Out of my own personal curiosity, I'm doing a survey of how individuals relate to money within the context of the family. It seems to me that money and finances are a sort of taboo subject; these are questions that I would be very interested to ask my close friends and people with similar class backgrounds and upbringings as me, yet something about politeness prevents me from doing so. Through the format of an online questionnaire, I'm hoping that the ability to be anonymous* will allow people to answer these questions honestly. I'd be very appreciative if people could fill this out to the best of their ability, but feel free to skip questions if they don't apply to you, or add in other information you think would be relevant. Also feel free to lump together answers to similar questions in paragraph form. Thanks!
*I've been trying to look for a platform for this survey that allows for the answers to all questions from one respondent to be compiled in one place (rather than all answers from each question compiled together as a platform like SurveyMonkey would do), and a blog format is the best I've found so far. It seems you have to have some kind of online identity to post comments on here, but there is still the ability to post under a username different from your regular one. If you wish to remain anonymous when posting, please do so. Otherwise, I'd be glad to get to know you better!
Disclaimer: for the sake of brevity, I am using the term "parents," but if you grew up in a situation of foster care, or with non-parent relatives, please make that clear, and I'm still interested to understand the relationship between you and your caretakers with regards to money. Alternatively, if you left home at an early age and lived on your own, I am interested to read about that as well!
Background questions:
1. What is your age?
2. How would you describe your racial or ethnic identity? If you are not an American citizen, what is your nationality? (I include these questions because I think there are important cultural differences in how people relate to money within the context of the family)
3. In what areas of the U.S. (or world) did you grow up? Where are your parents from originally? Did you grow up in primarily urban, suburban, or rural environments?
4. How would you describe your class position? How would you describe the class position of your parents?
5. How would you describe your level of education?
Childhood & Adolescence:
1. Were you given an allowance? If so, how much was it and how often did you receive it? At what age did you start receiving it? Did you stop receiving it at a certain age? (If for instance you became employed) Did your parents pay you for doing chores or other tasks?
2. Did your parents require that you use your own money to buy things? If so, what was the balance between things your parents would pay for vs. things you were expected to pay for yourself? (Ex: your parents would buy food for the household, but you had to spend your own money if you wanted to go out to eat).
3. Did you have your own bank account growing up? If so, at what age did you acquire it?
4. Did you have credit or debit cards growing up? If so, at what age did you acquire them? Were you spending your parents' money or your own money?
5. Did you receive money or other valuable gifts from family members while growing up? (For instance, from birthdays, Christmas, other holidays, Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, confirmations, quinceañeras, etc.) For annual events, if you did regularly receive money, how much money would you typically receive?
6. How old were you when you first started working? (Including doing odd jobs for neighbors, babysitting etc.) Did your parents have requirements about your employment? (i.e. that it must happen by a certain age, certain number of hours per week) What was the motivation for your employment? Did you work at all while in school?
7. Did your family receive government financial aid at any point growing up? (SNAP, GA, etc.)
Other questions:
1. Have your parents, siblings, or other family members ever asked to borrow money from you at any point in your life? If so, how frequent is this, and how much do people tend to ask to borrow? Have you lent it to them? Have they paid it back?
2. When you came of age, did you inherit any money or other assets? This could be from an UGMA, UTMA, trust fund, stocks in your name, property, valuable family heirlooms, or anything else. If something similar happened later in life, please write that here as well.
3. Were you given a car, or any other expensive gift(s) by your parents or other family members? If so, how old were you?
4. If any of the following things apply to you, at what age did you start paying for them, and did your parents initially pay for them for you? Cell phone bill, health insurance, car insurance, gas costs for a car (or anything else you think might fit in this category)
5. If you were expected to go on a trip requiring an expensive plane flight for some kind of family obligation such as a wedding, funeral, etc., would you have to finance the travel yourself, or would family members help you out? (Or would you just ignore obligations?)
6. Do you financially support your parents or other family members (who are in a generation above you) in any way?
7. Do you have any children? Do your parents or other family members help you in supporting your child(ren)?
8. What is your annual income? How much money total do you have in savings, investments, etc.?
9. Of any of the jobs you've worked in your life, for how many was your hiring aided by having a family member who knew the employer or someone else involved in the company or organization?
College (Only respond to these questions if you have attended any colleges, universities, vocational schools, or other institutions of higher learning for any period of time.)
1. Describe your higher education (as in, beyond high school) experience, using the following questions as prompts: How many years did you attend college? Did you complete a degree? Did you attend community college? A four-year college? A vocational school? Any graduate programs? Were they public or private institutions?
2. Describe how your education was financed, using the following questions as prompts: Did your parents or other family members pay for it completely? If so, how did they pay for it? (Savings, 529 plan, loans, home equity line of credit, etc.). Were you expected to pay them back at all? Did you take out student loans? If so, are you paying them back yourself or are family members helping you? Did you receive any financial aid? Did you do work-study?
2a. If you shared the costs of your education and living expenses with your parents or other family members, please try to break it down (Ex: my parents paid my tuition, housing, meal plan, etc. but I paid for all my own textbooks)
3. While you were in school, did your parents expect you to have a job at the same time? Did your parents expect you to work during summer and/or winter breaks? Regardless of parental expectation, were you self-motivated to work or otherwise make money while in school and during breaks?
4. If you lived somewhere other than home during summer breaks, for instance to work a certain job, did your parents help pay your living costs such as for rent and food? If so, please describe.
5. Did you take any time off during your higher education? Did your relationship with money and family change at all during this time period because you were no longer in school?
6. Did (or do) your parents or other family members have expectations about your financial independence after you graduate(d) or otherwise ceased being a student? Did (or will) your parents allow you to live at home for any period of time during or following your higher education? If living at home post-higher-ed, would your parents expect you to pay rent? How would you share the costs of living together?
7. If you are married, has your spouse contributed at all to your educational expenses?
