My name is Mike and this is how UncleInvest was started…It began with a planned tutorial in the family. My niece was graduating college and her father tapped a list of mentors to help and guide her as she started her new life. I thought this was a good idea, something in retrospect I wish I had that was formalized. I had learned some things from my own uncle, more on that later.
I was tapped as the finance/wealth advisor. I would be available to help with finance decisions, guide her on financial path and answer any questions she might want to ask. We all gathered at a family event and my niece also brought along her finance.
I made my initial pitch, starting with retirement investing.
It was all uphill from there.
My niece was somewhat receptive, but once her finance got involved, it became primarily a match of wits with her finance. I got the message and relatively quickly changed the conversation to something else.
There is a reason why families don’t talk about money and growing up there was no conversation about money. It was taboo. Nobody wants advice, and I would say doubly so for younger people, because they already “know it all”.
I don’t fault my relatives for the way they reacted. It’s human nature, probably most people would react exactly the same way.
Even though I had become the “Wealthy Uncle”, I found that nobody in my family wanted to talk about finances, including all of the younger people. This is unfortunate because key information that is obtained early on in life can dramatically improve your finances, your money confidence and ultimately your quality of life.
If only they would take the advice. Then I thought that people are more receptive to advice from strangers that they consider authoritative. Thru the medium of blogs, I can be the Wealthy Uncle that gives people the advice that there are unwilling to accept elsewhere. Or perhaps, you don’t have a Wealthy Uncle and want to learn from a real uncle.
I consider myself quite ordinary. For example:
- I am not an entrepreneur.
- I did not inherit large wealth, no trust fund.
- I am not an executive or law partner, far from it.
- I have mostly worked for others, with some work as a consultant.
- I built wealth slowly over time using tried and true techniques.
When I look at my own past, I attribute my success at finances for these two reasons:
- My own personality, which is based on being logical. Many of my decisions come from reasonable assessment of facts.
- Learning. The ideas of others can expand your repertoire. The is essential to improve your life in many different facets of your life, not only finances.
If you are looking for advice and want to improve your financial life, first understand that anyone can learn, including you.
Our goal here is to present information in an understandable way with simple, actionable advice. We start from the very beginning, so we assume nothing.
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