After a couple of attempts at a small part-time business enterprise as an apprentice; I was given the opportunity to run an engineering workshop at 21. By the time I was 23, I was working as a sub-contractor and that proved to be an ideal opportunity.
My second major business was share trading and investment, my daytime job generated cashflow and funds for investment and to cover living expenses, my after hours was spent studying balance sheets, drawing up charts and analysing cashflows.
I had a margin trading account with my stockbroker and a bank loan for my house, I was a quarter of a million dollars in debt which doesn't sound a lot these days. There was a fair amount of stress involved, you learned to perform under pressure.
That was more than two and a half times the average house loan, interest rates had peaked at over 18% and I had locked in a pretty good rate of 13.5% for three years. My margin account was pretty much the same, I had to get my decision-making right or I would be heading to the bankruptcy court.
I never had any time for a formal education after studying at trade school although I took a introductory sharemarket course as an eighteen year old. My first buy after a recommendation from a stockbroker resulted an immediate gain so I bought some more at two and a half and then five times the price.
You need to pay for an education and I guess I paid for mine as I was conducting no research, I had no strategy and I didn't know what I was doing. Nevertheless, I wasn't spooked and frequently visited the Australian Stock Exchange library to work on my education.
That self-paced financial education involved reading financial statements, charting, macroeconomics and banking. Fast forward to now, I'm late 40s and getting a formal education in accounting, finance, operations, marketing, decision-making, economics, leadership, team-building and strategy.
It could be argued that late 40s is a little late in my career to be undertaking such a pivotal qualification, I feel I have a further 13 years before I qualify for my retirement benefits. I want to be working part-time past that stage, I can work past retirement age and be under no pressure to pay down debt.
As a mature age student, I am paying off each unit as I go so I will carry no tuition debt when I complete the course. A scholarship certainly helps manage the repayments, the argument needs to focus on return on investment and whether the money would have been better spent pumping the cash into my superannuation fund - time will tell.
No comments:
Post a Comment