Let me start by noting the I am by no means qualified to provide any form of financial advice. I am only here to speak from my own person experiences and share my learnings and opinions on what I has inspired me and what I've done for my own circumstances.
From a pretty young age, my parents had taught me the value of money. Since we had come from pretty much nothing, we were taught that it’s a lot work to earn a living, so you must know how to look after your money and know how to spend it wisely.
I remember when we were kids and still celebrated some of the traditions of Chinese New Year. But instead of cash in the red pocket, my Dad sat me down and laid out three stacks of coins all with different heights. He asked me to pick one and my brothers and I would all get a stack each. The tallest stack had more coins but also more silver coins. The shorter one had fewer coins but had more gold. I learnt later that each stack amounted to the same dollar value but my Dad was showing us how it could be made up by all these different ways.
This book has been with me since kindy. Can’t believe I still have it.
In kindergarten, I was enrolled in the Dollarmites program. Though we didn't know of the ploy of the bank at the time, it still taught me the concept of savings in a bank account. I remember getting excited when my Dad would give me my $2 each week, which I would put into my Dollarmites book, and the school would deposit my money into my savings account. Every six months I would get a letter addressed to me saying how much money I had saved. I also remember some time in primary school, receiving a little yellow notebook which had the columns income, expense and balance. I somehow learnt to fill it out by understanding that it meant money coming in, money going out, and the money that I had left. This was the beginning of my money tracking habits. I'm thankful that I learnt those lessons at such a young age.
“Financial literacy is such a critical life skill that unfortunately so much of us fail to possess. ”
And with us fast becoming a cashless society, I fear that the younger generation will not be able to appreciate the value of the dollar. Even still, since it was not taught in school, unless you came from a wealthy family, what we are taught about money by your parents is very limited. Mainly you save by not spending and needing to get a job to earn an income.
I'm a person who plans my life around setting goals and milestone events. After getting engaged, I spent a good two and half years planning and saving up for our wedding and honeymoon. This was a massive personal project and expensive one at that. And as wonderful and worthwhile as the day was, it did take a lot from us financially.
Post wedding, it was my goal to take control of our finances and get us back on track in terms of building up our savings/emergency fund. It was perhaps the end of 2016 that I started to gain a thirst for inspiration in self-development and open myself up to new ways of thinking. Since most of my wedding planning had been done, and I didn't need to spend time researching wedding ideas, I got more into reading and lifestyle Youtube videos.
I came across this Youtube channel called "Fight Mediocrity". What I liked about it was that it would summerise the concepts of all these bestseller self-help books into these animated shorts. One video in particular, discusses his top 9 books and the top one mentioned was Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki. It just so happened that my husband somehow had a copy of it, so I thought I'd give it a go.
Rich Dad Poor Dad totally transformed the way I look at money and was a key driver of making me more aware of the need for a change in approach to personal finance.
“Reading the book seriously was one of those mind blown moments, like a paradigm shift where the concept of personal finance came into better clarity.”
The book itself is not really a how to become rich but more about the mindset of how rich people think about money:
Buy assets, not liabilities - that is, buy things that will make you money and gain in value, not depreciate
Poor people buy liabilities like cars and fancy phones to look rich, but they're probably not wealthy
Make your money work for you
Pay yourself first
Find ways to make money that is not trading time for income
The concept of passive income - buying or creating something once that will continually generate income without continual work
It's not about how much you earn, it's about how much you keep
Since coming across the book I've been consuming a lot more content with regards to personal finance and seeing what strategies I could implement to manage our funds. Some key ideas that have piqued my interest are:
FI/RE - Financial Independence/Retire Early
Investments
Frugality - Mindful and smarter spending
Side Hustles - Side work for an extra income stream
“Getting your finances on track and earning wealth is a long term game. In order to play the game, you need to know the rules.”
It is from there that you can take steps to implement the strategies to get to your goals. I'm far from where I want to be financially, but at least I am now more aware of some strategies available that can help me get me there.
If you want to learn more about how to get into the mindset of thinking like a rich person I highly recommend reading Rich Dad Poor Dad.
You can get the book here: https://amzn.to/2D6BOHx
