Part 3 - seeing my family experience poverty

This is a series of articles labelled from #1 to #9 which chronicles how I went from being a fanatical young saver to a pathetic spender, and then finally paving the way for financial success.

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In part #2: Having Money Taken Away From Me, I wrote about how my money was taken away from me and how this caused a deep resentment for savings and an insatiable appetite for spending. The reality was I was scared to save now and even actively looked for ways to spend money I had.

The next ten years of my life saw me saving no money at all, I went from becoming a fanatical saver to a pathetic spender, any money I got I spent on small meaningless things, I didn’t like to keep money because I was scared I would lose it.

My father who was the principal saver of the family also passed away and much of the control went to my older brother as my mother did not want to control any of the money, she would recommend that we save it at every opportunity but unfortunately she did not get involved in this process. My brother was in his twenties and was always looking to make a quick buck, he loved watching “only fools and horses’ and probably inwardly thought of himself as a wheeler dealer, he dreamed about getting rich overnight and always wanted to invest in the stock market.

After my father’s death most of the money was invested in the stock market and my brother made a lot of money during the dot.com boom, unfortunately he was too young to see the trend as a bubble and I remember when he bet everything on the Nasdaq Index rising, this was just before the bubble burst. Suffice to say the rest is history, we lost everything and my brother was in a mountain of debt.

Nearly all the family wealth was gone, no one was working, I was still in school and my brother left his work to invest in the stock market exclusively. We had to rely on social security welfare benefits to get by and I remember this being the hardest time we had with money.

For some reason I blamed money for our misery, I was so fed up with losing money, I blamed the stock market, I blamed my brother and most of all I blamed money for my unhappiness. I developed a deeper resentment for money and hated the idea of saving; when my mother encouraged me to save I would explain that there was no point. Life was really bad at this point and I just got my head down and started studying and concentrating on my grades.

I can remember that we had to live on about £70 per week after paying all our living expenses, I never really got any money, I was never bothered to work, what was the point. Life was really hard and I just resigned myself to thinking that this is how everyone lived.

After developing a sour taste for money I started getting into debt, credit was easy to come by and everyone was giving credit cards away, in Part #4: Spending to Keep Up read how my life was turned upside down with meaningless debt.

Full Series Index

#1: Great Early Saver

#2: Having Money Taken Away From Me

#3: Seeing My Family Experience Poverty

#4: Spending to Keep Up

#5: Disaster Strikes

#6: Getting Married

#7: Absolute Financial Despair

#8: Facing Up to my Problems

#9: Laying the Foundation for Success