My Bipolar Relationship with Money

The Silicon Valley Moms Blog, hosted "Money Thursday" yesterday. Here's a "reprint" of my post there.

I’ve always had a complex relationship with money. I spent the first six years of my life in Los Altos Hills (very affluent Silicon Valley Neighborhood). Then we moved to a remote Idaho ranch outside a town with a population of 450 (yes, four hundred and fifty) and my parents built a 10,000 square foot house. I was the “rich girl” whose peers often asked, “Is it true you have twenty telephones and an indoor swimming pool?” At school, most kids qualified for free or subsidized lunch tickets—I was odd because I paid full price. Most parents were loggers or cowboys or were supported entirely by welfare. I spent my entire adolescence being ashamed of money. I wanted to be like everyone else.

That wish came true my senior year of high school. My parents declared bankruptcy and I too, qualified for free lunch tickets. That gave me some level of sick satisfaction. Their bankruptcy also helped me quality for a huge financial aid package at Pepperdine University, which brought me to Malibu, and a complete role reversal. I wore Wranglers and drove a Ford Festiva while my suitemates wore designer jeans and cruised around in BMWs. I was now the charity case. Being accustomed to a life of not having to do without, and the fact that my parents had no money to help me through school, I graduated with $20,000 in credit card debt. It took me hundreds of tuna sandwiches, four years, and an arrangement with consumer credit counseling to pay it off, which wasn’t easy on my first salaried job.

So, ten years later, what have I learned? That I still have a bipolar relationship with money. I probably spend more than I should. Yet, sometimes, I find myself embarrassed to have what I have (a decent home in Silicon Valley with an SUV parked in front). I have a lot of excess compared to most people in the world, but compared to my zip code, I’m likely near the bottom rung. I’m not really envious of anyone with more money than I. I know from my childhood that having excess money has it’s own set of responsibilities and headaches. And, most everyone has problems, if not financial, then perhaps something worse, like health concerns or estranged relationships.

I’m blessed to have a wonderful husband who is healthier with money than I. We also have a kid not only to support, but to also set an example for—I don’t want him to learn the hard way like I did. So I guess I still need to spend some time clearing the skeletons from my wallet.