How did you get rich?

[Roxetta]

I'm 29 with a lovely DH & 2 gorgeous children. We live month to month, getting into small amounts of debt and then getting back out of it and this cycle repeats itself.

I don't mean to sound boastful but I'm fairly smart and a massive underachiever. DH is in the army and my career has been sidelined while the DC are young but i'm in the process of looking at qualifications I can complete to give myself the best chance at a really good career.

I am massively driven now (wasn't during my teen years due to life events that went on at that time) but basically I want a good lifestyle, I want us to be able to enjoy the finer things in life and to go on long haul holidays and enjoy all that life has to offer without money being the huge barrier that it currently is for us.

I'm so far away from being where I want to be in life. Can you share your experiences of how you managed to become wealthy? I'm just hoping to hear some positive stories because I sometimes feel quite defeatist that I'm 29 and I've achieved so little. I know there is more to life than money and I'm very lucky to have my family but I want to be able to offer them more. Thanks.

Honesly? Most of my family are dead so I had a lot of inheritance as soon as I turned 18, more when I turned 21. Which I used for some very good investments and rental properties.

I also have my own business which does very well

Then I met dh and he is from a wealthy family and he earns big money from his job.

No kids!
Also...
Was raised in poverty so no help from family etc.
Bought a flat young (19) it was gross and no one else wanted it but it was cheap. Got a lodger and used that money to pay mortgage. Saved.
Over the last 20 years have moved into other doer uppers making money each time.
Saved saved saved. I’ve always had lodgers (which most people including my husband don’t like). Learn to do diy.. don’t pay for anything if you can do it yourself or learn via YouTube.
Be savvy on everything you buy. Made 2 good investments in shares which got me about £20k. Used anything I had to pay down the mortgage. Pay rises, any bonuses, lodger money etc. Make the most of good pension deals at work.

Don’t buy the latest tech or whatever. Second hand stuff is usually good!

Have a plan. I knew I wanted to be mortgage free in 10 years from my start date and knew the ins and outs of how they could happen. I lived off spreadsheets!

As a pp said, put myself out of my comfort zone at work. Took on anything that was asked and took advantage of any training.
Got some independent interview coaching which has helped in my career.
Moved jobs every couple of years for a pay rise.
Have done jobs that I didn’t particularly like.
Now contract which is lucrative as long as you don’t take too much time off / go sick etc.
I only pay myself just over the minimum.
What it all means is I have enough equity / savings / pension to give up work in my 40’s.
Most important thing imo is planning!

It annoys me when millennials go on about baby-boomers and how much money we have. We didn't have money when we were your age. You will have money when you get to our age. It's nothing but the passing of time. Time is money; money is time.

I'm so glad there are oodles of boomers who are nowhere near this badly informed.

We are wealthy. DH left school at 16, did military service for a year and started work at 17. He is now 42 and in a top tier management position. He met me in his 20s and I made him do an MBA (at Manchester Business School which I highly recommend) on a PT basis while working. In his job he has always done well because he is in sales and it's much easier to set quantitative goals instead of qualitative ones. When you can put £ to what you do it's easier to sell a higher pay to your employer.

I'm an accountant. I honestly don't recommend this career. I've worked extremely hard to get to a CFO role but truth be told I'm not as well paid as I should be for what I do. Don't get me wrong, I'm well paid compared to others but compared to my peers I'm not paid as much as them. Apparently it's because of my age. I'm 38 and everyone else is mid 50s to 60s.

If you want to be rich you need to own your own business. My business doesn't generate an income right now but I've build it from a £20k Student loan to a £7-8m company in terms of income producing assets. I've been able to build it over the past 20 years because I've worked as an employee so not taken anything from the income I've made. In the future I'll have a nice income from it.

DH has his own business as well as working. It's a different set up to mine as it's much more labour intensive and many more variables to manage.

I must be doing it wrong. No kids but still seem to live pay to pay

This is however living by myself and having to cover mortgage and all bills on my own. I do try and console myself that compared to most of the world I’m actually pretty wealthy.

Inheritance, careful investments, and remembering that "if you look after the pennies the pounds will look after themselves."

I realise we are fortunate. However, I still wore socks with holes in this morning as I wouldn't be taking my shoes off and nobody would see them.

Being a working single woman absolutely sucks, Bluetongue. You’re paying well over the odds just to live, and if you want children, you’re doing that against a ticking clock.

Do you live alone? Someone with an entrepreneurial mindset in your position would have taken in lodgers or started Air B&B. You could also let your place out for a period and live elsewhere in a house-share, so you could reduce your outgoings whilst accelerating paying off your mortgage. Although these choices all involve self-sacrifice and it’s completely okay not to want to do that: we are all made differently and different things are important.

We're not rich by MN standards, but we are certainly comfortable. We earn just over 100K between us and live in the North West. We go on plenty of holidays and don't worry about money from month to month.

However DH and I both came from fairly impoverished backgrounds and have had no financial or childcare help from family. It has taken us a long time to be this well off. We have been together for 20 years and have only recently got to this stage.

This is what we did:

1. Worked hard at school and university to achieve good STEM qualifications.
2. Bought a cheap house in a rough area in our early 20s in order to get on the property ladder.

3 Waited until we were in our 30s before having children.

1. Took short mat leaves and both went back to work FT
2. Had a big gap between DC so as not to have 2 in nursery at once.
3. I have changed career twice since the DC were born in order to obtain a well paid but flexible job. Took some massive risks at this stage, but it has paid off now.
4. I took a second job at one point when retraining to ensure we didn't get into debt when paying huge childcare costs.
5. As per point 6, we both prioritised flexibility in a career, in order to have more time with the DC and slightly cheaper childcare (for wraparound care, we had to pay for FT nursery for both DC).

So a mix of good luck (buying house at the right time), hard work and some good decisions.

Both DH and I have worked our socks off to the point that we are now in the top 1%. We both have senior city roles but manage a good work/life balance (mostly!). It hasn’t been an easy ride - as a black woman there are obstacles I face that others don’t and I experienced homelessness in my childhood - but we have earned every penny.

n the nicest possible way meant... children are the biggest suckers of money, time and energy.

True, but for some people (myself included) they are also the most treasured assets. Financially, I'm lucky to be comfortable. In many ways it was my children that motivated me to get my finger out and build a career that enabled me to provide for them but they, and their children, are my true wealth.

I can’t get on board at all with people who work white collar jobs saying they’ve got where they are because they’ve worked really hard. You may have worked 18 hours a day for Goldman Sachs in your twenties, but being behind a computer screen is hardly comparable to cleaning office toilets or scrubbing the burger grills in the early hours, is it? I’ve worked with people who have combined this sort of work with professional training and it’s heartbreaking to observe because honest toil is of limited use in a society that is built upon privileged access.

Actually that would be another nugget I’d offer the OP: get to know as many people as you can who work in your desired industry or profession, or who are self-made and can show you (not tell you) how they did it.

By the way, there are far fewer truly self-made people than you might imagine. VS my earlier observation that wealth is a form of accretion - if you use the advantages you are given, you’ll probably end up a little richer than your parents. Big money involves big risks or the alignment of extraordinary talent and great luck, whether that be timing or an incredible mentor who pathfinds your career for you.

Started our own business in a niche market of construction industry 8 years ago. Pays very well.

MM18 Please fuck off with comparing the stress of an office job to a manual job and saying the office job has no stress.

I worked for an equivalent of Goldman Sachs at 25 and managed a trading book. I worked 14+ hour days and helped make pension funds a lot of money. The stress was immense. I took my responsibilities very seriously as did others i worked with. When I wasn't working I was reading through research and text books. Learning how to code so I could try and keep up with the quant teams.

Well aren’t you the charmer?

Junior doctors work far longer hours, with far greater responsibility, at the same age, for £25k. I suggest you’re in need of a little more perspective in your life.

Also, where did I say “The office job has no stress”?

I take it attention to detail isn’t of great importance in financial services?

I would love to set up my own business but have no clue where to start or even what to so. I find people on MN often say they have their own business but they are real cagey about what the business is, how they did it etc, where they got the money to start it and how they lived while they were building it up. If you get 50k inheritance or something to start it it's just much easier. Still hard work but possible rather than impossible. E.g. my friend got £200k inheritance, has set up his own business which 4 years on is making a profit... he works crazy hard and I'm not belittling his achievements AT ALL but he could never have done it without those funds to set it up and partly cover his living costs.

I'd love to know what businesses people actually run and how they knew what to even do. I assume you pick something you know which as a social worker is hard... I don't just want to set up as an independent social worker. I think I think too logically and need to consider more orthogonal options but have no clue where to start.

like most people who are doing well, its because I inherited through my DH. I agree there are nowhere near as many self-made people as you might think...unless you include inheriting lump sums as self-made...which I don't.

Not rich but comfortable
Never had a penny from relatives, money for house deposit ,inheritance etc - all £ earned
Yes to DC later in life - had mine after 35
When I met DH we both had good jobs and owned properties - lucky with market
DH v careful w £
Never paid for childcare - did it myself and work now around DC
Saved for years before work done on house so mortgage not eyewatering
Never borrowed on credit cards so no large interest to pay

All quite dull really

Flat 1 - skanky flat with in-grained Alsatian stench, broken kitchen & no heating. Three years doing it up
House1 - still had dead lady’s stuff in. No heating, no kitchen, lots of damp, hole in roof, took 8 years to sort.
House 2 - worse. Hole in roof, the floor in the understairs cupboard was earth. Took 8 years to sort.
Latest house - better but rotting windows, needed rewiring, demolish & rebuild extension, new kitchen.
Didn’t have dc until my 40s.

By the time I’ve done this house and sold it, hopefully I won’t need a mortgage.

I’d like decent fingernails.

No I read that you think it's unfair a cleaner makes less than someone managing a pension fund. You have no clue what goes into higher paid jobs. Most people now trading have a PhD worked on over at least 8 years of tertiary education, often more.

Myself, I have a 3 year bachelors, a 2 year professional qualification and a 1 year mgmt certificate. DH has a 3 year PT MBA. All of this was done while working FT.

My dsc are millenials, they all have expectations of a lifestyle that when I was their age would have been classed as extravagant.
They have all set up home and not been willing to settle for second hand furniture, electrical goods, treat clothing as almost disposable and expect to take several holidays a year.
When I first set up home all of my furniture was either gifted to me or bought from an auction, electrical goods were second hand, no holidays unless it was visiting family.
Expectations seem to be so much higher now, much more materialistic.

Me and DH don't have much money right now, I'm in my final year of uni and have a job in place when I graduate paying £1500 per week, out circumstances will definitely change then after 3 years of financial struggle while I'm studying. DD1 will also be starting school so less childcare costs

I've scrubbed toilets and I've worked highly paid medical field. I could go home at night without a care in the world from the cleaning job but had many sleepless nights and serious stress from the professional job. The pay is high because of the responsibility involved. I have no doubt having low income is stressful but the actual job probably isn't.