Attention Gen Ys and millenials: Young couple talks about being free from credit card debt

How do they stay on the road to success, you ask?

“It’s a choice ... A lot of the time it’s a choice. I think it comes down to education as well – whether you’ve educated yourself in that area or been lucky enough to have your family educate you as you’re growing up,” Charles shared with Smart Property Investment.

Aside from reading books and utilising other resource materials, it also does good to take lessons from the experiences of other people.

Charles and Charlotte’s parents have been into business and financial planning, and while the details and technicalities are not usually discussed during dinner with the family, the couple have done their best to answer the questions by doing their own research.

According to Charles: “It wasn’t so much talked about as much as I hoped that it would have been. Still, the idea is there and the concepts are there, and they’ve got a few investment properties and stuff. I guess that has generated us to be inquisitive about it and curious, and do our own research from there. That’s kind of where that started."

Attitude is also an important part of being on good ground in terms of finances. Charles and Charlotte make sure to have their priorities set, and while they definitely have short-term goals, they always take into account the long-term implications of all their choices and commitments.

“I think it’s just also about attitude. Attitude towards money. Attitude to what your priorities are in life. For us, our priority is that future-proofing, but we’ve definitely got short-term goals and long-term goals and personal and financial and career. We’ve got a lot of goals ... We talk about it a lot and we like to repeat it, going, ‘This is our goal. How does this sit in with this goal,’” Charlotte said.

She added: “Going back to our first property, it was always about how is this property going to set us up for the future? It was never just one step at a time. It’s this step, then how’s this going to compliment the next step? How is that next step going to compliment the next step? It’s always about looking into the future and making sure, to the best of our ability, that we’re doing the right thing.”

Tune in to Charles and Charlotte’s episode in The Smart Property Investment Show to find out more about their unusual technique for saving up, as well as the reason why they believe property investment is possible for everyone—even the young ones—if only they’re willing to make the choice to put the hard yards in.