I was raised in a single-mother household and witnessed daily how difficult it can be to manage all the responsibilities that come with running a household on your own. My mother divorced when my brother and I were 4 & 5 years old - at which time we all went to live with our grandparents (mom's mother and father). My grandparents were children of the depression and knew how to stretch a dollar. They helped our mother get a job and learn to stand on her feet.
Several years later, my mother was able to purchase a home - just a block away from my grandparents. In the years to come, there would be ups and downs and many, many lessons learned. My mother made it perfectly clear that money did not grow on trees - if my brother and I wanted something, we were going to have to earn it. I still joke today about my mother leaving us IOUs (we owed her) on the staircase. We were on constant payment plans with our mother. (Thank you mom)
Over time, I watched my mother work her way up the corporate ladder, into a fairly senior level of management, with only a high school degree. She worked a lot of overtime – nights, weekends and her pager was always on call for emergencies.
After college, I found that I wanted to be just like my mom. I got myself a corporate gig, with pretty good pay, and worked as hard as I could. Ten, twelve, fifteen hour days - whatever it took to make a good impression.
Then, when I was 24, my mother passed away, suddenly. It was a few days before Christmas, she was wrapping presents and got a terrible headache. Turned out she had a brain aneurysm, from which she would not recover. She was 45.
Throughout the last years of her life, my mother spoke often of her future retirement. She (and her greatest friends) had dreams of moving to Key West to buy a bed & breakfast. She wanted to travel the world, spend more time on the boat, love and be loved. She worked 25+ years and never got the opportunity to realize her retirement dreams. As you might imagine, this caused me to seriously reconsider my life plan.
A year or so later, while stuck in the Buffalo airport, on a business trip, I read the book, ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ from start to finish. From that day on, I knew my future would be in real estate. I simply could not continue, for 25-35 years, according to someone else’s plan - all the while, hoping that someday I might control my own day-to-day.
Over ten years later, our companies own 40+ properties in the Philadelphia and Jacksonville markets, combined. I've learned so much and still have so much more to learn! There have been highs and lows along the way but I will never regret taking full accountability for my own future.
My name is Brennan and I am the founder of WomenGetWealthy.com. Thanks for joining us here!
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