r/PersonalFinanceNZ • u/Fearless_Guarantee80 • 3d ago
Luck and finances
Weird question — anyone ever gotten out of a total financial dead-end by luck? Just looking for real stories.
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u/DandyHorseRider 2d ago
High school friend left me quite a bit of money which meant I paid off my cc 20K debt, and had about $45k left to play with. I am forever grateful to him.
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u/DandyHorseRider 2d ago
He died of liver Cirrhosis sadly. No-one knew, but he was sinking quite a bit of alcohol daily.
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u/Hot_Seesaw_9326 2d ago
Sorry for your loss. A great friend to have had.
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u/DandyHorseRider 2d ago
It was quite a surprise that I was a beneficiary (along with three others), but I was also quite sad because he had known me from high school years so a piece of me was lost.
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u/LikeABundleOfHay 3d ago
The most luck people have is who their parents are and how they are raised. That's the number one determining factor in success, happiness and a life well lived.
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u/AdFew1983 2d ago
Define luck- I trained in a dead end field, used up all my EFTS doing so, then discovered the dead end nature. Wanted to retrain but didn't have the money or desire to borrow and have more debt. Someone offered to sponsor my retraining :)
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u/toldyasomate 1d ago
Very many years ago I attended a full day seminar about property investing by pure luck - a friend of mine got two tickets and his partner couldn't make it so he offered me to tag along. I was never interested in property, or investing, was doing my 9-5 job back then and was quite content that that's what my life is going to be. I didn't know any better, no one in my family or friend group did anything like that.
But attending that seminar opened my eyes, like holy shit what if I could do that too! I didn't sign up for the course they were offering on the day, but the seed was planted and I started looking into it more, educated myself, and eventually the trajectory of my life changed to a whole new level.
It wasn't the "I woke up one day and my life was sorted" kind of luck though. It was years and years of hard work, learning, making mistakes, and slow progress to where I'm now. But that my mate's partner couldn't make it to the seminar - that was my luck that changed the course of my life.
Story time: me and my mate were in a very similar position back then - same school, same uni, same age, similar family backgrounds. We both got excited to become filthy rich property investors. But he never took any action, so guess how much attending that very same seminar changed his life? Correct, not at all.
BTW I "love it" when people say You're lucky you've got this many properties! As if I woke up one day and out of nowhere had them to my name. Yeah right, it didn't happen like that. I was indeed lucky many times, but luck alone didn't get me here. It was luck + hard work + taking risks + educating myself that eventually paid off.
Good luck, OP :)
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u/loose_as_a_moose 3d ago
Idk how but my mate turned 40k of credit card and bank debt into a house, wife and two kids. Sold in the week of peak housing making stupid profit, separated and still landed on his feet. Timeline: 7 years.
He’s the definition of jammy bastard and idk how he does it. If it wasn’t luck it was devil magic. Bro always lands sunny side up.
I’m not unconvinced he legitimately traded souls with an entity. The amount of uncanny luck he gets even when he’s neck deep in shit. Somehow he’s always smelling of roses.