My name is Nathan Faleatua and this is going to be a space where I share my journey from wage to wealth. Yes, I started off on minimum wage but I developed into a lifestyle of true wealth, achieving financial feats like buying a house at 21 and overcoming time replacing my wife's job. Want to know how I did it? Follow along as my story unfolds!
We went over the foundations, the bricks, the roof, but there is one last element to this story that has been there the entire time. From the moment we started tackling the foundations we have experienced covering from our good God, so let me tell you a few stories on this all played out.
This episode is a continuation of my journey to homeownership, labeled Roof. What's the point in a solid foundation and some sturdy walls if there's nothing to top it off? We need the roof, both physically on our houses and financially in our journey to finishing off the home ownership journey.
We have already layed the foundations so it is time to lay some bricks! Continuing the series of our journey to homeownership, this one covers practical steps on the financial journey towards buying your first home. Not everyone wants to own a home, but if you do then I know this latest post will inspire, clarify, and equip you on your journey. This post will give you a simple guide on what to focus on next, and once you have these locked in then you are set to succeed. If you haven't seen the first post, I would highly recommend checking it out as there's no point laying bricks if you don't have a foundation!
This one's for anyone and everyone who wants to own the home they live in. I broke the mold and did it at 21 years old despite the market conditions, despite having a graduate income, despite what other people said (even professionals), and so I want to inspire you to do the same. It's not an instant journey, but it's one I believe we can all journey towards and at the bare minimum, create a plan to own your home one day if that's what you want. With this episode I start by laying the foundations. Houses won't exist without a solid foundation, so the same goes for the financial journey towards buying it.
This is one entire post where I share my approach on how to save money. It was written in a time where I had to save for a house, wedding, and honeymoon, and all three were accomplished so it's safe to say it works! No matter how far along you are with your financial journey, saving is always going to be the foundation. If you're wanting to get into investments you need to get good at saving money to invest in the first place. If you're wanting to buy a house, you need to prove to the bank you can save enough to technically cover the mortgage if you got one.
Have you ever wanted to achieve something but life gets in the way and you find yourself months later not making any progress on your goals? This episode is all about a time in my life when this exact issue arose and how I dealt with it. Funnily enough, the goal at the time I was writing this post was to start my own blog and start sharing my financial journey. So you can be assured that the tips in this post did help me accomplish my goal!
In this new post I share some experiences I had where I experienced clashes between abstract spaces, like dreams, and reality, like work and bills. If you have been following my story for a while you would have heard me playing with big concepts like becoming a millionaire off minimum wage and so on, but as I lived out my ideas there were many realities that pushed against me. Whether you want motivation to keep pursuing your crazy goals or you're looking for tips on how to respond to these clashes, check it out!
This new post takes you through some of my thoughts and learnings straight after our first lockdown in the middle of 2020. I'm glad I took a few learnings from that time, because it's times like these where it really pays to have experience on how to manage myself. My heart goes out to everyone in their different bubbles, facing their own challenges, and my hope is that this post can encourage you no matter what space you find yourself in.
This one is titled 'Minimum Wage Millionaire' and it was a concept I thought of and shared with some of my co-workers when I was working in a minimum wage role back in 2018. Yes it was bold, yes it's kind of a click bait statement, but it's something I genuinely weighed up and wanted to say because that's how much I realised how powerful financial literacy and money management is. This concept alone pushed me in many ways and actually played a part in why I named this journey what it is (Wage to Wealth), so I hope you enjoy!
This one is all about generosity. Yes it sounds simple, but there were a few things that I didn't know so maybe you could learn a thing or two as well! Deep down all of us enjoy being generous and giving, so I encourage you to sharpen yourself in this area of finances. It starts off by knowing what true generosity is, and that will help you give more freely. Be sure to check it out!
This was written in a space where I was exploring my favourite book for increasing my financial literacy - the Bible. I started from scratch and consulted what the word says on earning income. Are we meant to work for money? Is there such a thing as earning too much? What ways are we meant to earn money? I found answers and picked up some pretty important lessons along the way, so I encourage you to check it out!
This is a challenging one, firstly to accept but especially when it comes to living it out. It was written in a time when I was really focusing on gaining financial literacy straight from the word. The first lesson I learnt is that God is the source of our wealth and living under that concept brings many benefits. It seems like a deep belief that's unrelated to our finances, but I can testify that this one does have huge positives if applied correctly.
If you are about to start or have just started investing, this episode is ideal for you! I talk through the experience I had in the first several months of investing, more specifically on all the things I learnt from my failures. Don't let those initial falls keep you down, as I can now testify that after losing a lot of money through mistakes on investments, the knowledge I have learned has gained me more returns. To skip a few fails or gain some motivation, leverage the prior lessons I taught about learning from other peoples experience and check out this latest episode!
Don't know how to buy assets like shares? Today is your lucky day! Let me take you through my journey of when I bought my first asset which was essentially some shares. I lay out the physical steps I took, share the challenges I faced but more importantly how to overcome them. If you read it then you literally hold all the knowledge I had when I bought my first share. With that same knowledge, I came out the other side with $2500 worth of assets, and let's not forget that I was a student so if it was possible for me it's definitely possible for you.
The 5th and final barrier! These have been barriers that hold us back from reaching goals even when we have the financial know-how and knowledge. We dealt with Fear, Doubt, Laziness, Bad Habits, and now we're taking down arrogance. Arrogance once again shuts us off from learning more, and can cut off many financial opportunities you will come across. Even if you think you're not an arrogant person, better to be smart and aware than to learn the hard way because realistically we are all prone to these weaknesses.
What's a bad habit that you want to break? The thing about habits is that we do a lot of them without even knowing it. So there's probably more bad habits we're not even aware of in the way we manage our money. Maybe this is the barrier you need to overcome to see a breakthrough in your financial situation. Habits are one of the biggest things I value and build in life so I hope you enjoy listening and reflecting on it as there's definitely some life-changing content!
Ever felt a bit lazy? We've all been lazy at some point in our lives, but have you ever considered how lazy you are in the area of managing your own money? Well today's post will highlight what laziness is and outline how it may impact us. We're continuing on with a 5 part series on barriers that I identified from the start. Even though they are deeper internal things, that are absolutely necessary to making physical moves. One example of this would be purchasing my house. I faced fear, doubt, and I can testify that if I hadn't sorted out this laziness barrier from the start, I would not have been able to push through the challenges I faced. There are plenty of opportunities to give up, which are even more tempting when you can't see a way forward, but if you set up a character of willingness to push through then this barrier won't hold you back from achieving your goals.
Even if we are financially literate, let's whip our character into shape so that there truly isn't anything preventing us from progressing. This is my second post in the barrier series and it addresses doubt. The thing about doubt is that this one is subtle and could trip us up without us even knowing it. There will be times when we weigh up options and discern if something is too risky, but rather than cutting off ideas instantly because of doubt, let's create a new approach in us that analyses and critiques things before dismissing them. It could be a business venture that has entered your mind, a new opportunity perhaps, or even a rare investment opening. Even if the final answer is a no, let's be the ones who opened ourselves up and analyse before getting to that answer. I'm sure this approach overall will end up with us catching more winning opportunities that others will miss. If you want to learn more about how to overcome this barrier or hear about my personal challenges against doubt, be sure to check this episode.
Welcome to the Barrier series! This new post kicks us off on a journey to rip down any barriers that prevent us from progressing financially, and today I tackle fear head on, We have picked up a bit of financial literacy to date but this is when I realised that we need to be more than just smart in order to break out of the norm financially. We could hold all the knowledge and ‘know how' on purchasing stocks but all of that can go down the drain if we let fear hold us back from taking any action in the first step. Make sure you check it out if you want to understand how it might impact you and more importantly how to deal with it.
This time I invite you into my mind to explore my thoughts on what happens in life if we follow several of these lessons we've learnt to date. This is a story of three fictional 20 year olds that each have a different structure of lifestyle. Some have decent income, some have strong savings habits, but the key defining point is that they each have different levels of financial literacy. Each of us will be able to connect with certain attributes of these three, and hopefully after taking a peep into the future we can refine ourselves to pick up better habits. I dive into what they would look like after 10 years, at the age of 30. Measure their success, which, spoiler alert, isn't purely based off how much money they make. Enter now by checking out this latest episode!
Are you living off one source of income? If you are living off one source of income right now, or even if you're a student whose source of income is a loan from their future self, this post is for you! It's important to understand why you would want more streams of income and I'm not just talking about more money because we know from previous lessons that that drive isn't one that will satisfy us. Instead, this is all about opening up our minds to a new structure in life where we are free to earn wherever and however we want. For those already in the workplace, you're free to think about new ventures and for students, feel free to dream of a better future than just one specific role! I myself got excited opening up to this concept, but I was also very real with where I was at. Go check out the full story in this episode.
Is your car an asset? How about your house?! It's time to start redefining how we view certain items in our life, this time using our real pockets instead of textbook definitions. We always hear big words like assets, passive income, investments, etc, but it's hard to understand them let alone use them if you don't connect them to how things work in real life. This new perspective actually played a key role in helping me understand for the very first time in my life how it was possible to live week to week without having a job. We all know it all starts with a shift in mindset, and this one definitely challenges some of the traditional views. If you want to see how me as a young 19 year old learnt and understood the game then be sure to give this a listen!
After applying the first lessons of setting a solid foundation for several months (dealing with the heart, create strong habits and control over my minimum wage paycheck) I decided to take my journey even further. It didn't take long to realise that I wasn't only person who wanted to manage their money better and that the journey I was on was one that many people have tackled in different ways. In this blog I break down how I learnt from others, letting them do the heavy lifting so that it's lightweight for us picking it up after them!
I am pumped and ready to sprint into the world of money with the hopes of mastering this thing called money.
It's a privilege to share my story with you and I hope you enjoy it just as much as I do. Speaking of stories, we're going to kick this off by winding the clock back to day one on how it all began!
This is a short one I wrote at the very start of my journey when I didn't have a platform to share, but I knew I wanted to one day. It sets the scene for anyone wanting to follow my journey, even those in future. Be sure to check it out if you want to know where I was at when I started.
Firstly, thank you so much for checking this out. If you're wondering what I am all about then have a listen and hopefully join me on this journey from Wage to Wealth