This month’s topic for the PF Bloggers Network Group Writing Project is “Rich People Gone Broke.” Our chosen subject for this project is Wolfgang Mozart, one of the greatest composers that ever lived. While a genius in everything musical, he was less lucky when it came to money management.

Prodigy and Breadwinner

Mozart first went to work at the age of five. As a child prodigy, he traveled extensively and made a living as performer, composer, conductor and curiosity. These travels were documented by his family’s letters to their friends in Salzburg.

At first Leopold proudly related the enormous sums of money earned by his children, especially Wolfgang, and described the generous (resalable) gifts they received from kings and princes. Then he got wise and began to conceal their earnings, claiming that they made virtually no profit after expenses. This later strategy made it hard for us to know the exact amount of Wolfgang’s earnings, but it was surely a fortune. In addition to cash, the gifts accumulated on these journeys were mostly made of gold and were described by a friend to resemble a church treasury.

Until age 23, Wolfgang Mozart increased his family’s wealth on journeys in Austria, England, Italy, Paris, and other places where he was often received by royalty and nobility. If they did not collect enough gifts at one location, Leopold sold tickets to the public to hear his children perform—anything to make a buck . . or a florin. But this venue lost him some patronage because the upper class didn’t want anything the commoners had.

Although Leopold successfully concealed the earning of his children, it is clear that Wolfgang Mozart was the primary breadwinner of his family, and as such was jealously guarded from theft. His trips were always chaperoned by one or both parents, his father constantly warned him about the deceitful and ensnaring nature of women, and his mother whisked him off to Paris (at the orders of his father) to save him from a girl he desperately wanted to marry.

Rebellion and High Living

“I could not go about Vienna looking like a tramp, particularly just at this time. My linen was pitiable; no servant here has shirts of such coarse stuff as mine, — and that certainly is a frightful thing for a man. Consequently there were again expenditures.” - Vienna, September 5, 1781, in a letter to his father

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This first writing project deals with the circumstances, people and events in our past which have led to our present financial habits. I proposed this topic as the first of our group writing project as I had been planning to write something about our background and why we live the way we do.

We are one of those people who have a somewhat complicated history. In our first 25 years, we had lived in 3 different countries and called approximately 20 different places “home.” After several hours of attempting to put it all in prose, we have finally given up and decided to put our family financial history and relevant events in timeline format (and with authentic pictures), for your sake and ours.

A note before we begin: The time periods used to head each section are names of actual time periods from history; however, they are not all in correct historical order, but rather arranged to fit eras of our lives.

Pre-History

• 1978 July - Oakland, CA
  Mother, an art student from Taiwan, marries a young engineer and flight instructor from Japan whom she feels sorry for because he is poor and alone.

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Apologies for not posting anything of substance yesterday or today, but due to feeling a little under the weather these few days, I thought I would post a summary of recommended reading for those of you who are new to this blog, and a few news items from the personal finance blogosphere.

From Our Fourpence Worth

• Father’s Day
  If you’re still looking for a Father’s Day present, many of our ideas from Frugal but Thoughtful Mother’s Day Gift Suggestions could also apply to fathers and father-figures in your life.
• Tax Rebate
  If you are truly interested in helping the US economy, check out Don’t Spend that Tax Rebate Just Yet for a few suggestions on how to and how not to spend your tax rebate based on an article by Liz Pulliam Weston of MSN Money.
• Motivating Children to Practice Music
  Take advantage of summer vacation to help your kids get ahead on their music practice and get the most out of your music lesson fees with some advice by Madoline, who majored in music and has had experience in teaching children’s piano lessons.
  • Motivating Children to Practice Music: Introduction
  • Part 2: Playing the Piano is a Privilege (Not a Chore)
  • Part 3: Playing Slower for Faster Results
  • Part 4: Divide and Conquer

  (If you like the image to the right, which is an original illustration by my sister Madoline, check out our CafePress store Mozartini for gifts and collectibles featuring this image and other artwork by the same hand.)

• Editor’s Picks
  We’re starting to get the hang of blogging (which was completely new to us when we started this blog in February), and have produced a few Editor’s Picks in recent blog carnivals:
  • The Frugal Literate’s Guide to Affordable Reading
  • Frugal but Thoughtful Mother’s Day Gift Suggestions
  • My Favorite Money and Time Saving Websites
  • Guide to Safe and Smart Traveling with Pets
  • Lottery Tickets: Worthy Investment or Waste of Money?
  • Simple Solutions to Staying Out of Debt

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