Previously I started blogging about the very different approaches my parents took with respect to money and investing. In this blog post I continue that discussion with a story of how I became even more passionate about investing.
My parents divorced not long after I started attending college. Because of the way divorce law works, my Mom received the majority (perhaps two-thirds) of the family assets plus a fairly significant monthly alimony payment. Over the next ten years Dad rebuilt his financial life, benefiting from the remarkable 90’s bull market and intelligent investing. Over that same period, Mom’s financial fortunes floundered. I witnessed both financial journeys as a powerless spectator.
The sad irony is that Dad, the savvy investor, was willing to listen to my investing ideas, whereas Mom stubbornly refused almost all of my investing advice. I saw Mom make one bad investing decision after another. She put the house on the market but could not sell it because her asking price was about $100K too high. She loaned money to business partners without a written contract… money that was never paid back. Most upsetting to me: She let her investment adviser, Sam W., manage her IRA, losing money with highly under-diversified utilities stocks and funds in the midst of this tremendous bull market. The contempt and disappointment I feel towards Sam still lingers with me to this day. That Mom blindly trusted this man, who likely had little interest in her well-being, and shunned her son’s financial advise left me with stunned disbelief.
I was interested in investing from the time I learned about compound interest at around the age of 9. I was fascinated by the math of computing compound interest monthly, daily, hourly, continuously. I was intrigued by the concept of companies, shareholders, stock exchanges, and business. But it was in watching and living the real-world consequences of my parent’s good and bad investing actions, that my lifelong passion for investing was forged.
These experiences are probably why I am so driven to help people avoid making big financial blunders. I’ve seen and felt the effects of load funds and self-serving financial advisers. I’ve seen the impact of poor diversification. I’ve seen the tears of losing a home, losing a business… due to poor financial choices.
I’m often looking for ways and words to become more persuasive. I’m looking for ways to help people build interest and confidence in shaping their own financial destinies. I’m working to develop tools to simply and explain the financial world. I’m working to create this financial education blog which will someday become part of a personal finance book.
Finance is my passion. This passion is often hard for people to understand. Perhaps this blog article will help people understand. Probably some of my readers share a passion for personal finance and investing. If you have a similar passion, I hope you will consider sharing your financial stories that shaped your financial lifestyle.
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