2-9-06

Like most kids and young adults, I never thought my parents knew what they were talking about.

It took me until my late 20s to early 30s before I realized that maybe they knew a little bit more about life and money that I did.

They gave me an awful lot of helpful advice that I promptly let go in one ear and out the other.

They always wanted me to do better and try harder in school. I coasted by, for the most part, and then got to college and majored in goofing off and drinking beer.

So my first job out of school was a low-paying one that barely paid the bills. Over time, I have changed my attitude and put out a little more effort.

They always stressed paying bills on time and that is one lesson that I have always followed. My credit is spotless, although a little heavy at this time thanks to real estate investments.

There were several areas that they either didn't tell me about or I was too hardheaded to listen to what they were saying. Here are some areas that I wish I had started earlier:

1. Avoid debt like it was the plague. As soon as the money came in, it started going out in additional debt. When I was barely making enough to pay rent, my only debt was an auto payment.

After the income started going up, so did my spending and the use of credit cards. I would get some equity in something and promptly refinance it to take care of credit debt.

2. Saving money. My first semi-sort of job was mowing yards as a kid. Every penny that I made went into buying crap. As I got older and started making more money, I continued to spend all the income that I got.

It wasn't until my mid-30s that I got serious about saving money. If I had saved 10 percent of everything I had made over the years, I would be sitting pretty right now.

3. Find a job that I love instead of one just to pay the bills. As a kid and through the first part of college, I wanted to teach. Everybody talked about how little you got paid teaching so I changed my major to a profession that paid even less.

After doing that for four years, I turned to banking, which was what my family has been involved in for 80 years. There are some things that are okay with the money, such as my salary is fairly decent and I do get to help people, but I don't get up every morning and look forward to going to work.

4. Learn when to say "no". This goes back to spending. For a long time, if I wanted something, I got it. I have always been creative in figuring out to get something if I really wanted it. The problem was "wanting" something instead of "needing" it.

5. Generate passive income. I figured this out on my own in my mid-30s, which was when the light went off in my head in many ways. Since then, I have bought investment real estate, learned photography to sell prints and also established a web site for our community that brings in money to fund buying photo equipment, an expensive hobby.

Those are five areas that I wanted to touch on today. There are many more in other areas that don't fall into personal finance. I have always tried to teach my children on the do's and don't of finance, but they don't think I know what I'm talking about, the same way I felt about my parents when I was their age.

Our youngest son will listen some. I have him convinced that he needs to get some real estate investments when he is older and also to have his own business and not get caught up with working for somebody else.

If he can start this early enough when he doesn't need a lot of income and can do it right, he will be much better off than I am.