Author: Summer Berlin
Mindful Money Course Manager
Growing up on a farm in Ohio, I had a lot of positive role models: My grandpa taught me how to call the cows in, my dad taught me how to work hard, my mom taught me how to appreciate the natural world. I went to school with a hundred other small-town kids, each of us carrying a new generation of the same last names through the grade levels. I learned a lot, but there was one vital realm of wisdom that I never came close to in my youth: Money.
What I knew of money was how to make the most of free food, when to hunt for lost pennies under floor mats in the car, that heat during winter is a luxury. When the money lessons you’re exposed to early on are set in a land of scarcity and lacking, the idea of a higher level of operation—one of progress, abundance, and even wealth—is simply unimaginable. As a teen, like many of my peers, I viewed money as a flow and my wallet as a temporary stop.
My high school did provide one financial literacy class, but the few memories I have from the class mostly feature Shark Tank (the venture capitalist TV show). We did learn some basic economics, such as supply and demand, but this kind of education differs greatly from learning the art of personal finance. In fact, the only financial advice that stuck with me from high school came from my calculus teacher during a lesson on compounding interest equations. He explained that pizza delivery was his choice dinner in college, always facilitated by his trusty credit card, and warned against the real-life dangers of the equations we were learning to solve. Though it was vital wisdom, his anecdote was hardly enough to equip my classmates and I with the perspective we needed to succeed financially.
It wasn’t until I moved away from my farm town and started finding personal finance content online that I began to understand a wider view of the financial world. It took repetition—years of listening to others speak about wealth as if it was attainable—to realize I could lift my chin and my goals up higher.
The concept of being “rich” is layered with connotations and nuances unique to each individual’s experience. Growing up poor, richness feels like a fairy tale. It’s my belief that many small-town folks dancing the poverty line wouldn’t dare set their goals as high as a wealthy life for fear of appearing naive or even greedy (never mind that becoming financially secure is a far cry from joining the top 0.01%). Goal-setting is limited by this view to day-by-day survival, and only exposure to positively framed and well-explained accumulation and optimization strategies will unlock real potential for progress. In this way, my generation is lucky to have social media platforms and podcasts to break through the snow globes of our immediate spheres of influence.
Of course, in my early twenties, I was also learning plenty of lessons the hard way. Alongside lecture-informed epiphanies, like “a budget is nonnegotiable” and “investing is for everyone,” came plenty of real life mistake-induced wisdom. I engaged with high-interest debt before I really knew the ins and outs, I lost deposits, I didn’t realize just how much “opportunity cost” I was living with… but every win, from paying off thousands in debt to setting up my own budgeting system, motivated me to stay aware of my finances and keep improving.
The more I learned about how to invite security and abundance into my life, the more inspired I was to share these lessons with other people who, like me, didn’t start ahead. Energized by the vision I was building for my future, I wrote a short lesson-packed booklet titled “Money Tips I Wish I’d Known Sooner,” originally created for the young people I’d left behind in my hometown.
The booklet begins with a page on checking accounts, not just to inform young people starting out, but because many people I knew back home believed in “cash only.” Tips about income follow, as earnings tend to feel ordained rather than fought for in certain circles, and it’s my belief that increasing one’s income has to most potential to change one’s life (especially for folks living at or below the poverty line). From debt to pets, I list the knowledge I’ve accumulated in a crash-course providing context and options for everyday money decisions.
It was only natural that I add my voice to the personal finance conversation after access to that conversation had such an impact on the trajectory of my life. By no means a deep-dive, the booklet is meant to serve as an easily accessible resource that I wish I’d had tucked under my arm as I took my first steps into independence. I’m happy to be sharing it now with anyone who’d like to learn some money lessons—sans the “hard way.” Even if you have a lifetime of financial wisdom under your belt, you might just learn something new. I’m certainly still learning every day!
You can download the booklet HERE free of cost.
