What’s your earliest financial memory?

MSE_Laura_F

Yesterday Martin Lewis asked:

"What’s your earliest financial memory? Perhaps it was a coin from the tooth fairy under the pillow? Lunch money to school in a backback? Finding a penny (or spending one)."

I'd like to hear the Forum's long-ago stories. Let's have 'em, please.

💷

maisie_cat

Mine was my mum crying because she thought we'd be evicted because we were in rent arrears. Just after that my parents found out that they were eligible for rent rebate and free school meals and my mum got a school cleaning job.
I was about 8 and that memory of her being so worried always stuck with me to the extent that I've always lived within my means. I've continued that even if it means making cheap dinners featuring lots of beans and having no holidays.

Brie

The confusion between the semi annual trip to the bank to "clip the coupons" on our savings bonds and the fact that grocery shopping at Loblaws gave you coupons or stamps that you would paste into a book that would get you savings on your groceries.  

At some point my mom explained to me that the coupons on our savings bonds meant that we were compounding the interest.  And that if the interest rate was 10% in 8 years the original amount of money would be doubled.  I think I was about 6 at the time.  She also pointed out that the Loblaws stamps weren't really worth the bit you would save because their prices were higher and the full books could only be exchanged for certain things, most of which no one really needed.

Sg28

My mum opening a halifax little extra club savings account for my brother and I when I was about 8.

She put £50 in each to start us off. I remember getting the little paying in book that the cashier would manually write each deposit/withdrawal and a running balance. 

A few months later my mum asked for most of the money back as she couldn't afford the food shopping. 

tacpot12

Mine was decimalisation and being sad that I couldn't buy 6p worth of sweets with my 6d bit!

MikeJXE

My earliest was a farthing in a Christmas pudding but my funniest was. 

We were engaged and my girlfriend was 18 years old, I told her we were going to buy a piece of land to build a house

She said how are you going to do that with £1.1.6p in the Trustees savings bank

I did pull it off and we married in 1964 and moved into a 3 bed detached 

I did it again with the same amount of savings 9 years later and into a 4 bed bungalow 

bluelad1927

Remember opening a Midlands bank account in the early 80s when you got a free school bag. Every kid in school had a Midland bank bag 🙂

badmemory

My first real money memory was when I was about 5 & my mother would have been about 25 in the very early 50s.  How much did that new dress cost asked my father, so she told him half the real price & she was still doing it when she was 75.  It didn't teach me a lot about money, apart from the fact that there was never enough of it but it taught me a lot about relationships & what I would consider acceptable in one.

Silvertabby

I'd have been about 7 or 8, and truly believed that our milkman was a thief.  Reality was that on some Friday nights mum would tell my younger sister and me "to be very quiet if there's a knock on the door - because if the milkman knows that we are in, you won't get any pocket money tomorrow".  Sorry, milkie!

strawb_shortcake

I remember enjoying counting my money box repeatedly, then being told I really had to pay it into my building society. I vividly remember the look and feel of my pass book. 

I also remember my Dad getting £2 coins when he'd taken stuff to the scrap yard. I'd often get these as they seemed quite rare. I took 2 of them to save for my holiday, when I went to withdraw £4 to take on holiday I was most put out when I didn't get my £2 coins back. I was convinced there were individual money boxes that the building society would look after my money until I wanted it back 

Abbafan1972

When I was very young my parents used a company called Secure Homes, that would take all your household bills and condense them into one weekly payment for you. The guy used to come and collect the money on a Friday evening and my Mom would be stood at the doorstep for ages chatting to him. 

We did use them ourselves years later (they changed names to Moneyway and the system was called OneBill I think). The payment system was better though and I used to pay over phone on the automated system, rather than have someone calling round. 

We stopped using them a while back though, as the list of bills we had with them was getting smaller and smaller and there was no point in using it any more. I don’t think the company does this any more. 

Also, I remember my Mom saving the Tv licence stamps.