How my parents paid cash for their home before they turned 40

My parents grew up in Rhodesia – now known as Zimbabwe – and South Africa.  They got married after they graduated from Cape Town University when they were in their early twenties.  My sister Susan was born in London, England while my father was finishing his masters degree.  Three years later I was born in Durban, South Africa.  We then moved to Abadan, Iran, where my father, a petroleum engineer, worked for British Petroleum Company at the Abadan Refinery, and where my brother Michael was born.  In 1960 we emigrated to Montreal, and four years later moved to Sarnia, where my younger sister Wendy was born.

Here is a picture of our family during our Abadan days.

In 1969 my parents decided to move us to Judibana, Venezuela.  This was another gated oil camp, where most of the residents were ex-pats, either Canadian or American.  This job allowed them to send my brother to a private school in Ontario, and me to a British boarding school in Les-Avants-sur-Montreaux, Switzerland.  We lived in a company house that was provided for us at no cost and had a car paid for by my father’s employer.

In 1974 my parents – now in their forties - returned to Canada, deciding to settle in Dunrobin, Ontario, and purchased a lovely waterfront property with a bungalow on it for cash.  They also had enough money to pay for my brother and me to go to the universities of our choice. They soon sold the bungalow and bought a one acre wooded waterfront lot where they built a beautiful two-story home.  Later, they sold it to build a smaller home on a one hundred acre lot.  They severed off several smaller parcels of this property to help pay for the property, and ended up with a beautiful home on 60 acres.  They had enough money to purchase a little piece of paradise on the island of Montserrat, where they spent part of their winters, and later a condo in Florida.

And finally, they sold their home in Dunrobin and all of their various investment properties in order to buy a waterfront home in Victoria, British Columbia.  Again, their astute intuition paid off, because within ten years the value of their home had doubled, and despite having no pension, and being a single income family, they were able to retire and live in comfort, while still keeping money to bequeath to their four children at the time of their death.