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!

Loved working in HE, the best job I ever had, also the most frustrating and under-resourced

If I was paid for my time, Id be quite well off

Rich on paper not too bad high and lows. DP and Fil property buisness have a number of flats and houses. FIL is also selling a business at the moment so we might get some more money as we invested/paid for lots of costs.

Things change 2006-2008 quite alot of money. 2009 lost thousands , a plot of land and houses we were to build went tits up. We had barely a 1.00 a day actually less we ended paying for things on cards.

2011 we have 6,000-8,000 left every month though it is the first time Im going to spend we are off to holiday and Im spending loads it feels strange. Though I`m still worried and buying Ocado value range and watching pennies.

Also because of our poverty I want to open a business not to rely on one source of income so maybe its gives you motivation.

Ok My two pennies worth.

OP if you want to succeed and make money, you need to have the full support of your partner. He needs to let you fly.

My husband, who I love dearly, is not a bright man. He is a very limited man in some ways -with no education and a lot of fear of failure and venturing out of anything that is "small time" and safe. He often laments being middle of the road, as he has quite rich friends. I give suggestions to build our financial cache but he wont take any risks or do anything.

I work part-time, with my income as the safe and secure one, but spend the rest of my time doing his accounts, emails, anything to help his business . This includes taking the brunt of childcare, restricting my career and making his work the focus. I should mention that he has his own valuable skills , he isnt as bad as all that, otherwise his business would not exist.

If he let me was "supportive" then Im sure I would have made a lot of money by now on my own, in my own field. I think he would be quite shocked tbh. Im driven, I am ambitious and I am hungry. Sadly, I havent been able to act on this - partly because I dont want to put my own husband down and make him feel any less of a "success" and the "man". He would be upset and shocked if he knew I didnt feel supported as he is actually supportive as a person. He just doesnt realise how his treating my work and potential as secondary is, in effect, being unsupportive. (if that makes sense). I th ink him seeing me work hard also makes him feel less of a provider - as he is not keen on me doing any more than part time hours and gets rather annoyed if he sees me working or blogging etc. I feel I have to hide the fact im working a lot.

We will be emigrating soon and starting a joint/family business venture. He has actually said he prefers I leave my own profession to "help" the business. I am willing to do this -or am i? so our family will be safe and secure but feel sad that the profession for which I have a passion and potential will have to go by the way.

Anyway, when I have to run this new business, he better watch my dust.

So what Im saying is make sure your partner is behind you or you will never get there. Im sure this story reflects many women's stories.

Almost all of the rich people I know started out dirt poor with no qualifications to their name, and few went to uni. The thing they have in common is a serious love of and respect for money and material wealth. It matters to them what car they drive, so they are motivated to put in the extra hours or go where the money is, rather than do a fulfilling low paid job - because earning lots is fulfilling enough for them. They seem to have their radar constantly set to where the money is piling up next and they get in on the act.

I've always had badly paid jobs that I love and loads of free time. IMHO that's just a different sort of wealth. They all work long hours and have loads of energy - up at five and back at 9pm. Their wives (usually) or househusbands (one or two) hardly ever see them. I admire them and in some ways would like to become more like them but money doesn't motivate me like it does them. I prefer having hours of time to doodle around riding my bike with the kids every day rather than three weeks in the Caribbean every january.

If you want to be rich, I'd say set your heart on a certain standard of living and steam ahead until you get there. There may be casualties on the way - like not seeing as much of your children. But there may not be - you might end up really wealthy and able to retire early. It seems you need a completely unstoppable mindset and energy for wealth to get it.

The only rich people I know, seriously rich, have made it in the City, so not that surprising really. The confortably off all have invested in housing at the right time (we so did not do this and have lost considerably) and have good professional jobs with earning capacity (so lawyers, doctors) and can be partners (so incentivising them to earn).

I have not chosen wisely in terms of earning power, though I do a professional job that would make you comfortable if you kept going to the higher levels. I am also prepared to work hard to supplement that income (but not as hard as Xenia!)

Supergloo, your story is very sad, basically you are suppressing yourself and your earning power to keep your husband happy, which is a shame. I am not rich, but I am reasonably successful and hoping to be more so, and I do put that down to having a very supportive partner who genuinely believes me to be talented and for it to be a waste for me not to fulfil this. So, unfortunately, I agree with your analysis, the Nicola Horlicks of this world (also Deborah Meaden) often have husbands happy to be devoted to keeping the home fires burning and without this, it's very hard to be successful in business or money-making.

Best thing we EVER did money wise was to buy a house as soon as we got our first jobs. It was run down, it was in a rough as hell part of town but it was ours. And it cost us £45K. That has translated into hundreds of thousands of equity 16 years down the line.
You won't be rich without property.

Doing ok. The secret to being rich, I think, is taking your opportunities.

If someone asked me what was a key factor in my success I would say I worked hard. I can understand why this would offend people if you don't explain what I mean by that....

I think to compare two entirely different jobs eg nursing and a better paid job is to totally miss the point when people say they worked hard. I would say that I worked ferociously hard to get to where I am. Does that mean I am saying I work harder than the nurses and cleaners in my family? No. However, all I do know is that I wasn't blessed with havimg a privelaged background. I am not an intellectual giant and am quite slow at "getting" new ideas. Other people with the same level of intellect would have accepted that this was the natural order of things. Not me. At school I frequently worked late into the night and did all nighters (at 15 and 16) in order to compete with the brighter pupils. This got me good GCSEs and A levels and got me entry into a good uni. I chose to do a subjects that I thought would pay well in the long term (sciences) rather than those that I truly loved (languages, history and literature) as I figured I could always return to what I loved later. I changed direction in my final year at uni and decided I wanted to get into the City. So in addition to trying get a top class degree, I set out to read a years worth Financial Times in 3 months so I would sound like I had a clue when I was interviewed on milk rounds.

I carried on this work ethic when I got a job and was prepared to work longer and harder than anyone else in the office. So was I working harder than a nurse/cleaner? Yes probably but actually my real comparison is with people in the same field as me to explain why I rose to the top. I am now in my mid 30s and earn a high six figure sum. Dh also earns well so our annual household income takes is near 7 figures.

Do I consider ourselves us rich? Not really. Comfortable would probably describe my take on it. We are mortgage free (we prioritised this), have nice cars and take a couple of luxury holidays a year. However, we didn't always have this type of income so I continue to love a bargain as much as the next person. I stock up on household foods/goods if there is an offer on at the supermarket. I still shop in markets, one of my favourite shops is poundland and I love a good factory outlet shop.

I've read this again and really don't think there's a formula. I certainly never set out to make money - I just slipped into it and don't know if it was more by luck than design (or very hard work). Xenia's note about not beeing bad to look at struck a chord and if I'm entirely honest I'm not sure I would have got the City breaks I did if I had looked like the back of a bus. Having said that, I wouldn't have lasted more than 6 months if I hadn't delivered the goods. I also married the man I fell in love with who happened to be working class but very very clever and who has got where he has got throught sheer hard work and an astounding intellect - he certainly isn't an innovator or an entrepreneur but chose a branch of a law that was very intellectually demanding because it interested him. We are also both very risk averse and believe in taking only carefully calculated decisions.

The other thing I would like to say, and there have been many occasions on here when I have been flamed for this, is that we have weathered our storms together. Many times I have looked at threads where the mothers have bemoaned how little their partners help, how unfair, how not right, they have been working looking after children all day and the DH has to come home to baths and cooking and a bit of cleaning. When I was a SAHM I ran the home; DH was often home at 9ish and hungry and tired and everything was neat and tidy, children in bed, dinner ready, no nagging, no complaining - that was my role in our partnership and our future.

I agree with Xenia about optimism, my glass has always been half full. Looking back as a PA at 20 I always said "yes of course, isn't that great" where others complained - not right to make coffee - sexist, not right to be asked to stay after 5 to finish a letter when boss had a three hour lunch, whinge and moan, etc., and also, when I did an MBA, eventually, I managed it because I got up at 5am Tuesday to Thursday.

The other point I agree about is not actually needing to spend a great deal. We don't and never have. I can have anything I want and so can the DC pretty much but neither has ever had a tantrum and to be honest they rarely ask for anything but apart from the odd splurge on an expensive pair of shoes or a very good suit or coat, I don't actually want very much. I certainly have never felt that we need to have x or y or z because that happens to be "in". Yes, nowadays we can go to the opera occasionally and not worry about the cost but when the children were little we had three lovely summers on Keycamp holidays and were very very contented in a caravan for a couple of weeks in the summer - the dc had what they wanted, spectacular pools and a gang of new chums on hand in the playground and because they were happy, we were happy. And sometimes we had a smug little smirk when we looked at the 4wd pull up at the caravan next door and compare it to our second hand French MPV.

I don't consider myself rich but am comfortable through a combination of luck and sometimes extreme hard work. I agree that if you love doing something and there is a demand for it you are more inclined to give it your all and that is basically what i did. I could be better off but am essentially quite laid back/lazy and so time off and suiting myself has always been a priority so my earnings aren't consistent. Being mortgage free was my initial priority and was a real goal. I am not rich though just have an easyish life financially

I have ben relatively well off (100k income, big house, 4 acres, horses, nanny and BMW + Mercedes) poor ( camping holiday in Scarborough) and just about comfortable, as I am now -( reasonable income, decent holidays, newish car. ) I was least happy when I was richest - had no time to do anything to enjoy myself and very competititve and ambitious, which made me socially very aggressive. I've been happier since I've been less well off and a 9-5er doing an intereting job. My worse moments were paying someone else to ride the horse I didn't have time for - and I never met her because I didn't have time to + feeling really annoyed to see someone else with what I thought was the same car as mine, and feelling compelled to run over to have a good look and see if it had got as many extras as mine.
I'm much nicer now!

The day i held my Baby girl i became richer than you all :)

It is certainly true that if you want to earn money, you have to make choices reasonably early on that mean you at least have a chance of doing so if you work hard. Basically if you work full time at anything you generally work quite hard, but if you do a job where pushing that little bit more isn't going to pay off, you'll hit the ceiling and there's no point in complaining about it, the information is there to discover, it's no secret!

Personally I made a choice about my career to not prioritise money, and clearly nurses and teachers and many, many other jobs attract people who do the same. I regret that now but it is entirely down to my choices as an adult.

You havent met my son rachie

Anyway, my boy will never be poor. He is only 6 and loves money. Its scary. he saves, picks pennies up off the street, never spends his own money (little monkey). Child ripped a tooth out (yes it was wobbly) for the pound. Im not worried about that lad, thats for sure

I also agree with the comment above about being willing. A lot of people do just enough in the early days, constantly moan, make a huge fuss about all sorts of things. Others, the ones who tend to get on, just get on with whatever they've been set to do willingly and that makes a difference later too.

(Supergloo, that is absolutely appalling. How can yo possibly tolerate that situation? if his precious little male ego wants you to put all your professional eggs in his half baked basket you owe it to the chidlren to tell where tos tuff his attempt to make you some pathetic little bit part secretary and go out there and earn the fortune you want and can earn.)

I also think that the definition of " working hard" can differ significantly. My friend's a nurse and think is she works far harder than anyone else and , during that 9 hour shift, she works bloody hard.

DH, however, will work twelve hours, drive to an airport, catch a plane and forty winks, get off, do another 14 hours, come home, drive into the office off the red eye and work until midnight then take a 4am international call. And everyone in his position in his industry does similar.

Yes it can. My sister came to stay with us for a week and was shocked at how hard my husband works. She was astounded.
Her husband is a partner/owner in a huge accountancy firm and last year had a nervous breakdown from work and is on antidepressants. Mine is a one man band taxi-airport shuttle.

Seven Rules Property Developing

Borrow as little as possible when you start out scrimp and save.

Don't start 'big dealing' yourself as soon as you've got a bit of money in the bank or you will soon be back to square one

As soon as 'friends' perceive you a making money they will swarm round you wanting loans for their own business ideas be strong don't go there unless you are absolutely sure. 'Trust none love few always paddle your own canoe'

Never employ anyone mainly because they have the same surname as you it never works out. Employ only on merit.

Always Always double check your costings and never employ 'designers' before you know it they will be spending £500 on a light fitting.

Never let your head drop, what ever is going on your business is 'doing ok' because in developing confidence is all

Rule seven well actually its rule one join the Masons of course!!

I would work a lot harder if I wasnt salaried for 20 hrs a week.

I wouls say i am comfortable, Dh hashis own business and also acts as a mamagement consultant to major companies.
I have a professional job, however i don't believe in putting my eggs in one basket and i am constantly looking for other ways to make money( i have just opened a small tuition company).
I agree with the poster who says that it is important to live within your means.
I think that this applies even if you are wealthy.
I can frequently be found in second hand shops buying things for my dc's
i am also aware of the fact that money can be lost, so one should also be careful.
I personally believe, that good family and friends are your riches, i know that sounds rather vomit inducing but i truly believe this.

I don't think that anyone would deny that nurses work hard. However, I would say that if they had started working hard back in primary/secondary school, they would have gone on instead to medical school an, whilst also working just as hard, be making more money.