When was your AHA moment....??

You know, the moment ( or set of moments) when you realised if you wanted a better life/ better retirement/more options, you'll need to do something else with your money and efforts towards that goal.

Do you remember exactly what/when it was for you?

 

my 40th birthday.
Owned my own house, but was working in an average pay job, and realised I was probably going to retire on a pension at this rate. I was realising my mortality. Scary.
Almost like magic, a couple of days later a property investment flier (For a dodgy guru) turned up in my mailbox.
I went to the free seminar, and next day went to the local book shop and found "Story by Story" by Jan Somers.

 

The day before I got married (13th February 1981) but it was obliterated the very next day .

 

In all seriousness, in December 2003, when we developed our Financial Independence Plan.

Bit like @Kelvin Cunnington, we realised our morality and didn't like our current trajectory.

 

I was on my own at 52 yrs old, working full time. The future looked pretty bleak. I thought now is the time to stop talking start doing. I had been to a few property seminars in the preceding years and with one excuse or another did not do anything. Scared witless I started with one property. I had a plan and failure was not an option. Still investing 18 yrs later.

 

About 2 years after I started working, so 2011/2012?
Making some projections on how my finance will look like when I'm 60 and it looks absolutely grim.

 

For me, growing up poor was enough incentive and motivation. There was no particular 'aha' moment, just a lot of different moments that made up my childhood.

Having St Vincent's volunteers drop around secondhand toys that later turned up in our stocking from 'santa'. Having to run next door to ask the neighbours if we could borrow some bread or milk until payday. Watching my dad work any job he could find without complaint. Missing out on things other kids could do because we couldn't afford it. Having my parents talk openly and honestly about money and budgets, and even the kinds of investments they would have made if they had been in a posistion to do so; and watching them start to get ahead as us kids grew older and the economy as a whole started to pick up and employment opportunities increased.

I remember my parents talking a lot, my entire childhood, about property. They never had the means to get their foot in the door until I was old enough to leave home, but it wasn't for lack of desire. They would talk about what they would want in homes to live in as a family. They would discuss with us kids about rental income. Dad would also mention capital gains on occaision, and how house prices would rise, but it was the talk about how you could use rental income to pay for a property and then once it was paid off, you could live off that rental income.

I had a wonderful childhood with devoted parents, I wouldn't change it for the world. And growing up so far below the poverty line helped make me who I am as a person today. It taught me a lot of life lessons that I think are really hard to learn any other way.
And most of all, it made me realise that money is simply a means to an end, not the be all and end all.

My goals have always been to be comfortable and secure. Not to be 'rich'. Being without money doesn't scare me. I know no matter how little money I have, I can survive. And being 'rich' although appealing doesn't automatically make for a happy life either. Feeling secure about finances though, that makes a difference. Knowing that you have something to fall back on. knowing that you don't have to stress because its your last $2 and its 10 days until payday. Knowing that if my kids need something or want something, or have an oppertunity to do something, then I can afford it (not that that means they will get it, but knowing I can give it to them if I choose). That's what drives me. I do what I can to ensure I stay in that position. A position where I don't have to rely on the good will and charity of others just to get me through.

 

I can't say I had a single pivotal moment as such, have always gravitated to investing and accumulating wealth. I can recall as a five year old stockpiling my Easter eggs and rationing them out over the following months while everyone else had gorged them long ago. I can remember when I started getting pocket money as a child in early primary school and using a calculator to project how much I could save by the end of 1 year, 2 years etc.

I do recall reading some investor profiles in Australian Property Investor magazines early on and it striking me that the people profiled didn't always have high income professions or pre-existing wealth. It planted the seed in me that growing a large property portfolio was possible, not just a pipe dream. I think this sent me down the path of wanting to learn more about how this could be done.

 

My AHA moment was when I heard this all girl band on the radio:



A-ha Norwegian band.

 

Maaatte......that bloke in the middle has a mullet just like yours.....

 

going to see them in Feb.
A back to the 80's concert in the Yarra Valley.

 

Have heard this from so many other successful people in the past. I think growing up with not much instills a sense of gratitude in folks when they start to achieve things and don't take opportunities for granted. Also probably repels the whole entitlement trap. Thanks for sharing.

 

To hear one song ? I guess they save it for the encore.

 

Maybe she wants to Take On Me

 

Pretty much when I got my first job after finishing high school.
Didn’t take long to decide that a life of employment was not for me.

 

I grew up with parents who were very conscious of financial security having both lived through the depression. My mum emigrated to Australia in 1926 when there was no work for her father in Scotland, and very minimal benefits. Work or starve.

Dad had a secure job in the Commonwealth Public Service with its excellent superannuation scheme. Dad always contributed extra, up to 20% of his salary. On retirement he and mum were able to travel extensively.

So I guess I just followed my family’s example of providing for a comfortable retirement. From another post, it seems we romped into the top 3%!

 

Like Rugrat, no real AHA moment. We were poor. Hubby retrenched & we had two babies, a mortgage & 17.5% interest rates. Lived for many years on nothing. We both worked any job we could to put food on the table. As we started to recover from this we learnt about property & bought our first. Full story on SS. Many years later, facing near bankruptcy I flew to Tassie & gambled on buying our second & third properties. Turned out well & this lit the fire. Bought many, sold some, kept some & the rest is history.

 

Was not really an Aha moment, but after being employed by a subsidiary company of Australia’s favorite airline for 20 years and then being sold off to a global company with not many benefits, decided better pull my finger out and start the transition to only using full time employment as a secondary source of income.
Just over a year on and with the right advice and planning, the investment journey is doing alright!

 

There have been a few AHA moments

• I had an aha moment and started to appreciate the power of timing after observing that an ip my parents had purchased 1999 doubled in value in about 5 years
• I purchased my PPOR in 2006 and the market in Melbourne went berserk and I realised that capital growth was a lot easier and a much more powerful wealth builder than earned income. I invested as heavily as possible from then on
• Reading Jan Somers' books back in 2006

 

We were seriously impressed with your developments. Meeting you just gave me even more of a push to keep going, seeing what you were achieving. Love your work!