What formed your attitude toward money?

[Julia]

I'm interested to know why some of us seem to have a natural capacity to deal well with money and others do not.

Does it have to do with how you were brought up? What attitudes you observed in your parents re saving/spending/investing?

Was there any influence via your school years?

What effect did 'wanting to do better than others have', if that was a factor?

Or if you've struggled with being able to save and invest proficiently, what factors do you think have influenced this?

've been contemplating getting into shares for a long time. I've managed to accumulated a substantial amount of money in my bank account (about $60K). It's sitting there in a high interest savings account giving me a steady income. I normally top it up every week with savings from my earnings, so money has grown steadily over the years.

When i read your post it almost sounded as if i wrote it myself. I am in a strikingly similar situation: I'm a 20 year old university student with a similarly sized bank account, have several part time jobs, looking to invest some money in the markets (and hopefully purchase a house within the next 5 years) and have just opened up a Commsec account with a few thousand dollars. I think its great to see young people trying to set themselves up for future financial comfort (I could never understand how some of my friends still live at home yet have literally no savings

Neo, I am in the exact same position as you...

Im 21, I have saved up a chunk of money which i wont disclosed how much which i first saved to buy a house.

I am still living at home and a uni student.

Was thinking of buying a few blue chips to get my feet wet.

This thread has been helpful

Fail. I'm 20, built my own house a year ago, full time university student with a share portfolio floating around 45k. Its possible, there are some niche jobs out there where you can make a motza.

To the OP and all those of similar age with the fear, just put your feet in. I had the same problem, but my partner encouraged me and I started off with some blue chips to get a better understand, learning researching skills and Mr Market. Now I have small cap exposure and making some very good returns (30%+).

Get in the water, its mighty fine.

******************************************************

Just great efforts. I'd really be interested to know what you feel was your motivation here to do so well at such a young age. Plenty of others would also be living at home etc, but just be frittering away whatever income they had.

Mate if you have accumulated near 60k in two or three years working part time while studying at University then you must be a) the General Managers boy Friday , b) have rich parents supplementing your part time wage with a salary or c) an internet forum exaggerator.
At 20 I was working 'full time', paying off a car, share renting a house, paying electricity/phone/gas bills, buying my own food and going out once a week and holidays once a year.
This left very little to save.

I made up for it. By the time I was 30 I owned 5 houses and had a share portfolio valuation over 2 million dollars. Anyone who thinks it can't be done are kiddin' themselves. There are plenty of people out there doing it.

The above two posts are from the same person.

If you are being truthful, that's an astonishing turn around in ten years from having nothing to being very well off.

Perhaps you could tell us how you achieved this. Would also be interested to know what shares comprise the p/f of over 2 million dollars.

 

[ParleVouFrancois]

I'm interested to know why some of us seem to have a natural capacity to deal well with money and others do not.

Does it have to do with how you were brought up? What attitudes you observed in your parents re saving/spending/investing?

I learned that saving is very important from my parents, they always lived pretty simple, same cars for last decade or so, TV's always used until they break, same as fridge etc. It's not that we are poor, it's just that parents like to save instead of spend.

Was there any influence via your school years?

Not really, school doesn't exactly teach anyone about finance.

What effect did 'wanting to do better than others have', if that was a factor?

This isn't a primary driver of why I invest/save, I just want to get a stack of cash so I do whatever I want, as in, if I don't want to work, I don't have to, or if I want to go on a holiday, within reason, I can. I'm not talking several millions, just one million will be enough for me I think . The thought of being a 9 to 5 wage slave for the next 45 years of my life doesn't really appeal to me, but perhaps I'm just weird LOL.

Or if you've struggled with being able to save and invest proficiently, what factors do you think have influenced this?

I've always been pretty conservative regarding spending, I find it easy to save well over 60-70% of my pay, but then again I live at home and parents pay for food, I have NO idea how people that live home seem to be without cash all the time.

 

[So_Cynical]

What formed your attitude toward money?

I would say that not having any was probably the biggest influence ...at least in my desire to have some money, overall money and i have had a strange relationship...i want it and it does its best to avoid me.

I'm absolutely convinced that money begets money, so just being raised in a money friendly environment is a big advantage...still some people just seem to have a spark of some kind for success regardless of there upbringing.

My family were never disciplined savers or driven people, no uni graduates, so no professionals to speak of and no role models or guidance to success, i had a couple of opportunity's in my teens but bad luck and poor timing were against me.

I learned early on thru reading that there was easy money to be made, some people lived charmed life's and that i wasn't one of those people....anyway the stars have lined up for me now and ive found out i was right about what i have always though...making money is alot easier if you already have some.

 

[Tysonboss1]

My father always lived frugally, and I think I have taken some of that from him.

My family was always open to talking about money, Which lead to many conversations around the dinner table talking about investing, home ownership, debt, family budgets which is a world away from my wifes family who clam up and look uncomfortable if these topics are brought up in conversation.

my parents pointed out that if I spent money it was gone forever along with the hours I worked to earn it. He pointed out if I saved it then I would earn interest which I wouldn't have to work for. It was a simple introduction to the idea of investing, but it changed my life. from that day I have always spent less than I earn.

Also some where early on I was introduced to the idea of compound interest I can't remember where, But I remember playing with my calculater in year 8 or 9 and being blowen away at how fast the number grew, this gave me even more conviction to save as much money as I could and invest it as effiently as I could.

I also think never ramping up my consumption just because my income was growing has had a big benefit. People naturally increase their spending as their income increases, For some reason I never did.

I mean I was enjoying life and doing the same things when I was earning $40K that I am now that I earn >$150K. My outgoings have not really increased over time.

 

[grandia3]

Well, first of all I am 22 this year and have just got my permanent residence about 3-4 years ago

you know, back home, buying shares are kind of taboo. It is said that buying shares is just the same as gambling. So yeah, it is RARE to see people actually invest in stock back in my country

I didn't get any exposure to share/investing when I was still living in my home countries, I can say that studying here in Aus really influence my thinking

but, I should say that my parents teach me good attitudes toward money (they still do until now), they are not the type who earn big and spend big, they always tell me that money doesn't grow on trees and thus, don't waste it
my dad always tell me stories, something like, hey do you know that Mr. A used to be a very rich guy, but he never save money and addicted to gambling and now he is struggling

Conclusion, I think what really influence people toward money are their living environment, what and where they study, how they are brought up, and God's gift

just my 2c

 

[Bill M]

I'm interested to know why some of us seem to have a natural capacity to deal well with money and others do not.

For me they key driver is the absolute hatred for work. I see work as taking away my good life, I mean not being able to do what I want to do. I wanted to be retired in my 20's so I thought of achieving this throughout my whole working life.

Does it have to do with how you were brought up? What attitudes you observed in your parents re saving/spending/investing?

My parents were hard working people who just saved their money and paid off their mortgage. They were happy to retire in their early 60's and just live on the pension. My Mother though had some shares and some gold coins but the amount only topped up their government pension just a bit. The only thing that my Dad ever said to me was that no matter how much you earn you got to save one third of it, I think I did better than that.

Was there any influence via your school years?

School was totally useless to me. I remember one class in high school in the 70's where the teacher said we should now look at some shares listed in the share market section. Pick a few and record the prices. A week later she said now look at those shares and record if they went up or down. Some students went up some down. Big deal, that lesson was over and that was it. I remember an economics class as well but all they ever talked about was supply and demand. Taught me nothing at the time and meant nothing to me.

What effect did 'wanting to do better than others have', if that was a factor?

Hmm, that wasn't the issue for me, I just wanted to be retired and I had to learn how to do this on my own. What others had was irrelevant, but if they were retired then I was interested to know more.

Or if you've struggled with being able to save and invest proficiently, what factors do you think have influenced this?

I never struggled to save. The problem was that it took a very very long time to get to retired status, a lot of hard work. A lot of investments and a lot of busts in some stocks that brought me down too. The hardest part is not making mistakes, the GFC was the worst I ever had to go through and I am still trying to correct the imbalances it cause me.

Just great efforts. I'd really be interested to know what you feel was your motivation here to do so well at such a young age. Plenty of others would also be living at home etc, but just be frittering away whatever income they had.

When I left school I started an apprenticeship. I went from being a school kid with pocket money to earning a salary in 1 week. I was blown away with all this surplus cash. I decided to pay Mum board as my older brother did this too but even after that there was plenty left over. I kept saving and saving, it was easy. Remember I went from nothing to a small salary. I still got drunk like other teenagers and on the weekends I went surfing but I still managed to save. Then I got offers of overtime so I took it. Now the money was building up even faster. I bought a good car and kept on saving. My mates didn't want the o/t, I did. The difference between me and them started there. I was prepared to do o/t for extra money and they were not. Then I failed my 3rd year at TAFE. I had to drop Friday nights out for study otherwise I would not get my license.

Eventually I passed and the o/t was gathering more momentum. The savings were building up. Now I was still a party animal but was a saver and worker in the mean time. I wanted to move away from my parents and the only way I was going to get away with that was to buy a house. I put my 10% down and borrowed the rest and bought my first house at 18 yo. This was just great. Got a mate to share with me so he helped out with some costs. By this time I was a fully fledged traddie working for a factory making good money with plenty of o/t.

I think the biggest influences in my live was the local Italian community where I lived and what I learnt myself thereafter. As a kid I lived in a very hard working Immigrant suburb, mostly Italians. I always noted they were a bit different. Their kids always had better bikes, their birthday partys were a bit better and they had this knack of having nice houses and growing and doing everything for themselves. I could see they worked hard but the older ones were living very well in retirement. They mostly invested in real estate and I knew from a very young age that real estate was the way to beat the system. In my opinion it still is if you are careful of where you buy and what you buy. You never see a broke person who owns rental properties and lives off the rent. This was me I thought and I wanted this.

Later in my working life I was working 2 jobs, my missus was working too and I owned 3 properties and 2 Mortgages. The plan always was to live in one owned outright and rent one out for income. This was achieved in the end, all went according to plan.

During the mortgage stage and working stage I started studying about shares. I needed another edge as one rental property would not be enough. I bought some very basic books like Money and More Money (I think). I also bought a course called "Successful Personal Investing". It was about 25 lessons I think and cost $400. I fully understood the concept of buying and owning shares after doing that course. I bought more and more shares with the intent of getting a dividend stream. I am not a trader and don't care for it, I am only interested in buying good companies that pay good dividends.

The key has always been hard work, good investments, only listen to those who achieved anything (financially that is) and enjoy. There are no get rich quick schemes I'm afraid. The best saying I've read is "getting rich slowly". Also in life you got to know when to quit, no use being a decrepit broken down old man with millions in the bank. KNOW WHEN TO QUIT, I really mean that part.

So that's me in a nutshell. Not bad for a bloke who didn't even make it to University. Cheers.

 

[RamonR]

Those studies performed years ago were young children were asked to avoid touching or eating marshmallows and they would receive more. Most of the children could,'t.

Highlight that being able to delay gratification is a big factor in financial competence.
Those children who could avoid the immediate temptation for the greater future reward were shown to have done better in life subsequently.

In Scientific American August 2010 there is a article where people with low levels of MAOA ( enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters ) were shown to be more impulsive and consequently have greater levels of credit card debt.

 

[prawn_86]

While i'm not as well off as some of the other members here who are my age i am still in a very comfortable position. I am now refocusing on my investing and have a 5 year plan so we'll see if i can get my goals

Personally my attitude towards money came mainly from my father who taught me the basics of saving etc.

My spending habits come from my mum who klikes the finer things, while still not going into debt for it.

I do believe in having fun/enjoying the money you earn, so we put away about 20% of our post tax income and then spend the rest on travel etc. I have had a few friends die already and dont want to be in a position where i have delayed all my gratification and not enjoyed my life.

 

[c-unit]

Throughout high school my folks always suggested I should save, but I never really did. I worked in retail but only two shifts a week, and spent roughly 50% of it. But by the time I had finished high school, I had a few thousand and my parents helped me buy my first car as a reward for doing really well in VCE. I bought a japanese import, a "cool" car if you will. I think the main "beliefs" my folks therefore tought me is not in saving money, but in rewards for hard work.

During Uni I kept working retail but with some math and finance tutoring on the side. During my Uni holidays I did Vacation work at banks etc, but spent alot of the proceeds on big plasma TV's/playstations/booze etc. But what I've noticed is that spending isn't overly satisfying. In fact I always regret it afterwards.

So now, as I've just finished my fifth year of Uni and about to start work, save about 80% of my income, and have been for the last few years. I learnt from my parents the rewards of working hard, and I learnt from my own dissatisfaction with spending that saving most of my income is the way to go. I even regret now buying my japanese import. I wish I had bought a $500 beaten down Ford instead.

Edit: great thread, nice to read the stories from Bill M et al, inspirational.

 

[Knobby22]

A good friend of the family lost everything when I was 21 due to not understanding the business cycle.

My parents lost everything due to poor decisions when I was 23.

 

[awg]

My parents were of Protestant background.

This emphasised an individual work ethic and a definite savings mentality.

They were also of the depression years.


As a very young tacker, I read a book by Norman Vincent Peale (I think)

compound interest, the need to save 10%+ and start young..buy property early ..strive to develop multiple passive income streams, pure commonsense.

I went OS 1st time at 26....young-uns go twice a year now

Even though I could afford to and really wanted to, if I had done that I could NOT have bought property and shares


Some side notes; some people I know very well, were bought up in large Catholic families.

Every cent earned was spent,

they dont think in a similar manner to myself re wealth accumulation

Anecdotely I hear some children of Nimben hippies are disgusted with the mentality and rebel by getting the best education and highest paying jobs they can.


Another point I would add, that may be superflous to any reading, but one must continue to relentlessly educate yourself about money-making.

its a hard game, aint quite as easy as old Norm implied

 

[Julia]

Great stories - thanks to all of you who've been generous with sharing what motivates you.

The common theme seems to be a determination to take responsibility for your own financial success.

Not everyone so far seems to have developed this because of parental example, and I'm a bit surprised at that.

My own first memory about money was at about age 7. I was given a small amount of pocket money on the absolute condition that I save half of it. I had to write down what I planned to buy with this saved portion, what the total cost was, and therefore how many weeks I'd take to be able to buy whatever it was.

The same principle has stuck with me always.

Another constant refrain from my father was 'never give anyone else control of your money: learn how to manage it yourself'.

Also saw both parents relinquish their professional occupations to work long hours in a corner store because they believed they could make more money (which they did).
So I learned from that the principle that social status wasn't everything.

(I did, however, go through some teenage angst about my father turning up to collect me from my very exclusive school in the old beat up ute used for carting vegies and fruit from the market! This little effort of snobbery on my part earned me a sharp parental lecture about values.)


The other feature of the posts so far is a noticeable lack of 'self indulgence', i.e. a willingness to save rather than necessarily buy the latest whizbang whatever.

Bill, you're so very clear about always wanting to cease working as soon as possible.
Would you say this reflects jobs that you simply didn't enjoy? Would there have been other occupations that maybe would have given you interest and satisfaction?

I know a lot of people feel the same. But some vow they will never fully retire, so much do they enjoy the work environment. Some people seem to 'become their jobs' in that they're unsure of their identity outside of work.

I left the workforce in my 40's, able to sustain myself financially and felt a huge relief to be away from the corporate competitiveness and striving for ever greater results.
But there has been sometimes a perverse nostalgia for the sense of challenge.

Please keep the stories coming. So interesting.

 

[medicowallet]

There are many things which have influenced my ability to handle money, and even though I am a high income earner, I am wealthy too, which a lot of my colleagues are not.

My top 5, in no particular order are:

1. Self made parents.
2. I have lost a lot of money investing, I have no fear in investing wisely.
3. Having responsibilities as a parent and single income family.
4. Only taking advice from older people who are wealthy from investing, not income.
5. Being frugal (I look for value, but quality)

 

[Tysonboss1]

4. Only taking advice from older people who are wealthy from investing, not income.

I am not sure I could agree with only taking advice from people older than yourself.

I think the quality of the advice is more important than the age of the advisor.

 

[KurwaJegoMac]

Great thread Julia! I'm really enjoying hearing other people's stories. As for me, I'm 25 and only got into the whole investing world in the last 3 years.

I'm interested to know why some of us seem to have a natural capacity to deal well with money and others do not.

Does it have to do with how you were brought up? What attitudes you observed in your parents re saving/spending/investing?

My parents were always quite frugal, never spending money on the latest craze or fancy cars (we usually drove the same car for 10 years). They migrated here from Poland in their early 20's after World War 2, essentially coming here with nothing but the shirts on their back. My father worked hard doing manual labour so that he could put my mum in school to learn English while he supported me and my siblings (3 in total).

One of my father's stories that stuck with me was how he would ride a push bike (with no gears!) for almost 2 hours every day to get to work. Refusing to buy a car like all his friends did so that he could have enough money to buy a house.

Little has changed since then, they still work hard and live in a bigger house (no debt thankfully) but they never invested a cent - in fact it wasnt until 2 years ago that I managed to convince them to put aside some money in a term deposit (assuring them that they wouldn't lose their money!) Since then they've set up online savings account and regularly make use of term deposits.

Investing was never discussed at our home, it was always seen in a negative light. "So and so invested their money and blew it all" - those sort of stories that you hear all the time. They were brought up to 'put everything under the mattress' - not even trusting banks (although we did have money in our bank accounts, most was actually sitting around in cash). In post war communist Poland, money 'disappeared' sometimes so thats how they were raised and I guess living here they didn't know any better.

That being said, despite the fact that my dad was a good saver i never really picked up the habit so much. I tended to be a lot more liberal from the moment I started getting my pay check (generally saving only about 25% of what I earned)

Was there any influence via your school years?

None whatsoever. I started working from age 16, saved up enough to buy a car at 18 which I still drive today. During my school years I only saved about 25% of what I earned, spending most on going out, computers, holidays, clothes, etc.

What effect did 'wanting to do better than others have', if that was a factor?

Not really a factor for me.

I'd really be interested to know what you feel was your motivation here to do so well at such a young age. Plenty of others would also be living at home etc, but just be frittering away whatever income they had.

For me, it all started at age 23 in 2008. I was disillusioned with my degree, being in my 3rd year of uni I found I had no interest or passion for what I was studying so I took a 'gap year' and went to work at a bank as an internship. The pay wasn't great but I was determined to get my foot in the door. Once there, after a few months the GFC started in full swing and suddenly news of the stock market was being sprouted left right and center. People in the building would talk about how everything was crashing and people were getting margin called. Studying engineering at uni I had no idea what these people were talking about - but being a naturally curious person (I like to know a bit about everything) I decided to learn more so that I could join in the conversations at lunch time.

Soon enough, I started to read books and it opened my eyes to the world of the sharemarket. I started to get involved in some of the conversations at work and started to dip my toes in. Although in hindsight 'dip' might not have been the best way to describe it: I purchased $7000 worth of NAB shares (half of my capital) and was extremely happy to sell it a week later at 8%. How happy was I! Everyone was losing their money and here I was making a killing (i racked up a few more trades, amounting to about a 15% total gain in 3 weeks). My stock picks were based on pure 'hunches'. NAB is a good company right? It looks cheap... lets buy it. That was the entire extent of my analysis

But of course we all know Mr. Market teaches a hard lesson in humility early on. A week later, having seen FMG hit a high of $13 and now trading at $8 i thought it was a bargain. So I piled in my cash. Next day it opened at a $1300 loss. No big deal right? It'll recover right? Well the next day I was down another $2500. I wasn't feeling like such a big shot any more. Luckily on that second day I was reading a book on investing and had finished reading a section about "cutting your losses short and letting your profits run - all too often people get stuck into the 'it must recover', 'its a bargain' etc"

So I cut it short. While it doesn't seem like a lot of money to some, after your first month of trading at a young age it wasn't nice to see so much of your savings wiped out.

From there I just kept reading and reading, devouring book after book to ensure I never repeated the same mistakes. I read countless books and noticed that I did pretty much everything they warned against doing! So I spent countless hours learning about all types of investing.

Since that time things have turned around. I've worked very hard to save and invest as much as I can. In the following two years I have averaged a little over 30% year on year return on my share trading, have set up and run my own Self Managed Superfund (which my parents and brother are a part of) and have put down offers on a number of properties in the last couple of weeks in the hope of snagging one at a discounted price.

It's my first year out of uni, and having worked 40 hours a week, 5 days a week and looking at a mortgage I have begun to appreciate how hard one must work for $. The question I ask myself every day is do I want to be a slave until I retire at 65 with nothing to show for my working life? Or do I want to be in a position where I can provide for myself and my family all the time, to live a comfortable life spending less time working and more time on the important things like family, fitness and health.


------------------------------------------

tl;dr

- No influence from school
- Frugal parents
- GFC raised interest in the sharemarket
- Few beginner mistakes costing me $$
- Lots of reading
- Profitable Trading
- On my way to financial freedom

 

[tech/a]

At 18 my father said "You have no respect for money"---He is right.
At 21 My new wife and I did a budget and had $5 left for us. Isaid
I dont ever want to be in a position where I have to worry about money.

Started working for myself.

28 First shot at Bankruptcy just fell short!
Changed business direction lost all but business property---including losing the wife.
35 second shot at B/Ruptcy.

40 Get it right business turns over $1 mill
Have some spare.
Start buying houses and keep going for 10 yrs.
Accumulate quite a few.
Develop 3 duplex developements
Get trading right after 10 yrs.

Business cracks the 4 mill T/O.
Sell and freehold property and positive gear all.

Hit 55 and can retire.

Still working cause I can and love it.
Play golf/Ride miles and travel heaps whenever I want.
Lifes very good.
Business structured to operate without me.

Still have no respect for money.
Help many out who have no idea I do.
That is the most rewarding of all (Particularly hearing the stories and how it helps).

 

[danago]

I'm interested to know why some of us seem to have a natural capacity to deal well with money and others do not.

Does it have to do with how you were brought up? What attitudes you observed in your parents re saving/spending/investing?

Was there any influence via your school years?

What effect did 'wanting to do better than others have', if that was a factor?

Or if you've struggled with being able to save and invest proficiently, what factors do you think have influenced this?

I think my money-awareness really did start from a young age. My older generation relatives migrated to Australia in the early 1900's from Italy to what is now a largely Italian-based community. My grandparents (and many others in the community) worked hard to establish a fruit orchard which has been kept in the family and is now operated by my dad. From the age of around 7 or 8 onwards i would help pick and pack fruit, especially during the busy season while i was on school holidays. It wasn't a lot of money, but dad would always pay me in proportion to the number of hours i worked. I strongly believe that this helped me to appreciate the value of hard work from a young age.

I had never studied any economics or finance until university, so high school did not really play much of a direct role in my financial habits. The classes i did at school were some of the "harder" ones i.e. physics, chemistry, calculus etc. and i am generally quite competitive, so there was a lot of friendly competition between me and one other student to be the top in the classes. I think this same "driven" attitude has transferred itself to my bank account, where i challenge myself to do better than the average person.

If i was to give a specific reason as to why i try to be so careful with my money and make it grow as much as i can, I'd say for the financial security. I am not necessarily expecting to become so rich that i can buy whatever i want, but what i do hope for myself is that i can live comfortably without having to stress about money all the time, and if there is something that I'd like (within reason) i can afford to buy it.

 

[medicowallet]

I am not sure I could agree with only taking advice from people older than yourself.

I think the quality of the advice is more important than the age of the advisor.

I didn't mean older than me, I just meant that they had to be older.

imo experience with money is more valuable than brashness.

I am a much better manager of money now that I am wiser. People with moderate incomes and large wealth who are experienced with money will always give better advice than someone who is 30 with 10 million and is 5 years awayfrom bankruptcy.

 

[Bill M]

Bill, you're so very clear about always wanting to cease working as soon as possible.
Would you say this reflects jobs that you simply didn't enjoy? Would there have been other occupations that maybe would have given you interest and satisfaction?

Hi Julia, nearly all the jobs I had I enjoyed at first. But come a few Months later and I just wished I was somewhere else. I have had so many different jobs in so many different vocations it's not funny. I could go into it but if I mention any of them anyone who knows me reading this can identify me immediately so I can't go there. Let's just say that in my longest and best job many people said "you are so lucky to be working in such a nice job in such a nice area". I left them all in the end, I even worked for myself for a while. I don't know, work just doesn't do it for me. I only ever did it for money, I certainly didn't do it because I loved the job, people or the feeling of being inclusive. Give me my freedom any day, I have a big life outside of work.

I know a lot of people feel the same. But some vow they will never fully retire, so much do they enjoy the work environment. Some people seem to 'become their jobs' in that they're unsure of their identity outside of work.

I met a very successful ex business man about 2 years ago who was doing an unskilled job for $20 hour. He did not need the money and I asked him why. He said it's because he's got nothing to do. I can not comprehend this, I can't even find the time to do nothing these days as I am so busy outside of work. Mind you I am overseas a lot and I am totally different from the average Aussie.

But there has been sometimes a perverse nostalgia for the sense of challenge.

I solve this problem by adventure travelling or just ordinary travel. There is nothing stopping me grabbing my back pack and peeing off somewhere and doing a hard core back packing adventure. I particularly like going to so called 3rd world countries with cultures far different than ours. So far I have travelled to 44 different countries and lived in a few as well. Give me that to work any day. I am getting itchy feet as I type now.:walker:

 

[Julia]

Great thread Julia! I'm really enjoying hearing other people's stories. As for me, I'm 25 and only got into the whole investing world in the last 3 years.



My parents were always quite frugal, never spending money on the latest craze or fancy cars (we usually drove the same car for 10 years). They migrated here from Poland in their early 20's after World War 2, essentially coming here with nothing but the shirts on their back. My father worked hard doing manual labour so that he could put my mum in school to learn English while he supported me and my siblings (3 in total).

One of my father's stories that stuck with me was how he would ride a push bike (with no gears!) for almost 2 hours every day to get to work. Refusing to buy a car like all his friends did so that he could have enough money to buy a house.

Little has changed since then, they still work hard and live in a bigger house (no debt thankfully) but they never invested a cent - in fact it wasnt until 2 years ago that I managed to convince them to put aside some money in a term deposit (assuring them that they wouldn't lose their money!) Since then they've set up online savings account and regularly make use of term deposits.

Investing was never discussed at our home, it was always seen in a negative light. "So and so invested their money and blew it all" - those sort of stories that you hear all the time. They were brought up to 'put everything under the mattress' - not even trusting banks (although we did have money in our bank accounts, most was actually sitting around in cash). In post war communist Poland, money 'disappeared' sometimes so thats how they were raised and I guess living here they didn't know any better.

That being said, despite the fact that my dad was a good saver i never really picked up the habit so much. I tended to be a lot more liberal from the moment I started getting my pay check (generally saving only about 25% of what I earned)



None whatsoever. I started working from age 16, saved up enough to buy a car at 18 which I still drive today. During my school years I only saved about 25% of what I earned, spending most on going out, computers, holidays, clothes, etc.



Not really a factor for me.



For me, it all started at age 23 in 2008. I was disillusioned with my degree, being in my 3rd year of uni I found I had no interest or passion for what I was studying so I took a 'gap year' and went to work at a bank as an internship. The pay wasn't great but I was determined to get my foot in the door. Once there, after a few months the GFC started in full swing and suddenly news of the stock market was being sprouted left right and center. People in the building would talk about how everything was crashing and people were getting margin called. Studying engineering at uni I had no idea what these people were talking about - but being a naturally curious person (I like to know a bit about everything) I decided to learn more so that I could join in the conversations at lunch time.

Soon enough, I started to read books and it opened my eyes to the world of the sharemarket. I started to get involved in some of the conversations at work and started to dip my toes in. Although in hindsight 'dip' might not have been the best way to describe it: I purchased $7000 worth of NAB shares (half of my capital) and was extremely happy to sell it a week later at 8%. How happy was I! Everyone was losing their money and here I was making a killing (i racked up a few more trades, amounting to about a 15% total gain in 3 weeks). My stock picks were based on pure 'hunches'. NAB is a good company right? It looks cheap... lets buy it. That was the entire extent of my analysis

But of course we all know Mr. Market teaches a hard lesson in humility early on. A week later, having seen FMG hit a high of $13 and now trading at $8 i thought it was a bargain. So I piled in my cash. Next day it opened at a $1300 loss. No big deal right? It'll recover right? Well the next day I was down another $2500. I wasn't feeling like such a big shot any more. Luckily on that second day I was reading a book on investing and had finished reading a section about "cutting your losses short and letting your profits run - all too often people get stuck into the 'it must recover', 'its a bargain' etc"

So I cut it short. While it doesn't seem like a lot of money to some, after your first month of trading at a young age it wasn't nice to see so much of your savings wiped out.

From there I just kept reading and reading, devouring book after book to ensure I never repeated the same mistakes. I read countless books and noticed that I did pretty much everything they warned against doing! So I spent countless hours learning about all types of investing.

Since that time things have turned around. I've worked very hard to save and invest as much as I can. In the following two years I have averaged a little over 30% year on year return on my share trading, have set up and run my own Self Managed Superfund (which my parents and brother are a part of) and have put down offers on a number of properties in the last couple of weeks in the hope of snagging one at a discounted price.

It's my first year out of uni, and having worked 40 hours a week, 5 days a week and looking at a mortgage I have begun to appreciate how hard one must work for $. The question I ask myself every day is do I want to be a slave until I retire at 65 with nothing to show for my working life? Or do I want to be in a position where I can provide for myself and my family all the time, to live a comfortable life spending less time working and more time on the important things like family, fitness and health.


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tl;dr

- No influence from school
- Frugal parents
- GFC raised interest in the sharemarket
- Few beginner mistakes costing me $$
- Lots of reading
- Profitable Trading
- On my way to financial freedom

Kurwa...., Thank you for such a vivid picture of a family and how you grew your own attitude. Somehow you have perfectly managed to convey the vulnerability of new citizens in a country far from their birth, where the freedoms and culture were so different. So interesting. Where those of us who have always known freedom of choice are sometimes criticised for being too conservative if we put money in a term deposit, for your parents this has been a major step forward in trust.
Just a great story.