"Making sure my kids have a grasp of money is as vital as their schooling to me"

By Helen Carroll, journalist

Journalist and mother of three, Helen Carroll, 54, was unintentionally frittering away money until she wrote an article for a national newspaper. What happened next taught her a lot about money – and even more about parenting.

For as long as I can remember I wanted three children. I was one of six myself and have always loved having lots of siblings, however, thanks to financial and time constraints - my mum didn’t work - felt this was the closest I could get to a ‘big family’.

And, oh boy, those first 10 years of parenthood, throughout which I had at least one pre-schooler, tested my time and money management skills to their limits. Working from home as a freelance journalist, there was never any downtime, day or night, I was either at my desk, while the kids were in nursery or bed, or on childcare duties.

But what seemed to be in even shorter supply than sleep was money. We had a mortgage on our home in North London, childcare costs and all the other outgoings that come with being a family of five.

I was told to give our children packed lunches and shop at Aldi

Indeed, I was once so frustrated by the fact that two professionals – my husband is an academic – struggled to make ends meet and were accruing loans and credit card debts to stay afloat that I wrote a piece about it for a national newspaper.

Far from receiving sympathy for my ‘plight’, however, I was lambasted by online commentators who accused me of being profligate and personally responsible for these financial woes.

People were appalled by our annual grocery bill of £12,000, telling me I could reduce it by half if we started shopping at Aldi, instead of Tesco and M&S. They suggested my husband should cycle to work to save £100 a week in rail fares, and that I should insist our children took packed lunches, instead of indulging their requests to have school dinners.

The majority of the 1,700 online responses to that piece, published 10 years ago, felt pretty wounding, however they also proved a catalyst for ensuring I finally got a grip on our family finances.

I lived beyond my means – and the debt grew

My dad was a sales representative who was reliant on commission and, frequently made redundant, his living was very hand-to-mouth. Other than telling me we couldn’t afford many of the things my friends enjoyed, my parents never discussed money with us - certainly not savings and investments, neither of which they had.

From the age of 13, I had part-time jobs in cafes, pubs and shoe shops, until starting my career as a journalist, so earning money was never an issue. The problem was I simply lived right up to my means instead of having the wisdom to put money aside for the future.

After becoming a parent, and a mortgage-holder, there always seemed to be too much month at the end of the money and so I began living way beyond my means, hence the growing debt.

Having worked freelance since just before my eldest child was born when I was 33, I hadn’t even been paying into a pension scheme and had no savings.

My children roll their eyes when I talk about savings

So, after spending a couple of years trying to cut costs and chip away at our debts, in 2015, on the recommendation of a friend, I enrolled in a module-based finance course. It was like a foreign language to me at first, but it gave me a serious education in money-management.

And I take great pleasure in being able to pass on all this wisdom to my three children - Daniel, 20, Isobel, 18, and Christian, 14 - even if they do roll their eyes whenever I talk about the importance of saving 10 per cent of everything they ever earn while investing at least another 10 per cent.

Ensuring my children have a grasp of the significance of not just what they're paid but what they do with it is as, if not more, vital to me as all the lessons they're taught in school. Sadly, none of those lessons are financial.

If they take heed I will have spared them those 3am wakings, worrying about an old age lived in penury. The wakings that robbed me of so much sleep.