My Financial Journey & How I Got to Where I Am Now
Several people have asked me to tell you my story and go over my financial journey to get to where we are today. I haven't scripted this. I am just going to tell you as it is.
My childhood
I come from a single-parent family. My mom and dad divorced when I was very young. My mom then moved out of the home we had lived in with my dad and was placed in state housing, also known as social housing. I lived there off and on for a lot of years. That is still where my mom lives.
My mom, whenever we were growing up, had three different low-paying jobs. She had three jobs to keep enough money coming in. My dad, even when they were together, was very lazy. He didn't work.
If he did get employment, he didn't stay in that employment very long. We always knew at the time that there wasn't very much money. We grew up in a working-class area.
My mom has a work ethic like no other. When we were younger, even after the divorce, there was no help coming from my dad. When I went to grammar school, my mom then went back to study, and she is whom I get my drive and my work ethic from.
My work ethic
I looked at my mom and how hard she had to work. I looked around me, and I was determined that I was going to use whatever gifts I had been given to work, work hard, and try to make sure that I could achieve certain things.
I went through spells in my teenage years. My mom and teachers told me then that I had academic ability and was wasting it. I did get it together and did what I was supposed to do academically.
The value of education
I also wised up in life. As you get older, you look around, and you realize what's going on. It was only as I got older that I realized what my mom had been through to try and let us have as much as we could and not go without.
I owed it to her as much as I owed it to myself, not to waste the opportunities I had been given and not to throw away the education she was so determined I would get.
I did my GCSEs as they are here. I then did my A levels. I then went to university. I did well in all of those things. I was lucky that way academically. I then took a little bit of time out after university to travel. I then came back, went back to university, and did a further higher level qualification.
Working and careers
After that, I started to work. I worked and had my first job when I was 14. When I was 14, one of my mom's friends owned a bar restaurant and got me a kitchen job washing dishes. I have worked since then.
I went through many jobs. I worked in retail; I worked in shops; I worked in restaurants; I worked in bars; I worked through university. There is no job that I am too proud to do or have been too proud to do. I now own my company.
After university
I worked right through university. Then, after I left university, I traveled for a while. I traveled around Australia, worked as I went, came home, went back to study further, and worked again. I worked while I traveled.
I then got a job in the field that I had chosen. I worked in that field until I was almost 30. I opened my own business when I was 29. That is young for the business that I have. I work in professional services.
I did it with a leap of faith, probably more with hope than expectation. It never entered my head that it wouldn't work. I suppose one of the things that I always knew was that I would work and work and work until it did work. I would not give up until there was no breath left.
The present
I am now 39. I have owned that business for ten years. It is now a limited company. I am the managing director. I employ many people; I have several other professionals working for me. We very much work as a team, and I value them.
I've now had my company for ten years. I have built it up, and I have built up other streams of income. I went through those years when I was through university, working jobs to survive, studying again, and traveling again. I
was in my first job buying my first home. I had a lot of debt. I had a lot of consumer debt; I had student debt; I had two sets of student loans because I did two sets of university, and I had a tremendous amount of debt around my neck to try and pay off whenever I was going through my twenties and then still starting my business.
Becoming debt-free
I took more debt to start my business, which was a risk, but thankfully has paid off. I had to focus on dealing with that debt at the same time as focusing on building the business and moving the business forward.
So yes, it has been a lot, but I have come through that, and the debt is now gone.
I have then moved on from the debt to look at saving money and investing money and building the business up and looking at different income streams, how best to manage that income, and how to manage the business income.
Lockdown wiped us out for a while. Very little was happening, and I needed something to do for myself. I am not used to being idle. I needed to find something for myself and something to invest my time into.
That is what led to my first YouTube channel, and then from that, business finance inquiries, questions, and comments have led me to start a financial channel.
My financial journey
That's where we are now. So that is a little whistle-stop tour into my background, financial journey, and where I am now. What has your financial journey been like? Share in the comments below!
Comments
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I hope your business does well. I am zero debt though I took no loans out for University. My parents told me at age 13 yr that I would have to pay for my degree so I had saved up $10,000 back in 1990 so I could attend or start college. They needed the money for their new home in better towb, and took it, so I started over. At 0 dollar 💵 but I had good roommates so I could work and school 🏫. The folks returned the money after I finished college 7 yrs later after many struggles. I would not recommend trusting those close to you, even parents. They really have their own agenda often times.
I now use my degree to work in health care and computers. I still need to depend on support from a program through the private sector. After survival of some Major Fraud, it would help to have your own business.