I am one of the people who have big problems with money management. Up to a point, I believe it stems from the fact that I have an innate hatred of money ( not a dislike or antipathy… I really HATE it- not the money itself, but a whole lot of things it represents in today's society) .. but most of it , it seems comes from the fact that I do not know how to deal with it… Or, how to monetize the skills I have.. ( I can not count the instances in which I have seen individuals who are much less capable, or professional in what they are doing, but who somehow always end up getting paid much better than I do)

Then there is the fact that ( you got the parents thing right) MY parents came of age and spent the most important parts of their lives, living in a society which had completely different values ( Tito-s Yugoslavia) in which money always came second … since basic “survival” was , sort of, guaranteed by the state, people like my parents worked on becoming better at their jobs ( and they became truly great) developing better inter-human relations and all sorts of other things… Understandably, it wasn't their purpose… but they did pass on that way of thinking to both me and my sister…

So, up to becoming a teen,( well… about 12) all I knew was that money is not something to think of or worry about ( only the greedy, the selfish and the weak spend their lives thinking of how to make more money instead of trying to create something that will last, or develop friendships…etc) , then, everything went to hell and for the next ten years I was learning and developing various survival skills needed if a person was hoping of surviving the 1990-s in the Balkans… and when the Wars ended… we were thrown into a system of free market capitalism ( or whatever it is you can call this thing) . without anyone to tell us How the Fuck are we supposed to be functioning…

For a while, I did, sort of, OK ( according to my own standards + a single guy in his 20-s and early 30-s has a different outlook on things) but that had more to do with luck, and the fact that no matter what I do, I always do the best possible job out of it, meaning I never had a tough time in finding a job ( a rarity here) , but I never knew how to create a decent price-tag for me…

but now, when there are other people depending on me, and what I can manage to bring to the table, I am seeing how much damage can be caused by not having these skills …

what I am trying to say is that you are right… there are many, many people like me who simply never learned how to deal with finances .. and all of us ( I suppose) need someone , or something to “show us the way” when it comes to this…..