I had parents that shared quite a bit about money with me.<p>I remember, when I was a kid, any cash gifts that I got on my birthday, festivals, etc. would be divided in two equal piles. 1/2 would go to my savings account, and the other half would be given to me to do with as I pleased. This was my parents way to encourage savings.<p>A bit later, when I was in the 5th of 6th standard (we don't call them grades), and my parents spoke to me about their investments in the stock market, I began saving up my half of the gifts (from the last paragraph) and invested that in stocks. They really liked me doing this, and decided that they will match all my investments in stocks (really tiny sums of money then) provided I do not sell until I am eighteen. I realise now, they wanted me to get into the right kinds of stocks. Stable enterprises, with good leadership, etc. After seeing me doing this for about a year, they handed me my savings bank account, with all the 1/2's of all cash gifts I had been getting for all my life (about 14/15 years). This was there way of telling me that they had some confidence in my dealing with money. At around this same time, my dad was buying a new office. He spoke to me about the loans that he would be taking to buy this. There was some cash that I had (a gift from my grandfather, to be given to me when I turned 18) and I asked him to use that to offset the loan. I'd already realised, that I was not going to need this money until 18, and it made more sense to use this cash and offset the loan. Why pay more interest to banks that you need to?<p>On the whole, there have been a lot of incidents in my life, where my parents have been rather open about their income with me. Now, I'm 2 years out of college, I see the difference, in that, I am able to advise friends and colleagues, some older than me, on where to invest cash, how to save tax and a few stock tips a year. (I'm still a really long term investor :) )