I could feel my parents’ stress, but I didn’t always know what was going on. My parents were living paycheck to paycheck and went in and out of debt.
I remember one particular January my mom was worried about having enough groceries for the month. You see, Mom bought all our groceries at the beginning of the month, right after Dad got his monthly paycheck. Then we didn’t have money the rest of the month to buy anything.
January was worse, because Dad got paid his January paycheck in the middle of December, which Mom promptly spent on Christmas presents. So, we ran out of grocery money before the end of the first week in January. We had a small amount of dry goods stored, so we would not have starved, but we might not have enjoyed the options we had to choose from.
Then, my mom came home from her sister’s house one day. She was beaming as she told me about her cousin driving up to the house with a truck load of tater tots he was giving to those in need. We got about a dozen big bags, which we gratefully ate over the next several months.
I know this blessing came because my parents paid their tithing.
Malachi 3:10 says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
My parents were in an exhausting cycle of spending all their income, using debt, getting out of debt, then repeating. Seeing my parents struggle with debt, I realized I had to do something different to break the cycle.
I became determined to never use debt, which pushed me to learn everything I could about money management and to earn money and save in order to graduate university debt-free.
It was not an easy process. I did not have a mentor or anyone else I could learn from directly. I read every book and blog article I could get my hands on. But, none of them were written for teenagers. I had to figure out how to adapt it to my situation.
One year, I signed up to take a college personal finance course through concurrent enrollment. On the first day, the teacher taught about credit scores and how to build a good one. I was 15 and planning to avoid debt like the plague. I didn’t need to be learning about credit scores! Needless to say, I promptly dropped that course.
I applied for college scholarships my senior year of high school. I then learned that I could have applied two years sooner. Nobody told me! Having been homeschooled, I felt very limited in the scholarships I could apply for. And, unfortunately, I did not earn any.
After my first semester of college on campus, I moved back home and took online classes while looking for a job. With no previous experience, it was so hard. After almost a year, I was still jobless. I had more money going out than coming in. I was grateful that my parents let me live with them during this time, but I really needed money for school.
Eventually, I got a job as a nanny for about a year and was able to take online classes while working. After that job, I went back to school on campus. Between the money I earned from nannying, scholarships I earned from the university I attended, and then working a couple more semesters, I was able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, debt-free with several thousand dollars in the bank.
If you’re new here, my name is Damia Shimmin. I am a financial coach for teens, the founder of Harmony Living, and a BYU-Idaho graduate. I live a debt-free life. I graduated university debt-free, I’ve started my business debt-free, and I will continue living debt-free throughout my life.
I am here to help you learn how to help your children live debt-free lives as wise stewards of what the Lord blesses them with.
In Matthew 25:21, the Savior said, “His lord said unto him, Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord.”
I want the Lord to say this to me when the day comes. I want to be a wise steward of what He gives me.
The Lord wants us to be wise stewards of what He gives us and He will readily help us do so. The reality is that everything we have belongs to Him already. We are to take care of it for Him. Having this mindset will help us to become wise stewards and develop an abundance mindset, which we will dive into more later on the podcast.
It is so important for us to teach children, starting when they are young, how to manage their money wisely, because the consequences are small when they are at home. Once they become adults and move out on their own, the consequences are much larger. We will talk more about this later in the podcast.
Through my online business, Harmony Living, I provide resources to help you teach your teens. My goal is to help Latter-day Saint parents learn how to teach their teens to become wise stewards of their resources and create a legacy of financial self-reliance and live a debt-free life.
Want your child to learn the skills necessary to manage money and have a plan for paying for higher education without spending all the time, energy, and money that I did? Start by downloading my free “20 Best Jobs for Latter-day Saint Teens” download through the link in the show notes. And then continue to join me on the podcast to learn how to help your teens live a debt-free and abundant life.