Kids

Back to "Rich Dad Poor Dad" by Robert T. Kiyosaki.

"One dad said, 'The reason I'm not rich is because I have you kids.' The other said, 'The reason I must be rich is because I have you kids.' " page 15

Sounds like my dad:
"Do you think money grows on trees?"
"Do I look like I'm made of money?"
"You kids don't appreciate any thing!"
"We can't afford it."

All negative thoughts.

I decided early in my life that I wouldn't have any kids until I was wealthy enough to give them a better life than I had growing up. I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds. My parents did their best with the knowledge that they had.

They were from that old school thought that to make money, you had to work harder and longer. My dad worked in a factory making parts for GM. At one point, he also had two part-time jobs as well. Once, when the United Auto Workers (UAW) union went on strike against General Motors, he had to go down to apply for food stamps. Even though I was young, I remember the look of shame in his eyes every time he went to a grocery store and had to pay with those food stamps.

Working so much finally caught up with him. He got sick one winter, but kept working. He finally ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. He was in the hospital for about a month. I remember a huge fight that he had with my mother after he came home from the hospital. One of the earliest memories that I have of them arguing. Mom wanted to go to work and dad didn't want her to. As I said, he was old school. He felt that it was the man's place to work and the woman's place to stay home and take care of the house. Mom won that argument after pointing out that he would only get sick again (or worse) if he kept working so many hours.

But even with both of my parents working, we weren't that well off financially. We had a nice little house and food on the table, but my parents bought many of clothes from Good Will. I don't mean to knock that charity, either, so don't send me hate mail! They do a wonderful job. But wearing hand-me-downs and second hand clothes caused me a lot of teasing in school. We couldn't afford to buy the latest trends and styles, so many of the other kids chose to pick on me and treat me like dirt. And I hate that school to this day, but that's another story.

When my dad started at the factory, he worked in the plastics department making fan blade cowlings. It's that big hunk of plastic that goes around the fan blade in front of the radiator, for those with older cars. Newer cars had the engine sideways and don't have that big cowling. Anyway, the combination of breathing melted plastic fumes, years of heavy smoking, the scarring from the pneumonia, and just being over worked and over stressed took it's toll on my dad. He died about a month and a half after his 49th birthday.

So I decided that I wasn't going to be like my dad. I wouldn't bring a child into this world until I was financially secure. Silly me. Life has a way of laughing at foolish statements like that! We were doing alright financially when our daughter was born, but we weren't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. But my wife had been saving her money, so she bought a small tobacco shop. It's not making the kind of money that she thought it would, but we get by.

We've also been discussing buying investment properties. So many people that we know are making extra money by buying new houses to move into while renting out their old houses instead of selling them. I have formed joint ventures with two different real estate investors and we're currently looking at properties. I plan to make some offers this week.

Point is, I'm not wealthy, but I will be for the sake of my child. It's a mind set. Do you sit and complain about not having money, or do you go out and do something about it? Change your way of thinking and you can do wonders.