My Mother, Money, and me- Celebrating the Best

You are going to love this one! Well, most of you anyway.

What’s the story behind what you call your mother? I am used to saying Mommy. Our children say Mom, even though we didn’t tell them what to say. I notice that my nephews call their mother by her first name, yet they call her mother, Mommy. Although I say Mommy, my two younger sisters say Mammy. When I lived in Jamaica, Mothers’ Day cards had the word Mom in it. Here, in the UK, it’s hard to find a card that doesn’t say Mum. So for the last 13 years or so, my mother’s card has called her Mum.

Isn’t it interesting what we call our mothers? It is to me.

O! It’s just a matter of the U! See what I did there? It’s just a matter of YOU and the experiences you have had that has shaped your relationship with your mother and how you view her now.

I paid tribute to some amazing women in this post (my mom is one of them) and in this post, I spoke about my initial meeting of my own mother in law and what she meant to me while she was alive. It’s nerve-racking when you know you are going to meet your future mother in law. Or is it just me? I’m sure all the stories you have heard about mothers in law haven’t all been pleasant.

Celebrate Your Mother

In this post, I’d like to give you the opportunity to reflect on, and share your love for your mother. As I am into living a frugal lifestyle, however, I wondered if you could take a minute to reflect on how frugal of a mother yours is/was. Answer these few questions and send the responses back to joleisacreed@yahoo.com.  If you can’t access the questions in the link, you can copy them from below and send me your answers on a Microsoft Word or google document. Add your blog’s URL if you would like us to link back to it.

I won’t promise that I will publish all the responses but I am looking for some really inspiring ones that feature what my readers are looking for (ways to live a frugal lifestyle.)

So what are you waiting for? I am really looking forward to reading your answers and sharing them on the blog in the run up to Mothers’ Day which is in March here in the UK where I live but May in the USA where my own Mommy lives.

Can’t wait to read your tributes.

Here are Some Frugal Lessons I got From my Mother

My mother wasn’t formally educated beyond year 9 or so but she is so clever with money!

• She is a Jamaican by birth and she saves like a Jamaican. I have outlined how to do it in this post. Basically she joins in a sort of cooperative with friends and pool their money until one of them need it for a major purchase.
• My mom has held so many jobs including selling in the market, owning and running her own pub and restaurant, and even being a maid.
• Learning to sew and making clothes for us. I reckon that she saved a lot this way
• My mother doesn’t do credit cards. She much prefers to stay within her budget and save up for things when she needs them, rather than racking up debt
• She has helped so many people. Sometimes when we were growing up, it seemed like someone else who wasn’t family, always lived with us when they fell on hard times. I think paying it forward is such a big part of being a frugal person. Karma is a real thing and I always think I am especially blessed because of the neighbourly things my mother has done for others.

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Thanks so much for volunteering to share with our Mother and Money series to celebrate Mother’s Day.  The aim is to share and inspire others, whatever their status on their financial journey. Be as candid as you want to be. Use the term Mum, Mother or Mom, it’s ok.

 

1. What is your preferred name?
2. What is your blog URL?
3. Share a pic of your mom or of you both together along with 3 lovely descriptive words that come to mind
4. What is your earliest memory of how much of a frugal life your mother lived?
5. When you were little, did you consider your family to be rich? Explain
6. As it relates to finances, what is the best lesson you have learnt from your mom?
7. Is your mother savvy with digital money products/internet banking etc? Explain, if possible, with her views
8. In your everyday life, do you do anything now that reminds you of your mum’s ways with money?
9. Are you/were you open with your mother about your own finances?
10. As a tribute to mothers everywhere, compose a little poem entitled: My Mother, My Money, and Me.
11. Use this chance to give a shoutout to two mothers of whom you think highly based on their ways with money

 

Grammarly