So here we are… the cards are set and mortgage is there. The cars are insured, and you’re still thinking about whether or not private health insurance is the pièce de résistance. You’ve seen the ads on income protection insurance, in fact, you’re pretty sure that you can get insurance on virtually anything nowadays anyway.

And now I’m here, drinking a cup of tea, writing a blog post about my success with finance, albeit minimal. However, this is a journey that yourself and I will go through together. A journey where heritage or backgrounds do not impact the result of your success.

I come from a low class, single parent family, my mother, god bless her soul, was a gentle woman who looked after her children like a lioness protecting her cubs. However, and forgive me mother for I will sin, she was not the wisest with her finance. She, herself, came from a poor village on an isolated Polynesian island. On this island, cash was law and men were king (literally). Forced to marry off at a young age she relied on her husband to calculate finances, and ensure money was flowing. Her responsibility was that of a simple housewife; look after the house and the kids – make sure the food was on the table, and the washing done… and finally bend to the whim of her husbands every wish.

My mother had moved on and left her first husband, her eyes had found a more populated country with many opportunities, or so she believed. Her kids remained on this isolated island for many years while she established a nest egg for them to move in to. During her time here, she met my father, a cunning and intriguing man, who had run multiple successful business’, however, he was also a bit of a Casanova himself, my mother unfortunately being his 4th wife. Finally, they settled, the cracks began to form, and my half siblings had returned to live with my mother; and I was born.

By the time I was 3 they had gone their separate ways, remnants of a happy family still lingering. My mother still knew minimal about finances, often relied on us to assist her with making banking payments, however, her pride stopped her from allowing us to look in to the family budget, after all, she had come from a background where man was king and was determined to prove that she didn’t need anyone’s support to be financially literate. I admired the passion, however that was her downfall.

As we all grew up, debt became clear, credit cards were the only way to make ends meet – buying debt to pay debt was not the norm, however those in desperate circumstances had no other choice… like us. Eventually she was left with an ultimatum, declare bankruptcy or get a hold of this house of cards. She considered both options, and found a third that worked as an intermedium… debt consolidation. Finally, she was free from the shackles of debt…

Now this was my first experience with money, and how it shaped the first 20 years of my life. Once I began working, I feared debt, it was like the plague, so mind numbingly crippling that the idea of debt had my nervous system react into fight or flight.

However, if it wasn’t for seeing first hand the impact of poor financial management and education, then I wouldn’t be where I am today. Your origin story does not determine where you end up in life. The cards are set… however you have the decision on how you play with those cards.

The old saying of ‘Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime’ and this still stays true to this day. Obviously old proverbs do tend to be a bit… eh… out of sync? With today’s demographics, but the message can be taken as clear as day.

Someone can give you something, and you’ll be fine at that moment. However, if someone teaches you how they got that same thing, then you’ll know for the rest of your life how to live in that moment.

That there is my objective: to teach and educate those who wish to recuperate those basics skills on general and basic financial management.

No two stories are the same, I have excluded a lot of details from my own story about my own mother. However, the location you arrive to without those basic financial skills will be the same.

And this is aimed for those kids, and you know who you are, that needed this more than anything, those that left that toxic lift behind but the baggage is still with them.

Welcome I say, it will be quite a journey and your feedback throughout all of this will empirical to the direction of which we go, the topics we discuss and the quality of my content.

If you wish to have a private discussion with myself, or provide critique or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact me via email, richoutofrags@gmail.com.

I look forward to the next post and hearing everyone’s commentary.

Rich outta Rags