The 'saving' gene

[nz]

It seems to me that a few people have a 'saving' gene. Saving comes naturally to them just as some people are athletic, play the piano or have artistic talents. ERE makes perfect sense to those with this gene once it has been explained and accumulating money comes easily, it's just a matter of how they focus their gene.
...........there are of course people who seem to have a 'spending' gene but they probably won't be on this site........

[m741]

I don't think someone is genetically frugal. But I do think it's ingrained in temperament, and based on some combination of heritability, upbringing, and personality.
I've never had the desire to spend large sums of money, or spend money frivolously, in the same way that I have an introverted personality. It's not something I've had to convince myself to do, or a behavior I arrived at due to a lack of other options.

[jennypenny]

Jacob posted a link to this article last week http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2 ... ction.html

[LiquidSapphire]

I can point to specific attitudes and instances in my upbringing which had a direct effect on my ability and willingness to save. As a kid I never really was one to save my allowances, etc, I basically had no savings to speak of until I was about to graduate high school.
I always knew growing up that we didn't have any money, so I never asked for the piano lessons, expensive trips, designer clothes, etc. I knew we couldn't afford it. I guess I sort of carried that into adulthood, and also, after later taking the trips, driving nice cars, didn't get what the fuss was all about.
Also when I was 15 my mother shared with me that she wouldn't leave my dad because she couldn't afford to financially. I didn't realize it at the time but I think that idea had a HUGE impact on me. Ever since then I have had a deep buried fear that the lack of money would put me in a terrible situation, and I took great steps to avoid ever doing that. I now know I will never, ever, get into a situation that I couldn't leave just because "I can't afford it".

[palmera]

Similar to LiquidSapphire, there was never enough money in my household, so I'm quite good at learning to do with out. In college even, I could stretch my grocery budget to $20 a week and do ok. I don't even know how I did that. Probably eating a lot at the bar I worked
But the problem with doing without for so long is that once I was making my own money, it was easy for me to go into huge shopping binges. I guess I have a "go hard or go home" type of personality in general.
However, now that I'm getting older, it's time to get serious about planning my life and building a foundation for me and my future kid(s). My father left my family in complete financial ruin, but thank the lord my mother is a hardworking woman, so we were never out on the street, though we've come close a couple times. Even as a child I was very aware of how important it is for a woman to have her own career/money and I vowed I'd make my own fortune so a man could never have such a power over me. Ever.

[Mirwen]

I also grew up very poor and learned not to ask for things. The only time it upset me was my senior year and everyone I knew was going on an organized trip to Italy and I knew there was no way I could afford it.
I started out saving early on, but as a teenager a family member kept stealing any money I saved. So I still have a feeling that if I don't use the money I have, there is a chance I could lose it. Despite this I still did well my first year in college though. I received a stipend of $1500 per semester and I had no problem being careful with it because I knew if I spent it all I wouldn't be able to eat. One of my dorm-mates found out about my stash...
Now I fight the urge to spend every day.

[S]

I had the opposite experience and actually grew up in a relatively high income family that clearly spent way too much on crap and then didn't even take care of it. For example, our two-car garage was so full of boxes of junk (some of these boxes are in the new garage 3 moves later and are still unopened) that the cars got parked outside and exposed to the weather. Kids toys, spilled food, and laundry were all over every surface (a lot of those surfaces were also unopened boxes, btw) in all the rooms, but no one was concerned about it. I was embarrassed to have friends over as a kid because of the borderline hoarder environment. It started to drive me nuts when I was a teen to the point I would binge clean and throw things out when my parents were out of the house. As an adult, I've snapped in the opposite direction of my family by being pretty minimalist and hating that whole lifestyle. I still have to take the trash out for my mom the once a year I visit her and always wonder if it's been taken out since the last time I've been there. Thank goodness I had sane grandparents to learn from.

[Canadian Dream]

I would agree a 'saving gene' is a gross over simplification of the situation. How you were brought up also has huge impacts. For example, I grew up upper middle class and knew some basic concepts about money, but I would say I know grossly out save my parents. Now I have trouble explaining at times that I don't feel left out or bad for not spending more. It's funny you have to actually have those discussions with people that no I don't live like a monk and yes I do really spend that little. They just don't seem to get the idea of: I'm happy with enough. I don't need/want any more. Sigh, the rest of the world is crazy.

[nz]

I have two teen age sons. One is naturally frugal and likes to squirrel away his pennies and enjoys discussing money issues, and at 17 he has over $6k to his name. The other, 19, seems to be allergic to money however and even though he works and earns good money it quickly disappears. They seem to come from opposite ends of the spectrum despite their very similar up-bringing.

Similarly at work there are a 3 of us (out of about 60) who can't seem to help ourselves from saving while everybody else ranges from bare minimum saving right through to financial train wreck.

[mikeBOS]

@op Reminds me of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment. Where kids who could resist eating a marshmallow for a period of time in order to be rewarded with two marshmallows a short while later, ended up being more generally successful in life than the kids who couldn't wait. Something about an innate ability to defer gratification because of an ability to appreciate simply the idea of future rewards. Some kids are born with it, some aren't.
Not that it can't be learned.
And not that deferred gratification automatically leads to frugality.
But it does seem to indicate that there might be something to the idea of frugality being genetic.

[chenda]

I've always been a saver, my sister a spender. Even when we were young and got Easter Eggs, she would eat all hers straight away, whereas I would savour every morsle of chocolate and keep them for weeks (whereupon they usually went bad and had to be thrown away...)

[tac]

I am like S, grew up in a household where we were relatively well-off, we didn't get everything we wanted but we had more than enough and there was definitely plenty of junk to go around. I was always good at saving/deferring purchases but what really clicked it for me was when I moved out of my parents and was then living in small spaces and moving pretty much every year. You suddenly start to realize how totally superfluous many of your belongings are!

[DutchGirl]

My parents taught me to save. However, I have spent all the money I had saved up during my childhood during my years at the university (which was like 15,000 dollar, saved during a whole childhood from weekly allowances and birthday gifts - very high interest rates too (but also high inflation during those years in my country)). Such a shame, I say, looking back on it.
After that, I got a good job that paid well, and spend everything (again). The turning point came when I had spent to the limit on my credit card and had to borrow money from my parents and from my brother. Then I realized that I had been stupid. Luckily I had protected myself a bit by not raising the limit of my credit card - so I could pay off my debts within a few months of living more frugally and I have been saving ever since. Never, ever, do I want to go back to my baby brother (he's 30 by the way, now) and have to ask him for money again . Not if I can help it.