How does one become rich? Is it having money, knowing how to manage money or just a state of mind? My family didn’t discuss money and budgeting but we always seemed to have enough. I never really thought about money until I first started to earn some Every thing we needed, we had and that was all that was important. In my home we didn’t have a plan for retirement or loss of a job. Every day was lived as it came was what I could see at the time. The plan for retirement was that the government would provide. That’s why we pay taxes our entire working life.
After starting work in 1988 aged 17 I got my first weekly pay cheque. The grand total of $104 before tax per week seemed like more money than I knew what to do with, which was pretty close to reality. Having never been educated to save or budget, I spent most of my money on gadgets, drinking, and having fun. For the next four years after the apprentice school, I lived with my parents. I bought a new bicycle, VCR, TV, computers and destroyed a few cars without insurance and generally had a good time. I had no savings but despite this I thought I had loads of money as every week there was a pay cheque. A think a 4th year apprentice got around $20,000 per year back then.
In 1990 I met my future wife, who worked in a bank and seemed to be more worried about saving for the future and less about partying. She was raised with a family where she was made to believe there would be insufficient money to purchase things and that you needed to save for your future.
As it happens both families had comparable incomes but the mindset to money was very different. My family was living for today and hers saving for the future. As their kids, I learnt how to save for short term targets, such as a better bicycle or possibly a computer, where as my wife saved for the long term objectives of a house and decided to go without the daily indulgences. We both were told to study hard so we could get a secure job for our future. At the end of year 11 I left school and my wife started working part way through year 12, never completing it.
The blend of each of the distinct views to money has in fact developed really well for us. My wife convinced me we should buy a block of land and completely pay that off before we built on it and got married, which we did (Actually mostly bought by her) I taught her how you can enjoy yourself. Instead of going out almost any night like many of our buddies, we chose to preserve a quantity of our income, giving the reason “we choose not to find the money for it” as opposed to “we dont have enough money for it.” The key is right there. It is all about the attitude. Having exactly the same income and house hold living expenses, 2 people can end up in amazingly different circumstances. Behave as if you are poor and you will be poor. Think like a rich man and you are far more likely to end up rich. In reality you have exactly the same opportunities but look at them in a different way.
At the age of 27 we had paid off our own home and consequently started to purchase several investments. There have been times where we were both out of work and living with the measly income of the dole yet still were able to pay the loans, bills and save a little money.
At the time of writing this I’m 40, have two small children and am without a job but have created a wealth plan that allows me to survive for a certain time free of financial difficulties. As we have created alternative sources of revenue stream, including a niche site about CCTV design, which provides advice on techniques to increase the quality of security camera monitoring systems and sells some software, we reduce some of the luxuries of daily life until there is a consistent cash flow again.
If you wish to aid your kids to understand the art of enjoying a rich person’s mind-set, I might suggest reading the publication that afflicted me with a lot of my knowledge. Rich Dad, Poor Dad - The Rich Teach Their Kids About Money - The Poor And Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki