Father's Day 2025: The Role That Dads Play In Shaping Our Money Habits, Investing Styles, And Long-Term Financial Thinking
By Mayank Bhatnagar
As we celebrate Father’s Day, it’s worth pausing to reflect on a quiet but powerful influence in our lives—our fathers. Beyond teaching us how to ride a bicycle or face life’s challenges, many fathers shape something far more lasting: our relationship with money. These are invaluable life lessons that can go a long way in shaping our financial future.
From everyday spending decisions to long-term financial planning, fathers often serve as our first role models for how money should be earned, spent, saved and invested.
“Save first, spend later” - The onset of Financial Behaviour in early stages of life
Money habits are rarely taught formally. Instead, they’re absorbed—watching parents budget for the month, prioritising needs over wants or discussing financial goals, becoming the groundwork for a child’s financial personality. The importance of ensuring that your savings begin much before your spending, is the most fundamental money principle that we often inherit from our fathers.
Even small gestures leave a lasting impression like comparing prices before making a purchase, saving diligently for a future goal or avoiding impulsive buys and planning major expenses thoughtfully.
Much of our financial behaviour is shaped early in life by observing our parents—reinforcing habits like planning ahead, living within means and valuing delayed gratification.
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The Investor Instinct – start early and reap the benefits
The seeds of investing styles are often sown by observing our fathers channelise their money. A dad who keeps a tab on his savings and investments and talks about investing from an early age initiates one’s own journey towards financial literacy and investments.
“Make sure you start investing the moment you earn your first salary” – These are words most of us would find familiar having heard from our fathers at the beginning of our careers. This is not just experience but financial wisdom that has been attained over the years,
In fact, in many households, the first conversation around mutual funds or a PPF account starts with one’s own father. And that conversation often forms the roadmap for how we perceive wealth creation—not as a gamble, but as a process of structured, goal-oriented investing.
Long Term Investing – “Keep an eye on your Retirement”
As our careers take shape, some of the most practical financial advice we remember from our fathers is about planning for retirement. Many would share how they started investing early and stuck to it for years—building a retirement corpus that now supports their lifestyle. Others followed a disciplined, goal-based approach—investing regularly with a clear plan in mind.
The message was simple: don’t leave retirement to chance. Start early, stay consistent and let time do the heavy lifting. It is a lesson that continues to hold true, especially in volatile times.
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Understanding the Impact of Inflation and benefits of Compounding
The silent devil of inflation touches upon every household and needs to be tackled with careful financial planning. Another invaluable lesson that is passed on by our parents. What could cost Rs 100 today could actually be three times of the price a few years from now. Financial savvy fathers pass on the lesson of not remaining conservative while investing and more importantly being patient and disciplined to see the magic of compounding work on investments. Afterall, time becomes the biggest enabler towards long term wealth creation.
Emotional Anchors to Financial Goals
What makes our father’s influence truly unique is not just the 'how' of managing money—but the 'why'. Many of us associate our first understanding of financial goals with a father’s dream: to see his child attend a top university, to ensure the family owns a home or to retire with comfort.
These emotional goals often get passed on to generations. As adults, we mirror the same aspirations—not only for ourselves but for our children too. The legacy of long-term financial thinking thus continues.
This Father’s Day, it is worth recognising that the most valuable inheritance isn’t always monetary. It is the wisdom to think long-term, to make intentional financial choices and to stay resilient in the face of uncertainty. Just like investments in the long term, these are lessons that compound over a lifetime too.
(The author is Co-Founder & COO, FinEdge)
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