When did you see the light? - Page 2

TromboneAl · 08-02-2006, 04:09 AM

For me it was around 1977 (Age 24).* A fellow graduate student got me interested in investing, and I read Venita Van Caspel's book (Money Dynamics?) and Andrew Tobias' book (Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need?).*

Those graphs showing compounding and the results of investing a certain amount each month were irresistable to me.* I remember a Tobias chapter called "A penny saved is two pennies earned" that reinforced my LBYM tendencies.

razztazz · 08-02-2006, 07:11 AM

Quote:

I believe the seed was planted and slowly grew in my subconscious through the watching of The Nelson's ....Ozzie kind of hung out at home and seemed very happy....always had time for the boys and Harriet - my ideal wife also and I pretty much have a clone of her for DW....

Love That Bob - Bob Cummings I think was a photographer and always had these gorgeous women over at his place so he could "work" with them...

Ostensively George Burns I think was an entertainer on his show - but all I remember him doing is hanging out at home also.

These were swell role models for ER I did have to wait til I was 50 to live the life of Reilly though - what did he do? intothemystic

I am so glad you brought this up. Role models. My uncle Gene was sort of one. He was the oldest of the flamily when he came to this country but ended up being the most successfull . The least educated but clearly the smartest. HE never bitched about money like my folks or other relatives. I liked his aura of "control" and not letting life just happen to him. Unfortunately he was a workaholic. Good for him! But not my bag of tea.

Thurston Howell III. Remember the episode where he says "People don't seem to understand how hard OTHER people have to work just to make me rich" ?

And Gomez Addams. Remember he used to stand in the living room at the gumball stock ticker "Selling Consolidated" and "Buying "Amalgamated"?

I knew there was a way to basically make money without working. That stock market thing I had heard about. Hmmmm....?

I remember the Dreyfus Fund commercials where the lion comes walking out of the NYC subway too. Seemed serious, and impressive without knowing WTF they were talking about. Asked my mother what is was for. She said she though it was a commercial for a big bank in NYC. years later I peices things together

Chester A Riley, as in The Life of Riley, worked at an aircraft factory. Probably put rivets in the last of the B-36s or the first of the B-52s? Probably had a pretty decent pension headed his way if nothing else. But I'm sure he, like Ralph Kramden had to work till at least 65 given all the money they pissed away on "Get Rich Quick" schemes

lazygood4nothinbum · 08-02-2006, 07:13 AM

i've had so much hahahaha that i must have missed my aha moment. probably never had one. don't think i ever considered retirement until i actually retired. and i'm only this early due to some good luck of the womb and the very bad luck of losing my mom too soon.

but even without that i've done pretty well, not as well as most of you but much better than most of my peers. i never made a lot of money and money was never stressed in my family. i was told "find what you enjoy doing that makes enough to pay the bills."

i never went into debt and always saved. i learned early that it is better to buy the worst house in the best area and profited well from that. i was never into buying things like clothing & stereos & all the crap i saw my friends spend their money on. yet i lived very well, albeit on other people's money. nice boats, great restaurants, vacations, etc. hey, i can't help it if they wanted me around. you didn't think my company comes cheap, did ya?

Rich_in_Tampa · 08-02-2006, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IntoTheMystic

I believe the seed was planted and slowly grew in my subconscious through the watching of The Nelson's ....Ozzie kind of hung out at home and seemed very happy....always had time for the boys and Harriet - my ideal wife also and I pretty much have a clone of her for DW....

Damn, that's right on. Ozzie Nelson. So what was up with him? Dealing on the side? Nice house, obediant wife, no job, no temper, no worries. Kind of a cross between Bill Gates and Fred Rogers?

Talk about "aha" moments. I'm gonna go find some of my old Cardigans.

donheff · 08-02-2006, 07:55 AM

I remember precisely when I got the initial ER bug. I was sitting around a cafeteria table at college BSing with a bunch of other slackers about how retirement was wasted on the old. We should be able to retire for 15 years now and then work until we died since we wouldn't be able to do anything enjoyable when we got old anyway. An older (30 years old) guy who had returned to school remarked that since that wasn't realistic the best bet was to work where you could retire early. In those days defined benefit plans were still widespread. He mentioned a buddy who was working at the Coast Guard as a civilian Fed who had a great job, excellent training, and would be able to bail at 55. I never forgot that conversation. Bummed around for a few years after school and when I decided it was time for a "straight job," I took the civil service exam.

FI is a different matter. DW and I started doing the math about what it would take to maintain our expanding lifestyle when I was in my early 40s. When we began saving we did it right and started seriously LBYMing. With the demise of inflation protected defined benefits plans, people need to get serious about saving a lot earlier than we did. Most people don't have the level of combined income needed to catch up in a few years at the end of the line.

astromeria · 08-02-2006, 07:59 AM

I didn't have a clue about FI or investing, let alone RE, until my neighbor mentioned the new book she was reading: "The Millionaire Next Door."

Danny · 08-02-2006, 08:03 AM

http://wokeuptoday.blogspot.com/2007...le-models.html

unclemick · 08-02-2006, 08:39 AM

Parents premanently scared by the Great Depression.

Circa 1957 my Dad inherited some mutual funds from an Aunt(aka the Swedish maid) - he promptly sold those 'evil stocks' and bought a house 'in town with sidewalks'.

A maid who obviously made way less than my Union card, big bucks earning log train mechanic father. I went to the library and got a book on mutual funds - the start of enlightenment.

And we watched Ozzie and Harriet in black and white while getting well in the post WWII age. Took years before I could eat Swanson TV dinners again - big once a week treat then.

Parents always squirreled away money(never stocks) in case the shoe should drop and the good times end.

1966 - first year out of college - started buying mutual funds and stocks.

heh heh heh heh - still like Ricky Nelson over Elvis.

brewer12345 · 08-02-2006, 08:55 AM

Growing up, we hadn't a care in the world for money. Dad was a very successful entrepreneur and while we didn't live particularly extravagantly, there was plenty to go around. For my parents' 25 anniversary, they and all 4 of us kids spent two weeks in Hawaii. Dad was and remains very conservative about money and we learned little or nothing about managing money.

When I got out of school I worked several sh!t jobs for people who were beneath me. DW and I ended up crashing at my parents' house for almost two years after barely making it for a while. This allowed us to save up enough to buy a condo. Once we bought the place, we had gotten into the savings mode. About that time I had had it with sh!t jobs (oh, the stories I could tell you...), so I began to wonder "is this it?" We didn't and don't care about consumer crap. Not long afterwards, I stumbled across john greaney's site and the light went on. That was at about age 26.

Danny · 08-02-2006, 09:35 AM

http://intelligentspeculation.blogsp...irs-early.html

brewer12345 · 08-02-2006, 09:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IntoTheMystic

I've been having this nagging question for John though...I think I remember he had a truckload of Dell - maybe 100% of his equity position - he had gotten it so very very cheap that he wasn't worried about fluctuations - maybe it was the reason he could er so young - 30s? - I want to know if he still has that one egg in his basket...

Presumably you could ask him directly. AFAIK, he has never bothered to sell any of it. His cost basis is like a dollar a share, and his withdrawal rate is a miniscule proportion of the max SWR, so I think he is unlikely to ever sell.

Danny · 08-02-2006, 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345

Presumably you could ask him directly. AFAIK, he has never bothered to sell any of it. His cost basis is like a dollar a share, and his withdrawal rate is a miniscule proportion of the max SWR, so I think he is unlikely to ever sell.

Yeah I guess I can ...I'll send him a message...

astromeria · 08-02-2006, 09:49 AM

I believe John Greaney has mentioned pharmaceutical stocks as well as Dell. He also lives WAY below his means (~2% WR IIRC, maybe less).

He was an additional inspiration to me, but I didn't discover him till I was already semi-retired. It was through his Motley Fool board that I found this place. (I let my subscription to the Fool lapse--I kinda miss those guys, though the politics wore on me and I was reading too many different boards over there--stressful and time-consuming.)

Scrooge · 08-02-2006, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by unclemick2

heh heh heh heh - still like Ricky Nelson over Elvis.

Hey, Ricky will be forever remembered for the one good movie that he was in, which is more than can be said about Elvis! *

As far as Rich's question goes, I'll recycle a part of my first post on these forums:

I wasn't always my current frugal self, I was actually quite the free spender 20 years ago. My money management skills were poor to non-existent and I was more interested in liberal arts pursuits than anything else. I ended up with a science degree almost by accident and stumbled into the IT field also by accident. I wasn't really interested in my work in my early 20s, it was just a way to make a living and finance my -- in retrospect unwise -- spending decisions and various self-imposed obligations.

Naturally, I had a rude awakening in a couple of years when I found myself on the verge of losing my job and no money in the bank to fall back on. That turned out to be a very good thing since it made me think about my finances and get rid of the obligations that I had accumulated. It also made me work harder and pretty soon I discovered that I was enjoying my work. Over the following 15 years I was a borderline workaholic, traveling all over the country, sometimes working up to 100+ hours/week and sacrificing social life for the sake of my career. I didn't make the millions that some IT people made in the late 1990s, but then again I dind't lose my shirt or have a heart attack like some other people that I know did. Granted, it irks me some that I am making $100K while my customers are paying my employer $300-500K for my services, but overall I have no regrets.

Another good thing that happened to me when I was around 25 was a revealing experience that I had when I was given an unexpected 20%+ raise. I remember studying my checkbook a few months later and wondering where all that extra money had gone. Apparently, my spending habits automatically adjusted themselves to accommodate the raise. It was quite a revelation at the time, although now it seems obvious.

The next day I went out and bought a ledger. I entered every single expense that I incurred over the next two years into that ledger and pretty soon I knew exactly where my money was going. (I still have that ledger and in a way it reads like a diary). Next I put myself on a budget, which proved to be more painful than I had anticipated, but by and large I managed to stick to it. Soon I noticed that my bank account was -- for the first time in my life! -- growing. In a couple of years I had $25K in the bank, bought a house, began contributing to 401k and, most importantly, kept my spending flat while my income was rising. Here I am, 15 years later, almost able to retire at 40, something that I would have never thought possible in my 20s.

I should also note that my existence hasn't been exactly Spartan, I just tried to be smart about which ones of my interests I pursued and how I pursued them. For example, I spent 9 days in Hawaii (all 4 major islands) a few years ago and the whole thing cost me under $1.5K. I drive a reliable, safe and roomy mid-size sedan, but I paid only $17K for it and not $25K+ that my make/model usually goes for. I had done my homework, knew what I wanted, didn't need any of the options, waited for a manufacturer rebate, set up automatic e-mail notifications for that exact configuration and so on. I'll drive it until it falls apart 15 years from now.

justin · 08-02-2006, 10:07 AM

I probably got the light while in utero. I can't remember a time when I didn't save some or most of what little money I received through gifts, allowance or earned income.

When I figured out the secret of "interest", it clicked for me. You mean someone will actually pay you every month just to keep your green paper for you? What a revelation for a little kid in elementary school.

I think I've always been pretty lazy when it comes to hard work. I figure I'd rather have my money working for me instead of wasting it away.

When did the idea of FIRE as a goal in life get crystallized in my mind? Probably either paper route I had at 11 ($30/month for all this hard work? Gotta be an easier way!). I know for certain that at 16 (in 1996) when I worked at a sub shop for $5.25/hr, I had budgeted out what it would cost to live (in my naive mind) and how much I would need to save to provide a stream of interest payments sufficient to live off of (I think I estimated around $800/month or $9600/yr). I figured I could skip college and work at the sub shop forever and still bank a good bit of my pay, slowly getting richer.

Good thing some of my friends went to college and I thought it would be fun (and potentially very rewarding) too.

So, age 16. Since then it has been a goal to do things that will enhance my long term net worth while enjoying a reasonable quality of living in the meantime.

CCdaCE · 08-02-2006, 10:07 AM

I remember my Grandpa helping me count change as a kid. *He, or my parents opened up a savings account. *He'd bring me to the bank whenever I had a "substantial" sum of $20 or $50 or whatever. *He was always telling me stories about how he made money as an early teen during the depression. *That must of sunk in.

I had over $10k ratholed as I graduated high school.

By the end of college, that was gone. *But, I had an education for it, and more.

So, I got a job at 24-ish. *Wondered what to do with "all this money". * *Go from living on $7k/school year to having 3 or 4 times that! *Then get raises, overtime, etc. *Whew, I was awash in cash! *Or so it seemed. *So I started reading books on the Market on my own. *I guess that was the eye opener. *If I save now, I can play later.

My parents always encouraged saving, but were sparse on details. *Of course, Grandpa always stayed away from that "gambling" sort of thing called the Market. *After working five years, it'd be nice to be able to pull the plug on a job long into the future, if I wanted to.

I figured if I wanted to buy something or retire, I'd need some cash. *After starting a Roth and buying a house and all the other cash intensive stuff, it's nice to see the assets accumulate. *

I don't know if my wife gets the same satisfaction, but it's working out so far. *This thread may help me understand what it takes to convince her.

-CC

uncledrz · 08-02-2006, 10:15 AM

RIT
This is a good question.

When I left the safety of the Federal Government and went out on my own, it quickly became apparent that if I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done. That goes all the way from paper clips to health insurance to retirement. So we LBOMs and started saving/investing right then for house/college/retirement.

Nothing like a few weeks without any income to teach you that a cushion is a nice thing to have!

Uncledrz

MasterBlaster · 08-02-2006, 10:30 AM

Well probably what motivated me was that my father was laid off from a good paying job when I was just a freshman in high school. My father made good money but spent it all. They had very little savings and some relatively big debts. My father was out of work for eight months. The finances were a disaster and we almost lost the house.

That had a tremendous effect on me and I have always been a saver all of my life. I never ever want to go through what they went through.

So I saved and invested and saved and invested. Fast forward 25 years and now I'm worth some real money. I have stepped up the spending over the years and we live a very comfortable but quiet lifestyle that we enjoy. As others have posted on this forum, I feel that the more money that I have the less I want all the cars/stuff/fancy clothes etc. Once you decide that you don't need all that junk It's pretty easy to sock alot away and not feel deprieved at all.

Megacorp has those golden handcuffs making it really worth while to hang on for another 5 years or so to make their early retirement date. My job is not stressful, it is work, but I enjoy it. My thinking right now is that I really don't want to not work. If they'll have me I may just keep working beyong Megacorps minimum retirement date.

As I have posted before on a number of occasions, My work attitude really changed when I figured that I had enough money to hang it up if I wanted to and live our modest lifestyle. The boss wasn't a jerk anymore, the co-workers weren't idiots anymore. I accepted and am now thankful that I would never be promoted to the corner office with all its issues. Really - Life is good and I am thankful for everything that I have.

When I have some days off we sometimes go over to one of the local coffeehouses. There are some early retirees that made money in real estate investments and hang out at the coffee house. I do not envy them and hope that my life has more to it than playing checkers/chess all afternoon.

08-02-2006, 04:09 AM	#21
TromboneAl Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 4,323	Re: When did you see the light? For me it was around 1977 (Age 24).* A fellow graduate student got me interested in investing, and I read Venita Van Caspel's book (Money Dynamics?) and Andrew Tobias' book (Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need?).* Those graphs showing compounding and the results of investing a certain amount each month were irresistable to me.* I remember a Tobias chapter called "A penny saved is two pennies earned" that reinforced my LBYM tendencies. __________________ - Al -- Always serious, never joking. No, wait. Never serious... Always... I forget.

08-02-2006, 07:13 AM	#23
lazygood4nothinbum Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 3,897	Re: When did you see the light? i've had so much hahahaha that i must have missed my aha moment. probably never had one. don't think i ever considered retirement until i actually retired. and i'm only this early due to some good luck of the womb and the very bad luck of losing my mom too soon. but even without that i've done pretty well, not as well as most of you but much better than most of my peers. i never made a lot of money and money was never stressed in my family. i was told "find what you enjoy doing that makes enough to pay the bills." i never went into debt and always saved. i learned early that it is better to buy the worst house in the best area and profited well from that. i was never into buying things like clothing & stereos & all the crap i saw my friends spend their money on. yet i lived very well, albeit on other people's money. nice boats, great restaurants, vacations, etc. hey, i can't help it if they wanted me around. you didn't think my company comes cheap, did ya?

08-02-2006, 07:55 AM	#25
donheff Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 2,729	Re: When did you see the light? I remember precisely when I got the initial ER bug. I was sitting around a cafeteria table at college BSing with a bunch of other slackers about how retirement was wasted on the old. We should be able to retire for 15 years now and then work until we died since we wouldn't be able to do anything enjoyable when we got old anyway. An older (30 years old) guy who had returned to school remarked that since that wasn't realistic the best bet was to work where you could retire early. In those days defined benefit plans were still widespread. He mentioned a buddy who was working at the Coast Guard as a civilian Fed who had a great job, excellent training, and would be able to bail at 55. I never forgot that conversation. Bummed around for a few years after school and when I decided it was time for a "straight job," I took the civil service exam. FI is a different matter. DW and I started doing the math about what it would take to maintain our expanding lifestyle when I was in my early 40s. When we began saving we did it right and started seriously LBYMing. With the demise of inflation protected defined benefits plans, people need to get serious about saving a lot earlier than we did. Most people don't have the level of combined income needed to catch up in a few years at the end of the line. __________________ Every man is, or hopes to be, an Idler. -- Samuel Johnson

08-02-2006, 07:59 AM	#26
astromeria Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 1,375	Re: When did you see the light? I didn't have a clue about FI or investing, let alone RE, until my neighbor mentioned the new book she was reading: "The Millionaire Next Door." __________________ You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.

08-02-2006, 08:03 AM	#27
Danny Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 2,189	Re: When did you see the light? http://wokeuptoday.blogspot.com/2007...le-models.html

08-02-2006, 08:39 AM	#28
unclemick Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ... Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: north of Kansas City Posts: 5,646	Re: When did you see the light? Parents premanently scared by the Great Depression. Circa 1957 my Dad inherited some mutual funds from an Aunt(aka the Swedish maid) - he promptly sold those 'evil stocks' and bought a house 'in town with sidewalks'. A maid who obviously made way less than my Union card, big bucks earning log train mechanic father. I went to the library and got a book on mutual funds - the start of enlightenment. And we watched Ozzie and Harriet in black and white while getting well in the post WWII age. Took years before I could eat Swanson TV dinners again - big once a week treat then. Parents always squirreled away money(never stocks) in case the shoe should drop and the good times end. 1966 - first year out of college - started buying mutual funds and stocks. heh heh heh heh - still like Ricky Nelson over Elvis.

08-02-2006, 08:55 AM	#29
brewer12345 Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ... Join Date: Mar 2003 Posts: 9,362	Re: When did you see the light? Growing up, we hadn't a care in the world for money. Dad was a very successful entrepreneur and while we didn't live particularly extravagantly, there was plenty to go around. For my parents' 25 anniversary, they and all 4 of us kids spent two weeks in Hawaii. Dad was and remains very conservative about money and we learned little or nothing about managing money. When I got out of school I worked several sh!t jobs for people who were beneath me. DW and I ended up crashing at my parents' house for almost two years after barely making it for a while. This allowed us to save up enough to buy a condo. Once we bought the place, we had gotten into the savings mode. About that time I had had it with sh!t jobs (oh, the stories I could tell you...), so I began to wonder "is this it?" We didn't and don't care about consumer crap. Not long afterwards, I stumbled across john greaney's site and the light went on. That was at about age 26. __________________ “When you realize that you are one of the rare few who observe moral principles in their relationships with others, there is a temptation to sink into amorality, not out of conviction or pleasure but simply to avoid further pain, because there is no greater suffering than being an angel in hell, whereas a devil feels at home wherever he goes.” – Martin Page, How I Became Stupid

08-02-2006, 09:35 AM	#30
Danny Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 2,189	Re: When did you see the light? http://intelligentspeculation.blogsp...irs-early.html

08-02-2006, 09:49 AM	#33
astromeria Moderator Emeritus Join Date: Aug 2005 Posts: 1,375	Re: When did you see the light? I believe John Greaney has mentioned pharmaceutical stocks as well as Dell. He also lives WAY below his means (~2% WR IIRC, maybe less). He was an additional inspiration to me, but I didn't discover him till I was already semi-retired. It was through his Motley Fool board that I found this place. (I let my subscription to the Fool lapse--I kinda miss those guys, though the politics wore on me and I was reading too many different boards over there--stressful and time-consuming.) __________________ You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.

08-02-2006, 10:07 AM	#35
justin Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 4,010	Re: When did you see the light? I probably got the light while in utero. I can't remember a time when I didn't save some or most of what little money I received through gifts, allowance or earned income. When I figured out the secret of "interest", it clicked for me. You mean someone will actually pay you every month just to keep your green paper for you? What a revelation for a little kid in elementary school. I think I've always been pretty lazy when it comes to hard work. I figure I'd rather have my money working for me instead of wasting it away. When did the idea of FIRE as a goal in life get crystallized in my mind? Probably either paper route I had at 11 ($30/month for all this hard work? Gotta be an easier way!). I know for certain that at 16 (in 1996) when I worked at a sub shop for $5.25/hr, I had budgeted out what it would cost to live (in my naive mind) and how much I would need to save to provide a stream of interest payments sufficient to live off of (I think I estimated around $800/month or $9600/yr). I figured I could skip college and work at the sub shop forever and still bank a good bit of my pay, slowly getting richer. Good thing some of my friends went to college and I thought it would be fun (and potentially very rewarding) too. So, age 16. Since then it has been a goal to do things that will enhance my long term net worth while enjoying a reasonable quality of living in the meantime.

08-02-2006, 10:07 AM	#36
CCdaCE Full time employment: Posting here. Join Date: Apr 2006 Posts: 586	Re: When did you see the light? I remember my Grandpa helping me count change as a kid. He, or my parents opened up a savings account. He'd bring me to the bank whenever I had a "substantial" sum of $20 or $50 or whatever. He was always telling me stories about how he made money as an early teen during the depression. That must of sunk in. I had over $10k ratholed as I graduated high school. By the end of college, that was gone. But, I had an education for it, and more. So, I got a job at 24-ish. Wondered what to do with "all this money". * Go from living on $7k/school year to having 3 or 4 times that! Then get raises, overtime, etc. Whew, I was awash in cash! Or so it seemed. So I started reading books on the Market on my own. I guess that was the eye opener. If I save now, I can play later. My parents always encouraged saving, but were sparse on details. Of course, Grandpa always stayed away from that "gambling" sort of thing called the Market. After working five years, it'd be nice to be able to pull the plug on a job long into the future, if I wanted to. I figured if I wanted to buy something or retire, I'd need some cash. After starting a Roth and buying a house and all the other cash intensive stuff, it's nice to see the assets accumulate. * I don't know if my wife gets the same satisfaction, but it's working out so far. *This thread may help me understand what it takes to convince her. -CC __________________ "There's those thinkin' more or less, less is more, but if less is more, how you keepin' score? It means for every point you make, your level drops. Kinda like you're startin' from the top..." "Society" - Eddie Vedder

08-02-2006, 10:15 AM	#37
uncledrz Full time employment: Posting here. Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 548	Re: When did you see the light? RIT This is a good question. When I left the safety of the Federal Government and went out on my own, it quickly became apparent that if I didn't do it, it wouldn't get done. That goes all the way from paper clips to health insurance to retirement. So we LBOMs and started saving/investing right then for house/college/retirement. Nothing like a few weeks without any income to teach you that a cushion is a nice thing to have! Uncledrz

08-02-2006, 10:30 AM	#38
MasterBlaster Thinks s/he gets paid by the post Join Date: Jun 2005 Posts: 1,777	Re: When did you see the light? Well probably what motivated me was that my father was laid off from a good paying job when I was just a freshman in high school. My father made good money but spent it all. They had very little savings and some relatively big debts. My father was out of work for eight months. The finances were a disaster and we almost lost the house. That had a tremendous effect on me and I have always been a saver all of my life. I never ever want to go through what they went through. So I saved and invested and saved and invested. Fast forward 25 years and now I'm worth some real money. I have stepped up the spending over the years and we live a very comfortable but quiet lifestyle that we enjoy. As others have posted on this forum, I feel that the more money that I have the less I want all the cars/stuff/fancy clothes etc. Once you decide that you don't need all that junk It's pretty easy to sock alot away and not feel deprieved at all. Megacorp has those golden handcuffs making it really worth while to hang on for another 5 years or so to make their early retirement date. My job is not stressful, it is work, but I enjoy it. My thinking right now is that I really don't want to not work. If they'll have me I may just keep working beyong Megacorps minimum retirement date. As I have posted before on a number of occasions, My work attitude really changed when I figured that I had enough money to hang it up if I wanted to and live our modest lifestyle. The boss wasn't a jerk anymore, the co-workers weren't idiots anymore. I accepted and am now thankful that I would never be promoted to the corner office with all its issues. Really - Life is good and I am thankful for everything that I have. When I have some days off we sometimes go over to one of the local coffeehouses. There are some early retirees that made money in real estate investments and hang out at the coffee house. I do not envy them and hope that my life has more to it than playing checkers/chess all afternoon.