bringing in money. However, women, especially mothers, have always been the money managers of households. So, over the years, they have accumulated mum finance secrets, and you can take advantage of them even as an individual living on your own. If you are someone who wants to emulate responsible financial behaviour, following your mother’s advice can be ideal.