On a normal day, no one calls my cell phone. I average about maybe two calls a week. Today, three people called me. One call was from my dentist, the other two were from financial advisors/planners.
The first money dude was at my office on Tuesday to give employees a presentation. The company I work for had arranged for two financial advisors to come in and talk to interested parties about strategies for saving for the future. Their talk was engaging and we were given a chance to leave contact info for more information. I left my number and he called me today to see if I’d like to meet some time in future and go over my financial situation. I told him I’d call him back to book a meeting in the near future.
The second money dude was a guy I’ve known for a few years now. I met him through the legendary Adrian Behennah. Let’s call him Vanson. We’ve been discussing getting me some financial advice for several months now but were waiting until I paid off all my loans. Well, now that I’m finished with that, it’s time for me to start building my financial empire. I’m going to meet Vanson on Monday and we’ll be discussing money matters.
The whole financial planning presentation really got me thinking about far behind I am in planning for the future. Take a typical 22 year-old university graduate who gets a job after graduation. Assuming a reasonable income over the next ten years factoring in even modest raises, with a good plan for the future by the time that person is 32 years old, they should have an impressive net worth.
I recently turned 32 and all I have to show for it is the fact that I owe no one any money. Mind you, I don’t have any money for myself either. How did I get here? Where did the time go? Well, let’s take a look then. I graduated at 23 and not 22 unlike most people because I participated in co-op in school. I actually don’t regret that. Instead of jumping into a job, I took a year off to relax and travel. Putting New York, Hawaii, San Francisco, and Calgary behind me, I was 24. At that early age, I got a job working for Cypress Solutions which will hopefully go down as the worst 11 months of my life. I quit when I was 25 and took a year off to recover, mostly thanks to the Canadian government who subsidized my time to a tune of nearly a grand a month. At 26, I began employment at Electronic Arts Canada as a games tester at a starting wage of $10.50 an hour. I did that for nearly two years, somehow achieving a final wage of $12.50 an hour. At 28, I quit the testing biz to start grad school so I could become a software engineer. Grad school took a bit longer to complete and it finally clocked in at two years and eight months. It was one hell of a time I gotta say. At 31, I was employed less than a month after graduation. So, here I am, a software engineer working on video games.
For the first time, I actually feel like I have a career rather than a series of jobs but it took a decade to get here. That is a long time. I would be so much farther ahead if I had gotten it right the first time around. I wonder what my life would be like now if that had happened?
Well, until I learn how to cross parallel universes, this is the situation I’m stuck with. Maybe we can talk about penny stocks on Monday.