Thankyou everyone for your interesting and varied replies.
The diversity and enthusiasm is quite inspirational.
My husband and I are both in our thirties. We are seeing people, like my parents, who are approaching retirement but who are not financially set up for it. I suppose this is scaring us into doing something to make sure we are not in the same position in 20 years time.
We have been working on building up a property and shares portfolio over the last couple of years (he loves shares, I love property). I only wish we had started years ago when we both had incomes (I am now out of the paid workforce but have got the best job in the world - caring for our beautiful toddler daughter). However, when I realise we are already better off than my parents I know it is better late than never. Still a long way to go though.
At the moment am feeling very conflicted. We have some $ to invest but feel too confused and nervous to do anything about it. Hubby thinks we should put more money into shares but not sure if we have reached the bottom of the market yet, and seeing how much our shares have gone down over the last year dosn't exactly inspire confidence. We were determined to buy a rental property in Brisbane a few months ago, while we were up that way on holiday. But found prices were way above what we had researched (eg. one suburb we expected to pay low 200's for a house, didn't see anything under $270K). So did nothing!! Would love to buy a property now while can lock in a 5 year fixed rate close to 6.5% but low rents and talk of the bubble bursting is putting us off. We have done loads of research but still plagued by indecision. We know we have to work on this - we are both so worried about making the wrong choice that we do nothing at all!!
I just keep looking at the position my parents are in and hopefully that will motivate us eventually.
I love this forum. It is loaded with great information, and more importatnly, is inspirational. Keep up the good work everyone.
Lily
The diversity and enthusiasm is quite inspirational.
My husband and I are both in our thirties. We are seeing people, like my parents, who are approaching retirement but who are not financially set up for it. I suppose this is scaring us into doing something to make sure we are not in the same position in 20 years time.
We have been working on building up a property and shares portfolio over the last couple of years (he loves shares, I love property). I only wish we had started years ago when we both had incomes (I am now out of the paid workforce but have got the best job in the world - caring for our beautiful toddler daughter). However, when I realise we are already better off than my parents I know it is better late than never. Still a long way to go though.
At the moment am feeling very conflicted. We have some $ to invest but feel too confused and nervous to do anything about it. Hubby thinks we should put more money into shares but not sure if we have reached the bottom of the market yet, and seeing how much our shares have gone down over the last year dosn't exactly inspire confidence. We were determined to buy a rental property in Brisbane a few months ago, while we were up that way on holiday. But found prices were way above what we had researched (eg. one suburb we expected to pay low 200's for a house, didn't see anything under $270K). So did nothing!! Would love to buy a property now while can lock in a 5 year fixed rate close to 6.5% but low rents and talk of the bubble bursting is putting us off. We have done loads of research but still plagued by indecision. We know we have to work on this - we are both so worried about making the wrong choice that we do nothing at all!!
I just keep looking at the position my parents are in and hopefully that will motivate us eventually.
I love this forum. It is loaded with great information, and more importatnly, is inspirational. Keep up the good work everyone.
Lily