What is your net worth? $1,010,000 (!!!)
At what age did you become a net worth millionaire? 35 and 43 respectively
What region of New Zealand do you live in? Central Otago
How did you accumulate your net worth, what are you invested in? Our family home, KiwiSaver accounts and some minor index fund investing - we are building on this.
What was your highest average household WEEKLY income after tax? $2,350 per week combined
What is your career? Public service
Do you have children? YES
Do you have a tertiary qualification? YES
Did you inherit any of your money? YES
If YES, how much did you inherit? My parents gave us $10,000 when we bought our 1st home. We owned just 5% of it!
What's the approximate value of your house? $980,000
Are you debt free now? NO
If NO, how much debt do you have and what is it for? $220,000 mortgage
Are you in KiwiSaver? YES
Were you taught about money? YES
If YES, how were you taught? Our parents didn’t teach us much about money. My parents were time rich but cash poor for most of my childhood - the best way to grow up! Ruth @ The Happy Saver sparked the interest in actually tracking what our money was doing for us and how it could work for our future plans.
What is the most enjoyable thing you do with money? Things together as a family. Buying coffee and cake at our local cafe for morning tea together.
Do you use your money or your time to help others? YES
If YES, can you please elaborate. Donations to worthy causes and we both contribute our time to causes such as coaching sports or sitting on charitable trust boards.
What is your greatest financial win? Timing the market right for a sea change move away from the big smoke. We could have hung in there and made a bit more on the sale, but then wouldn’t be able to afford current day prices for our property now.
What is your worst financial mistake? There are probably a few pairs of shoes I could have done without, but no real doozies! We both had the opportunity to buy property really cheap in our early 20’s, but it’s hard to convince an early 20-something that a new car or partying isn’t the best use of money...
What advice do you have for others? Work out what is important to you. We wrote down short and long term financial goals, as well as family goals. It is so motivating when you tick them off!!
What is the point of having a net worth above $1,000,000. What does it mean to you? It takes so much stress off to not worry about paying bills all the time. We will continue on the same path we are on to maximise family time while our kids are young (and still want to know us)!
Finish these sentences:
If you want to build wealth do this… Have a plan. You generally don’t make money by accident.
If you want to build wealth avoid doing this… Spending significant money on depreciating assets. Probably a substantial drug addiction also wouldn’t help your bottom line!