Thursday, May 17, 2007

My upbringing

Today at work there was a seminar offered on IBM's financial program which I did not go. Partially because I forgot that it was today and thus did not get an interpreter but no biggie. A coworker of mine, went and gave me a copy of their handout. She talked about bonds and stocks and how she did not know their difference until now. That stopped me in my tracks - how did I know about the difference between a bond and a stock? I knew that since I was a kid. It hit me. It was my parents who taught me.

It all started coming back to me slowly - I now remembered how my mom told me what a bond would do, and what was a CD (Certificate of Deposit), and I remembered my parents going to bank and discussing over which CD they wanted to buy (how many years, how much). I remembered asking my mom about opening a saving or checking account, and she let me decide which bank I wanted. She took me to the bank of my choice and helped me to open my very first saving account. I felt very thrilled that day.

I remembered my mom telling me all about the credit cards - interest rate, and paying back in full monthly, and giving me my first credit card at age of fourteen, for emergency use when I was away at MSSD (Model Secondary School for the Deaf) in Washington, DC, 2000 miles away from Saint Paul. I remembered I was very careful in using the credit card, and only using it when I needed. I never abused any of my credit cards, thanks to my parents.

My dad has been giving me a lot of good advices, on retirement plans, buying my first home, and investment ideas. He is a certified financial consultant, so he has a lot of advices under his belt. I notice that my mom has influenced me strongly when I was a dependent (from birth throughout college), and then my dad is my strong influence after I have moved to Kansas in August 2003.

For this I am truly grateful to have my parents for educating me to be financially "savvy". Thanks dad and mom.

3 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

3:05 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good for your parents. More parents need to do this for their kids. I was lucky enough to be taught that money and saving it was important. Other than that, I learned most of what I know from working at a bank and reading up on it. I'm glad IBM is sponsoring that financial training. It seems like it has at least helped one person.

1:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

3:13 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home