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Since 1930, when it was kind of first possible for an ordinary person to get access to the information needed in order to invest successfully, there has been lots of attempts by many to make it work for them, or at least get their money working for them.
Sure, some start and give up, thinking it’s all far to difficult and others get lost in their own minds and stop. Others end up with a modicum of financial independence.
Before 1930, it was only really the wealthy that were able to make money – make money. Everyone else was struggling to make ends meet or to have more than enough so they didn’t need anymore. Certainly, a large proportion of the population were stuck in ordinary ‘just over broke’ jobs that didn’t really allow for the investment of spare cash – if there is no spare cash – there is no way of finding any to invest.
It should be no surprise then, that knowing just how to make money work for you is not clearly understood, firstly not everyone needs the skill if you don’t have any money spare there is no need for investment knowledge. Secondly, it’s only since 1930 or so that it’s been an option.
It takes many thousands of years for us humans to adapt to a new way of doing things. Wealth and money management is a relatively new thing to wrap into our DNA. It always used to be about hoarding (or saving) money, depositing it as cash in banks and building societies and leaving it there until it was required, back in the forties and fifties most of what was available – cash deposits, would have paid a far higher rate of interest than now. An example of this was 1957 (source ONS) when interest rates hit 7% with inflation running at around 4%, giving real rate of return before tax of around 3% – having money in the bank wasn’t as bad as it is now with – effectively negative returns after inflation.
Therefore, even if there was spare cash, learning a new skill – that of money management was not really required.
It’s interesting to note that just before 1930, there was a stock market crash that started a depression, that in turn is credited with causing the right circumstances for the start of World War Two and the rise of Hitler and his group of freaks.
After the war, there was the introduction of various state systems in the UK. Called the Welfare State – these started to appear in 1942 or so, this included a benefits system that covered both in work and retirement benefits — along with the NHS. For the first time, a State Pension was made available of ‘a penny a week’ at age 65 for men. Given that life expectancy was still only 65 it was a bit of a one-sided bet.
I’m sure it had the effect of making most people consider the ‘what ifs’ in relation to their personal circumstances – it was really only after 1950 that there were widely available company pension arrangements along with a number of personal pension plans on the marketplace. By the late 1960’s there were a good number of these plans around
In this short period of time, many people started to become more money savvy and certainly many high street banks started to provide ‘stockbroker’ services and investment funds started to appear from the likes of the Prudential and other Home Service Insurance providers. All of a sudden people could invest in the stock markets and start to stake a claim on a brighter future, leveraging money – making it work for you rather than you working for it.
There were other changes, notably more women in work, more married couples with two incomes. All of these provided a bit more cash in the system, a bit more spare. This, of course, fuelled the savings markets, with doorstep advice being available and banks being more adventurous with consumer investment products.
This meant that people started to think more and more about their options but still didn’t start to really apply leverage to their investment funds – – sure it’s a changed world today, yet people are still, in the main spending nearly all of the money they earn and saving a lot less than our grandparents did (on average) yet, more and more information exists.
As I write this in 2018 it’s clear that just having the information available does not make it possible for investment decisions to be made nor does it make people want to invest. Given that money invested now, will produce income for years to come. Income that can be used to provide a better lifestyle, a working less lifestyle it’s amazing that more and more people don’t want to learn what’s required or to understand the principles.
A pound saved today – invested for the future could be ten or twenty pounds at some future stage, income from that pound could be a further one or two pounds every year. It’s not particularly complicated but does need to be done.
Financial independence within a lifetime is possible.
You can download the Seven Rules of Money from over at the Financezone.co.uk