All in Money Journey
Aria and her husband Dave didn’t grow up with much so once they got together they knew they didn’t want to live paycheque to paycheque. When asked what financial independence means to them they said it means “we don’t have to worry about money” and that is a sentiment that they want for everyone.
I first heard from Hamish when he sent me an email in late 2020 telling me that back in 2018, at the age of just 24 he had saved up and bought a $379,00 house in Palmerston North with a big deposit of $125,000. No surprises I was pretty keen to hear more from Hamish about the how and the why of this.
“Well this is awkward” I thought when some guy called Chris started secretly emailing me without his partner’s knowledge! Big long emails with tonnes of questions about personal finance, my favourite topic for sure! That is how I came to sit on the sidelines of the transformation of not just Chris but of his partner Rosemary’s financial life.
Jen freaked out at 49! She considered herself to be halfway through her life and had big concerns about what the other half might look like. A divorce halved her net worth and becoming a single mother introduced a whole heap of new challenges. She is now fast tracking to an early retirement at the age of 55 and is a wonderful example of showing just what a woman on a mission is capable of!
Nina was homeschooled and part of her education involved investing in the share market and preparing from the age of just 13 to cover the cost of her future university degree. Now in her late 20’s and with a husband and three small children, she is feeling content with the journey ahead and that includes paying off their home and then starting to invest for the long term financial wellbeing of her and her family.
Alana’s debt of choice was buying household items on Hire Purchase. Lots of them! But before long she had precommitted her income years into the future so she could service these debts. But finally she reached a pivotal point of being heartily sick of living pay cheque to pay cheque and in just a few short years she and her husband have made a massive financial turnaround and are now firmly on the path to financial independence.
This week, I had a chat with Steve who described his financial story as “not so much an epic dig out of deep debt”, or a “becoming fabulously wealthy” kind of story. But, more of a “jigsaw puzzle piecing it all together over time” kind of story, which, he told me, is still very much ongoing. I think Steve and Madie have a story that many millennials could emulate.
Chris and his wife Megan were tired of it taking so long to pay off their mortgage, so they focussed on the detail and developed a game plan that will see them own their own house on 31st December 2020. In their mid-thirties, they have the strong foundations in place to provide a wonderful future for their family of five. There are a few other investment decisions they are working through, plus there is the small matter of him convincing his wife ‘they’ need a boat...
There were many points during Ella’s 40 plus years that her gut instinct told her to make a few changes to the way her family handled money. 2020 has been a huge time of change and these changes all stemmed from her wanting to be able to financially help her kids and once she worked out that she needed to be in a strong financial position herself in order to do this, the rest is rapidly falling into place.
In this final podcast of this series, I’m doing a recap of two people that I’ve spoken with earlier. Firstly Bret from episode #20, a guy who had gone from being a super consumer to someone who is finally in control of money. And Lucas from episode #28 who last time we met was staring down the barrel of a $1.2 million dollar mortgage. Both have come an extremely long way in a very short space of time.
This week I tell you all about Catherine and her husband Luke. Both of them had been enjoying successful careers and had been working to a financial plan that had them thinking years into the future. But sometimes when we think we are heading in one direction a fork in the road throws up a few other suggestions and we have no choice but to adapt.
Linda’s journey with money had just been trundling along year in year out for, oh I don’t know, about 52 years! But in July 2019 there was to be a bit of a change in direction when she started to question the status quo and wondered if not paying her house off until she was in her mid 70’s was the best idea after all?
Becky described herself as a spender at heart who has to constantly battle against the desire to just spend, spend, spend. While still a work in progress, she has come a very long way in a short space of time and has paid off old debt and said no to any more. This is how a ‘natural spender’ gets her money under control.
