Monopoly

Where did you get your personal financial education before you went out on your own?  Who taught you to make and balance a budget?  Who cautioned you about debt and encouraged you to save?

I have often asked myself this and cannot come up with a clear answer.  I do know that I was almost 30 before I started reading books on personal finance and then read as many as I could find.  That really sounds just a bit crazy because by then I had been married, divorced, had 3 children, and been in banking almost 10 years.  Of course in the process I was making money, spending money, waiting for the next check, and all the other things we do in the daily process of being an adult. 

How does one learn about personal finances?

• Example
• Experience

Help me out here.  Is it just something we are supposed to inherently know from birth?  Does it just magically appear in our brains when we turn 18? 

Oh, that's right.  We are Americans.  We learned finances from our Monopoly game.

And for those of us that were highly educated we also had the game of LIFE.  That one was more advanced and included children, college tuition, and even bankruptcy if I recall.

For those in the younger generation or who did not have someone to play the traditional games with them Scrooge McDuck in Duck Tales was the instructor.

So many of us start out thinking we know what we are doing until we totally mess it up.  The New York Times says :  Money Fights Predict Divorce Rates.   Consider that 57% of marriages that end in divorce say that it is for money reasons.

So why do we have so little training in an area that effects each and everyone of us and our children for generations to come?

Beats me...