To ask if you are rich, and if so how you made your money?!

[jinglebelly]

I run a small ebay business but after DC 3 starts school I'd either like to retrain/get a degree or start up a larger business... I don't know any very well off people hence why I'm asking on mumsnet!

Private education is not a priority for some either. I could have sent my ds but never would and some of the people I know who privately educate aren't the richest at all.

onceamai- we sound very similar. I also agree about making the " right" life choices if you can .

Certainly there are some high salaries as employees in the City. Those though who sell a business for £10m+ etc and serially do that may well do better overall. Even better may be do what I do (although I'm not "rich" on most of the tests on this thread) and (a) pick well paid career and (b) then do it for yourself. That's what people who leave banks where they are wage slaves controlled by a boss albeit with a high salary and move to set up their own fund. Even at that level if they are good at what they do they then make more on their own. Although of course plenty of new businesses fail.

Some footballers are pretty good at investment, buy lots of properties, plan for afterwards. Obviously some aren't though. It's certainly the case that even those on fairly h igh salaries if they spend all they have and then the income sources stop they are in trouble like anyone would be.

Most of the people on the thread who are well off seem to ensure they don't spend it as soon as they have it and are reasonably modest ni their spending. I was talking to someone earlier in the year who has a friend from school who now earns an awful lot - I can't remember the figure but after 20 yars his friend is earning a log, bonuses etc. The friend apparently first paid off all loans, then he set aside a sum to pay school fees for 3 children form age 5 - 18 and then all possibly university costs and fees, then they moved to taking summer holidays costing £20k etc but try not to mention it too much to older friends. I presume they've done up their house etc. I've worked for people who have over the years found their busiensses doing terribly well and you watch the process of debt repayment, investments, ski chalet if they're into that, a boat perhaps (sometimes sadly a new wife/husband) and then the move off shore.

Also private education doesn't ensure happiness or success. I think it's great for those children who are very loved and secure and who suit it.

But a close friend of mine has been a counsellor in two private girls schools in Surrey for years. She says some thrive and are very happy but she says the number of girls with eating disorders is very high. Obviously this happens in all educational sectors but she says it is sad how little time these young girls actually spend with their parents. They frequently have parents with high flying careers which mean a great sacrifice of time.

Clearly it's an emotive subject but private is not always better in my experience (having been in both myself).

oncemai, I agree with you re "And for every one of those Sofaqueen are another 50, possibly more, who started the graduate training scheme and didn't make it.". I think sometimes things get emotive on MN as some people will say they worked hard etc and that's why they made it and others didn't. My comparison at every stage is with people who were faced with the same choices as me.

I think I made the "right" choices (for me) early on in life and the cascade effect has lead me to where I am now. The OP in this situation is is looking to retrain. I wonder whether that's a lot harder now, given the competitiveness of the job market, however at the same time, I think she is faced with choices re what she does now and that if she retrains in something that's ultimately not going to be lucrative or she is (understandably because of her dcs) not prepared to make the long hours sacrafice then she wont be rich, but might just end up comfortable. II see it as being questions for her as to what income level does she want, what career does she want to do to achieve it, what is she prepared to sacrafice (or not) to achieve it.

My parents are rich (inherited profited family business - which they have expanded), and my mum puts some of the success down to delaying children. My parents married young, and although friends of theirs had children young, my parents left children to their early 30s, as they were working long hours and saving money for reinvestment into business, during their 20s.

We have friends who had children young, soon after university and before buying house / paying off debts / getting a secure job etc., and they are always cash strapped, and ten years on are still saving for a property. They do have two very lovely daughters though.

Onceamai not sure what getting pregnant before one is married has to do with earning capacity

I would class our family as rich. DH earns a six-figure salary and has saved wisely all his life. He is ambitious and loves his job, but is very unemotional about money and I know he wouldn't be in his line of work if it didn't pay extremely well and allow him the means to support his family in the way he wants to (private education, good-sized family home etc).

There is a lot of money in his family going back several generations, and as far as I can tell it has been accumulated by a combination of good education, exploiting natural talent and very hard work. I think one has to look dispassionately at the facts (what are your current qualifications? Where can they lead you? How will market forces affect your business concepts?) and do a lot of research before re-entering education/training later on in life, and be ready for a bit of 'speculate to accumulate' time as these costs will have to be borne first before the new business/career cash starts coming in.

I had some great jobs in the charity sector before becoming a SAHM but I didn't do it for the cash and was always fending off debt. I can see in hindsight I could have made very different choices but I think personality plays a big part - the money just wasn't important to me. Now that I'm a mum (and learning a lot from DH's methodical approach to finance) I have changed a bit and begun to put away for a rainy day.

nottirednow " Most people who are rich are heavily focused on money and value that moe than they do anything else. They often have superficial charm but when their guard is down I didn't want to know them. There are honourable exceptions but not many."

But I know plenty of poor people that I wouldn't want to spend much time with either, due to their being quite obnoxious...

Apart from their own businesses, the other rich people I know have made their money through:

• inventing something, setting up a company to market it and selling the company
• selling land they already owned for housing/supermarket development
• divorcing someone with money and getting a good settlement (both male and female!)
• investing on the stock market on their own behalf

I'm a bit surprised at the private school being seen as elitist thing. Where I live (Edinburgh) there are a number of private day schools which are not that expensive, and every second person seems to have been to one. Often financed by the grandparents. I myself was sent to one in fifth year from a state school, after being told that I could not study higher history and higher modern studies at the same time, that the headmaster "didn't expect any pupils from his school to go on to university" (although several did) and by a careers advisor that wanting to study law was aiming too high and I should be a librarian instead (despite having 6 As at O Grade).

All the rich or wealthy people I know have a similar attitude in common - they think laterally, they think for themselves and they are not afraid to stand on their own feet.

If we're talking about changing things later in life it can be harder then as (a) although it's illegal ageism is rife if you want to start in some jobs where normally people start as graduates (b) you might have commitments to children. I think my own parents were married for 8 years before I was born (the oldest) and my grandfather married quite late on - I think nearly 40 because he was saving up to marry (in the 1901 census he was living in a house with 26 other young men, a small 3 bed house, seems incredible now and this was the UK not Africa). So certainly those two generations delaying having children probably did ensure they were better off. I had my babies about 15 - 20 years before a lot of my contemporaries but I didn't let them stop things (2 weeks off work, full time work always) although of course I had child care to pay over a very very many years.

If I think about random people who are a ot better off than I am they are so varied as to how they made money. Some just tried lots of different things and something worked in their 40s. Others went into careers which are usually well paid and worked hard. Some were lucky.

I don't agree that most people who are well off are awful. Some people who are very poor are awful too. You don't; have to be a nasty person to have the ability to earn a living well.

To the person who asked earlier, this kind of opinion...." Most people who are rich are heavily focused on money and value that moe than they do anything else. They often have superficial charm but when their guard is down I didn't want to know them. There are honourable exceptions but not many." would be the reason why people are reluctant to admit to wealth.

Health is everything not money

agree noddyh

money's nice but it's not the most important thing

Being rich means having money! Not having things that you have originally had money to buy. Many people are rich but then suddenly find them selves broke as they buy a big house, go skiing every year, have a fancy car etc. Soon, they won't be able to afford the up keep of many of their liabilities.

To be rich, you need to buy assets, not liabilities. For example, buy shares which will increase your income instead of buying a fancy car which will instantly take your money away.

If your money is in the bank then put it into shares as in the bank, you are earning almost no income and your money is just sitting there, whilst losing value. Many people consider shares as 'risky' however, many people don't know how to handle them. People think that the value going up is good, however that means that you will be paying more for a share that will give you the same amount of income. The trick is to buy when prices are down and to sell when prices are up.

Less rich people want to have more money to spend it. However if you spend the money that you have and once you have done that, you won't be rich anymore. One of the most wealthy people in the world lives in a small cottage with his mum in his home town. He does not go mad with spending money and this is why he is rich.

'Money isn't everything, unless you have none.'

My dad used to say this all the time. It came from the heart in his case.

The wealthiest people in my family did it by:
Rising to the top of a mangerial job and then buying, or being paid in, shares in the business, and then making a fortune when the succesful business was sold internationally
Getting qualifications (as an actuary) which equipped them to enter a high paid managerial roles and then invested a series of very good redundancy packages very wisely
Using artistic talent in a successful commercial environment, taking shares in the company...and marrying the MD
Starting small companies, selling them to bigger competitors at a good price, and then starting a new one.

I am not wealthy, I have enough to cover my outgoings and no pension, and I'm happy. But I would have liked to have had a Xenia to listen too alongside my liberal bohemian parents when I thought about my future.

My DH plays the stock markets as a little hobby, really. He never risks more than £500 at a time.

But he does risk it and there's the key- be prepared to take calculated risks. Put in £500 a few weeks back, took out 6K on the back of that this week.
Same with property. We are about to take on a serious challenge and when it pays off, boy will it pay off but most people would shy away.
Life is too short to play it too safe.

Whoever said health is everything - of course. But having money means you can choose to eat better food, choose an activity/sport/personal trainer and pay for it or for sitters while you do it. It also means you can afford Bupa or health checks, chiropractors and to buy your way out of a waiting list and go private.
And the healthiest people are the richest, statistically. Look at Glasgow's poor areas life expectancy.

Left the UK for good moved to the Middle East huge tax free salary heavily invest in offshore investments and property overseas.

I am poor so I can tell you how to be poor and maybe the opposite will make you rich. Do not have a baby at 19, do not get involved with a waste of space pathetic excuse for a man, do not spend every single penny you ever get, avoid excitement when you get money as this leads to excited shopping sprees. Do not buy an expensive car so your child fits in better with everyone elses. Do not choose to spend 2 years as a SAHM when it means trying to live on benefits. By all means go back to education and get a degree but don't believe the people who tell you being a lone parent doesn't matter to employers or that you can hope to earn enough to cover nanny fees for all the hours you'd need to put in. Don't give up because you become so stressed and frustrated and get to a point where you just can't see a way out. Do not rely on anyone but yourself.

I'm at the same stage at the OP, I'm in my early 30's and my daughter is now at an age where she is responsible enough to have a key and spend an hour or two by herself. I know I cannot work for someone else so the only option is to work for myself, that way I can chose my own hours, handle my own emergencies, and keep all the profits! Unfortunately. the industry I want to enter is dominated by young people, but perhaps if I choose my words carefully clients will think I am more experienced that the young ones.

The 'rich' people I know not only own their own businesses but have others working for them. I think that's the key, there is only so much one person can do, to make the big bucks you need other people working for you.

I may be doing things 'the wrong way round' my 20's are gone and I have a beautiful daughter to show for it so now the panic is on, I reckon the next 10 years are going to determine how I live the rest of my life. I refuse to spend the rest of my life worrying about the basics, I want the freedom and ease money brings. The race is on as they say.

Oops I did not write my comment above. You have got the wise words of a 12 year old. I am torn between pride that she is interested in this discussion and horror that she would post under my name. Now off to change passwords and tear her limb from limb have a quiet word with her.

Not rich by any standards but 'well off' - i.e. a small mortgage, three good pensions between DH and I, considerable savings, plenty of disposable income.

Achieved by a mixture of having well-paying professional jobs, not being extravagant, starting a private pension in my early 20s and a bit of inherited wealth.

empirestateofmind, do leave some of her limbs intact she actually says some sensible stuff!

jinglebelly

I'm afraid the secret to getting rich is much more complex than asking other people how they did it and then copying what they did.

There is usually an element of being in the right place at the right time or being born into wealth or just plain luck for some people.