So I thought I'd share, not my story, but my mothers .. ie that she just found out today that she is a millionaire.
My parents always struggled with money, we never had much and my dad worked up to his death this summer at 82. My mom is 10 years younger and we worried that she would have to sell the property to get by on just her social security. My dad had a business but it was mostly old equipment and his partners took care of the books and our impression their salaries was most of the business.
So I had my mom get some appraisals and we went through my dads assets, he was great about $2k in this account, $12k over here, oh and $5k in this bank, etc etc etc. I knew they wouldn't have much as what dad did invest, he invested in govt bonds, as safe as you can get because he had no risk tolerance.
Well you add up all those small accounts, you throw in some bank stock and 20 acre woods his parents left them, and a 40 acre farm with house and outbuildings, and (oh wait his partners are like well we have this "slush fund" of like $.5M which 1/3 is yours.) WHAT??
What I learned is land went way up the last decade even in the middle of nowhere. Farmland is at a massive premium. 1/2 the property increase was luck, but the other 1/2 was sweat equity.
So after going through it all and getting the last of the appraisals, I got to tell mom she was a millionaire. I don't think dad ever knew or understood how much he really had which makes me sad.
A good example is they had JPM stock, they had no idea, just that great grandpa use to work for some bank that got bought like 10 times over and eventually became JPM. They were like I dont' know, we got these papers (paper stock certificates) and were told to go to the bank one day (ie turn them in to convert to JPM and be electric stocks) and now we get a check in the mail from somewhere (ie some clearing house in Texas). They were sitting on $35K of JPM with no clue other than it was nice, you know, they send us a check every quarter.
The moral of the story for me is, my dad never made more than $35k/year. He worked hard, he worked extra years, both my parents always had side jobs to make ends meet, plus my dads business, plus the farm so they always had multiple streams of income which they needed to raise 5 kids. Even with so little income and no real idea about investments, they still managed to accumulate $1M, I guess it just proves it can be done.
My parents always struggled with money, we never had much and my dad worked up to his death this summer at 82. My mom is 10 years younger and we worried that she would have to sell the property to get by on just her social security. My dad had a business but it was mostly old equipment and his partners took care of the books and our impression their salaries was most of the business.
So I had my mom get some appraisals and we went through my dads assets, he was great about $2k in this account, $12k over here, oh and $5k in this bank, etc etc etc. I knew they wouldn't have much as what dad did invest, he invested in govt bonds, as safe as you can get because he had no risk tolerance.
Well you add up all those small accounts, you throw in some bank stock and 20 acre woods his parents left them, and a 40 acre farm with house and outbuildings, and (oh wait his partners are like well we have this "slush fund" of like $.5M which 1/3 is yours.) WHAT??
What I learned is land went way up the last decade even in the middle of nowhere. Farmland is at a massive premium. 1/2 the property increase was luck, but the other 1/2 was sweat equity.
So after going through it all and getting the last of the appraisals, I got to tell mom she was a millionaire. I don't think dad ever knew or understood how much he really had which makes me sad.
A good example is they had JPM stock, they had no idea, just that great grandpa use to work for some bank that got bought like 10 times over and eventually became JPM. They were like I dont' know, we got these papers (paper stock certificates) and were told to go to the bank one day (ie turn them in to convert to JPM and be electric stocks) and now we get a check in the mail from somewhere (ie some clearing house in Texas). They were sitting on $35K of JPM with no clue other than it was nice, you know, they send us a check every quarter.
The moral of the story for me is, my dad never made more than $35k/year. He worked hard, he worked extra years, both my parents always had side jobs to make ends meet, plus my dads business, plus the farm so they always had multiple streams of income which they needed to raise 5 kids. Even with so little income and no real idea about investments, they still managed to accumulate $1M, I guess it just proves it can be done.
