Moneytimes: Keeping busy brought on flood of childhood money memories

Personal finance columnist Jill Kerby is in a pensive mood this week...

Last Tuesday and Wednesday, having woken as usual these days at 3.30am and then at 6.30am, I spent about 12 hours gardening, food shopping, batch cooking, baking and filling the freezer. And lots of dog-walking.

Sound familiar? Anything to not be overwhelmed by the nail-biting madness of the US election returns and grim pandemic news.

Over those two interminably long days, I also wrapped and posted birthday and Christmas gifts to The Child, who turns 27 and works in Australia, and got started on the other packages that must be sent to family who live abroad.

This will be the first Christmas my son won’t be home, and I got thinking how he was just six when I started writing this syndicated column in January 2000. He often asked: “Are you writing about me again?”

“Only in passing…” I would reply, but looking through the archive, having a small boy, then a big one, then a teenager, a college graduate and now a professional geologist for a son, has helped me to illustrate how we can teach children good money habits; the merits of charity and philanthropy; about the importance of a strong work ethic; about accumulating assets (a full piggy bank, healthy savings accounts) and about avoiding unnecessary liabilities, like owing your friends – or the bank – money for stuff you didn’t need.

He was lucky to have two parents who were both financial journalists: one who likes to spend (me), and one who can’t bear unnecessary shopping, but both with an inside track on how money works.

He knew that we paid off all our debt – mortgage, car loan, credit cards – in 2002, when his dad, still in his 40s and the markets editor of a leading newspaper, took a generous voluntary redundancy package. Our son was just eight years old at the time and we were concerned that he would worry about his father not having a conventional full-time job anymore (just like his mother).

But instead, he asked excitedly, “Does this mean Daddy will be home for supper every night now?”

That’s my boy, a loving kid.

I wrote about how he took the house rule about money gifts and windfalls to heart: we had explained how you get to keep to keep a third, save a third and give a third away. One happy, sunny, Christmas Eve day when he was about 10, he took a third of his money out of his Henry Hippo account to give to the buskers on Grafton Street.

When we went through some tough teenage years (looking back, harder on me than him) and I cut off his weekly allowance at 15, which included paying for bus fares and school lunches, he shouted defiantly, “Fine! I’ll get a job!” He started work the next week at a nearby café. For the next few summers he worked long, hot hours for a landscape gardener. He took a year off after the Leaving Cert to work for my eldest brother in Toronto as a manual labourer. In college he became a part-time barman – the hours were terrible but the tips were good.

Last week, after nearly two years as an exploration geologist with two of the world’s biggest gold/copper mining companies, working in extreme conditions in Western Australia, he announced he’d landed a full-time job with a generous six-figure salary and benefits with a fast growing ‘junior’ mining company.

Always the financial journalist (who should know better), at the end of a note telling him how delighted we were for him, I couldn’t help adding, “I know I don’t have to remind you of this, but be careful with your newfound wealth. You deserve every penny of it, and I know you know how tough it is to earn a good living, but keep your eye on the longer prize: financial independence.

“Try to avoid unnecessary debt; always live within your means. Apply the same risk principles you adopt for your [sometimes dangerous] job to your finances. Investment losses happen, so learn from them and accept them with good grace.” I reminded him of the importance of a good tax adviser and financial planner to help avoid such mistakes.

I haven’t a clue what he’s up to moneywise and it’s none of my business. But he’s part of the Australian superannuation pension scheme, keeps the cost of rent down by sensibly sharing a house in Perth and he recently bought a second hand car.

(Him, in primary school: “How come we never get a new car?”)

Me: “Because a brand new car is a terrible investment. It loses value the moment you take it off the lot.”) I’ve written about this too.

The Child is not a big spender like his mother. Hopefully, the next time we speak he won’t ask suspiciously, “Are you writing about me again?”

If he does, I’ll just blame Trump.