The day I woke up!

Hi Gordon,

Thanks, that was a great story! It reminds me of the "day I woke up"....

There are many types of "waking up" - you can "wake up" to awareness of the opposite sex, you can "wake up" spiritually, you can "wake up" to be more conscious of your own health (or lack of it)...

This is about when I "woke up" my own financial awareness...

As many of you know, I have a Ph.D. in physics. Back when I was doing my Ph.D., I shared an office with another Ph.D. student. (Let's call her "Lucy".)

Lucy was a couple of years younger than me, though we hit it off well. Though as I got to know her better, I became more and more astonished...

I was a simple Ph.D. student on a scholarship - it wasn't a lot of money, but I had enough. I "threw it away" on various things I didn't really need. I spent all my extra money on "doodads" in "Rich Dad Poor Dad"-speak... It was due to the lack of my own financial education - I didn't know what else to do with it!

But as for Lucy... As I got to know her better, I became surprised. She was younger than me - but already owned her own apartment! As I knew her, she sold her apartment, and bought herself a house! Here she was - in her mid-20s - and she already owned her own house!

To be honest, I was a bit envious. How did she manage to do that?

As I got to know Lucy better, she told me the story. She told me that her parents had taught her how to invest her money when she was a teenager. She was always interested in property, so that's what she focused on.

She started by investing in REITs ("real estate investment trusts", also known as "property trusts"). This is where you can buy a portion of a property (usually commercial property), and trade it like shares.

When she had enough money, she then sold her REITs and moved on to buying whole properties. When I first met her, she had already been investing for about 10 years!

That was when I resolved to improve my financial education.

In my case, I had a curiosity about stocks - so that's what I started with. (I still invest in stocks today. Even though the general market has been down, I don't want to boast, but I've pretty much always been in profit.)

I started my stock market education with books about Warren Buffett - and went from there.

My own business interests are a continuation of my own financial education. That was the story of how I "woke up"!

If you're not educating yourself financially - you should be. Your financial education is the "prerequisite" to being financially secure...

- Dien Rice


This will also improve your own financial education...