What is your net worth? $2,300,000
At what age did you become a net worth millionaire? 49
How did you accumulate your net worth, what are you invested in? We began 22 years ago doing up and building houses. We have done this 12 times. Our income has never been overly huge and we have always lived a frugal life sticking to a strict budget.
We have a mortgage free house and we have shares, term deposits and a managed fund.
What was your highest average household WEEKLY income after tax? $3,500
What is your career? Carer
Do you have children? YES
Do you have a tertiary qualification? YES
Did you inherit any of your money? NO
What's the approximate value of your house? $1,500,000
Are you debt free now?:YES
Are you in KiwiSaver? YES
Were you taught about money? NO
What is the most enjoyable thing you do with money? Travel
Do you use your money or your time to help others? YES
If YES, can you please elaborate. We paid for a family member to go to the UK to see her parents. We give money anonymously to friends in need. Paying off family members mortgage (see below).
What is your greatest financial win? We paid off a family members mortgage 10 years ago for a share of their house but let them stay there rent free for all that time. When they sold it our share was $530,000.
What is your worst financial mistake? Have lost money twice on the houses we have done up.
What advice do you have for others? Don’t feel like you ever deserve that car or deserve that flash pool/dress/ring etc. Live well below your means and it will bring huge rewards. Don’t get into huge debt especially for things like cars and furniture.
Always aim to pay off your student loans, mortgage etc early. Don’t get into comparing yourself to others. All my life, until last year, I thought we were poorer than all our friends. Turns out I was quite wrong because 90% of them are still in huge debt to maintain their lavish lifestyles.
What is the point of having a net worth above $1,000,000. What does it mean to you? Security. We can retire early. We don’t have to work and money doesn’t rule our life in that we don’t have to even think about it.
Finish these sentences:
If you want to build wealth do this… Live within your means. Think of some ways to use your interests and strengths to make extra money. In our case it was doing up and landscaping houses.
If you want to build wealth avoid doing this… Keeping up with the Joneses and frittering away your money on things like lunch out, coffees, movies, clothes, excessive shoe collections etc.