How did your upbringing shape your attitude to investing and money..

Thanks @willair for starting the sharing. And the honesty of all others to follow. Very personal. I'll check back and share later. Off to the J.O.B. For now. . . .

 

When I read your post first thing I did was close my fingers to see if there are any gaps. ...no gaps to report haha. But yeah I was told that depending how experienced the person is they may only be able to read up to a certain age etc. I don't know much about it or if there is any merit to it but my Palm reader wasn't too far off, also with other things. Who knows.

 

I few good years of labouring on building sites together with weight training transformed my hands to wealth building mode.
Otherwise, I just cup my hand slightly like trying to hold water without any dripping out and that works too, to stop the money slipping away

 

Grew up in a working class family - money was always tight and created tension. I never wanted money to be an issue when it came to my own family - so far it hasn't. However - I've got to remember to not spoil my kids (it happens a lot without realising). I want them to have drive/ambition as they get older and not expect mum and dad to look after them.

Cheers

Jamie

 

I grew up in home where dad goes to work, mum stays home and looks after the house and kids,pay your taxes and retire on a full pension.I still remember the moment investing made sense, we were actually buying a new PPOR, the mortgage lady said, "Why not buy a IP as well" .Ok, what a great idea i thought, and off we went and bought a little place that made over 100k in 18 months.

 

I was very fortunate with my parents, but they didn't start until they were in their mid 30's and never spent their money on "doodads".

So I didn't see lots of money and want that, what I saw was two people working hard to give themselves a better life.

As a teen I hated the fact they forced me to save half my wages, I also had to buy everything that wasn't essential myself.

They taught me to have a buffer, be resilient, and even if things get tough and you don't think there's any way to get out if you work hard enough you will improve it. As they affectionately called it "the Simms gene".

 

Amazed but inspired by how many people here had average or below-average upbringings (financially)

I was fortunate to have a financially stable family; not rich not poor, comfortable with no money tension.

One day I happened upon a Rich Dad Poor Dad audiobook and immediately got hooked. Played Kiyosaki's Cashflow 101/202 games and based my personal financial spreadsheet off the balance sheet shown in the game.

Then went through a phase where I thought Kiyosaki was a con and told lots of lies and only got rich selling books. Discarded the financial learnings for a few years and went back to the daily grind.

Then I grew up enough to realise that a lot of good principles can be extracted from any source, so I picked the good bits back up and took a more wholistic approach to my learning. Has worked wonders

 

It's a Financially Binding Agreement - think 'pre-nup'

 

Grew up in family, who made from nothing to "The name" in town.

From age of 16 years, spent 10 years learning the how to spend money (Travelling around the world, living luxurious lifestyle, not saving money). and started investing and making money from age of 26.

Now, I make money to make MORE money. on right track to reach bigger goals, just need to keep at it avoiding all distraction possible!

 

My wife has the PIN, I don't argue.

Well it works for us .

 

Yeah I agree that's one of the hard parts, avoiding the distractions. I am very selective who I socialise with now.

 

My parents worked their tails off (average incomes) throughout my youth and kept an incredibly tight reign on household expenditure.

As a kid, I fought hard for opportunities to earn and multiply my money but my folks wouldn’t have a bar of it. They preferred to spend their weekends doing housework rather than outsourcing it to me for a few bucks etc. I think it was a crazy religious thing (money = evil or something). I reckon this shaped how frugal and sensible I’ve been with my own money, but I also acquired a scarcity mindset out of the experience.

That didn’t stop my finding ways to make cash on the side though. I used to sell Pog, Tazos, Oddbodz, Pokemon cards for profits when I was in primary school. In high school I managed to collect enough “donations” from schoolmates to import and modify (to work in Australia) a Nintendo GameCube then rent it out, the profits of which I used to reimburse everyone who had chipped in to purchase. It was cashflow positive for a while before the GameCube was released locally.

My parents divorced when I was in my early 20s and had almost nothing to show for it. Considering how hard I’d seen them work, I realised they’d stuffed up and decided I would not do the same. So I learned about investing.

Growing up I had absolutely no exposure to any business owners or investors. A few years ago I began to discover the world of opportunity out there and it changed everything.

 

Oops - I'm guilty of this! Usually because I haven't been to the ATM and the kids 'surprise' me with an urgent school expense at 7am. I racked up a $59 debt to me 12yo last week. She's been paid in full!

 

I grew up with two hard working parents who came from little money and knew you had to work hard and save money. They did work hard and save money but never took any risks. Lucky for me they sent me to a very good school and it was there that my eyes opened up to the fact that there are lots of different people out there with different lifestyles. It was evident that two people on the same income could use that money differently eg one could blow it and have nothing to show for it the other could make the money grow into more money.
My philosophy has always been make your money work hard and reap the benefits. Read lots of books when i was younger, have always budgeted and lived within my means. Feel like after 20yrs in the workforce my philiosophy is coming true, my money is working hard and I can see how the sacrifice earlier on was worth it.

 

Very interesting to read the stories.

I grew up in India in a middle class joint-family. The house was built by my grandfather and was shared with 3 uncles and their families. My dad worked hard to make sure we got everything we needed. My mum worked hard in the house to keep everything and everyone together and run a household within our means.

When I was 11, my dad built a house out in the suburbs to rent out. His work gave him a loan and deducted repayments from his paycheque. Not sure whether it was pre or post tax. When I was maybe 15, he bought a block of land out in the suburbs and sold it when I started uni to pay for my uni.

He still has the house that he built, fully paid-off and it now pays every year what it cost him to build then. Mum and dad recently visited it and have only been through 4 tenants in that time. Rent goes up a little bit each year and its free income for them.

My dad and uncles also "invested" (more like traded) in shares during my teen years but pulled out completely when they got burnt. Dad still actively invests in mutual funds and ETFs using DCA.

Overall, I guess I learnt watching him. My wife's mum and dad got divorced when she was in her early teens. Her mum raised 5 kids on her one income and worked 4-5 jobs at any given time, but always lived paycheck to paycheck. My wife has always been investment savvy due to working in the financial services industry.

We are trying to teach our 6 year old son. We pay him 1 cent for each dish he empties from the dishwasher etc. He then gets to spend it. When he's a bit older we'll teach him to save some and give some to homeless/charity.

 

My parents were lower/middle class. Dad worked full time as a 'Waltons Man" and mum was part-time as a clerical assistant at a school. I remember my mother splitting up the money on payday into several glass jars for their expenses. There was utilities, holidays, beer money, etc.

I'd always been fascinated by houses. Something that came from neither parent. I used to look in real estate windows, even as a kid. It used to drive Hubby & the kids mad. Obviously I was meant to buy property.

We fell into investing. Although I loved looking at houses, I never for an instant thought of buying them. All that changed though, as soon as I got a bit of an education.

 

My Dad brought me up pretty much by himself. Not by choice as my Mum died when I was 3 of Breast Cancer in 1963. He never remarried as he had lost the love of his life.
Thankfully, Dad had help from his brothers in minding me when it was required. He went on to work and study to provide all he could for me; eventually becoming an accountant.
I bugged him continually to teach me everything he could in regard to becoming financially independent.
I took a different path to him in that I went into a trade (Butchery) and went on to have 2 shops. He taught me that through hard work, long hours, perseverance and determination any goal can be achieved.
I will be forever grateful for the foundations he stressed to me over his life.
Money was never tight, but extremely valued.

 

I was fortunate that I grew up in a household where both my parents worked. My dad worked in the Mitsibushi factory (when they still built cars in Australia) and received a fairly good wage and my mum worked at the Housing Trust as a clerk.

My dad was always a good saver while my mum was always the spender but it was actually my mum that got them started in investing. Working at the housing trust in the early 80s she saw a lot of the senior staff and engineers at the Housing Trust spend their money on property and do quite well out of it. She also noticed a lot of the rich people looked like real paupers’ (probably because they spent their money on investments).

Growing up in my household we never really talked about money. My dad in particular, was a real tight ass. Me and my siblings wouldn’t even bother asking for stuff in the shops or toys because his answer was always no. We never went overseas or interstate for holidays, we never out at restaurants, and we took our lunchbox to school instead of ever getting food from the canteen. Same as my dad he always made his lunch for work. Even having takeaway was a luxury I probably only got it a couple of times a year so that’s why I love McDonalds and stuff so much today haha. My parents both drove old bombs and my dad would even brew his own beer instead of just going to the pub or drinking bottles like most regular people. Same as all their clothes and sneakers were from cheap stores like K Mart and Big W.

Despite that we grew up in a 2 story house in the southern suburbs. When I was a teenager it was actually embarrassing because I’d take my friends back to my house and some of them thought I was ********ting that I actually lived in that house LOL! But yeah despite my dads’ tight ass ways they are financially set. My parents own their PPOR outright, a couple of houses, and several units. Like I said they don’t talk to me about money but I also know they own a few shares and obviously still have their super from working. They didn’t use a fancy approach to investing they pretty much just paid P+I on all their houses and would always buy one and then spend several years whittling away the interest before purchasing another one- perhaps not the most financially savy way to accumulate their portfolio but it definitely worked out for them.

Coming from that background I’ve adopted a lot of the ways just instinctively. I’ve always been into Business and studied Commerce/Economics and known the difference between appreciating and depreciating assets. So I live my lifestyle accordingly. As shallow as it sounds my aim is to create more wealth than my parents and so far I’m heading down the right path.

 

I don't think your goal sounds shallow at all mate.

 

With interest I hope