Hi, daylighting this thread because this is exactly what I need right now!
As I get more into FIRE, and am starting to have some real success with aggressive saving, I keep thinking about how different things could have been if I'd received education about these basic principles!
The worst one is rent. As a single woman, it was hard to get my own mortgage over the decades even though I have an excellent credit score and never once was late on rent or any other bills. My entrepreneurial artist income was always too scary for a bank to contemplate. Fourteen years ago I asked my parents to co-sign on a mortgage, but they refused saying that they didn't want to support me living so far away. More recently, I asked my mom again, but for something I would buy in their city, and she again said no, citing not wanting to take on the insecurity.. and fair enough, because my parents didn't manage the million dollars that my Dad retired with that well and it is going down quickly.
So I just have to accept it. I was the child of relatively affluent parents and as an adult, do not own my own home. It also came on my mind recently because my mom is going to sell the family home and live off the money rather than keep it and rent it out for long term income that keeps the investment. She just can't see it. So, I am gently separating off from the whole thing, and I'm looking into buying land, and tiny houses instead. But even as I do so, I have to come to peace with how that is a LOT of money over 2 decades now that has gone to paying down other people's mortgages.
Apparently the average net worth of someone with a house is 100K and someone without is 5K. I am above that average, but only due to a small lump sum from a divorce a few years ago that I thankfully have managed to hang out to and will now increase.
But ya, it just fills me with anger at times that my parents encouraged me to do an arts career and didn't help me to make the one investment where I would have been building passive wealth through my home. Guess I need to do some serious forgiveness work and get on with things joyfully now! Forgive both myself and my parents.
I hope to have children one day (and will adopt if I don't have my own) and I take GREAT comfort from the fact that I can teach them about all this, and buy them a small rental property when they are young, and get them investing in safe havens from a young age like the Our Rich Journey young women are doing. So thanks for reminding me about that, and for this community!