My parents divorced when I was pretty young, which gave me two very good financial role models.
My dad worked a good paying construction job, and worked very hard. I didn't appreciate how good he was with money until I was an adult and we started talking about this stuff (including me getting him out of his 2.5% fee financial advisor) but he was able to pay his child support, buy a new truck every couple of years, pay off his house, buy essentially everything he wanted, and still save a good amount on top of his very good defined benefit pension.
My mom meanwhile couldn't have a particularly good paying career because she was a single mother raising two young kids. Despite that, she worked hard and because of her frugality and general wits we never wanted for anything.
Both in their own way taught me to respect what money can do for you, and the value of a dollar.
My mom got me even more started on the path to being good with money. I was probably 10, and was probably annoying her about being bored when she gave me The Wealthy Barber to shut me up. Well I read it, and even though I didn't understand 3/4 of it (what does a ten year old know about term vs whole life insurance), I understood the idea of saving 10% of any money you get and investing it and becoming rich one day. Well that stuck and all through high school and university I worked pretty good paying jobs ($17/hr was practically a million dollars to me) and saved a good chunk of it.
Their examples, and the knowledge they gave me, allowed me to finish university with no debt (they also helped pay a decent portion of it). And then somewhere along the line in university I discovered Warren Buffett and investing on your own and Mr. Money Mustache and all sorts of other things that developed my interest in finance and investing, which combined with my decent paying job out of university, has put me on a great path. A path I may not be on if my parents hadn't got divorced and my mom hadn't given a young stupid kid The Wealthy Barber one day.
My parents divorced when I was pretty young, which gave me two very good financial role models.
My dad worked a good paying construction job, and worked very hard. I didn't appreciate how good he was with money until I was an adult and we started talking about this stuff (including me getting him out of his 2.5% fee financial advisor) but he was able to pay his child support, buy a new truck every couple of years, pay off his house, buy essentially everything he wanted, and still save a good amount on top of his very good defined benefit pension.
My mom meanwhile couldn't have a particularly good paying career because she was a single mother raising two young kids. Despite that, she worked hard and because of her frugality and general wits we never wanted for anything.
Both in their own way taught me to respect what money can do for you, and the value of a dollar.
My mom got me even more started on the path to being good with money. I was probably 10, and was probably annoying her about being bored when she gave me The Wealthy Barber to shut me up. Well I read it, and even though I didn't understand 3/4 of it (what does a ten year old know about term vs whole life insurance), I understood the idea of saving 10% of any money you get and investing it and becoming rich one day. Well that stuck and all through high school and university I worked pretty good paying jobs ($17/hr was practically a million dollars to me) and saved a good chunk of it.
Their examples, and the knowledge they gave me, allowed me to finish university with no debt (they also helped pay a decent portion of it). And then somewhere along the line in university I discovered Warren Buffett and investing on your own and Mr. Money Mustache and all sorts of other things that developed my interest in finance and investing, which combined with my decent paying job out of university, has put me on a great path. A path I may not be on if my parents hadn't got divorced and my mom hadn't given a young stupid kid The Wealthy Barber one day.
This is really interesting. I think that you were able to be positively influenced from both parents speaks to your maturity.
Thank you very much for sharing.