What’s the 1 financial home run you hit?

[NW-Bound]

No home run. Just LBYM and chuggin' along until I got there.

Would do a lot better if in my 30s and 40s, I paid attention to investment matters instead of devoting all my time to technical aspects of my career. I was good at what I did, but thinking back I'd rather have more investment gains.

 

[Jerry1]

I consider my job to be my home run. I had credentials and all but it really came down to being in the right place at the right time. So yes, it was a lucky home run, but that's what did it for me.

Of course, once said job was acquired, I had to do the right things (saving and LYBM), but if I made half the money I made those things wouldn't have got me to being able to look at retirement in my mid to late 50's.

 

[USGrant1962]

At age 33, still a lot of at bats left. But so far, my home runs are same house, same spouse, same car.

"Same spouse" is an important concept. I can't tell you how many guys I've worked with that could never ER because they divorced.

To add on to my earlier post, and as other have said about themselves, DW and LBYM were also key. Neither DW nor I are big spenders, and we didn't really upgrade our lifestyle too much in my high-earning megacorp years (except for the dinners the company paid for ).

Oh, and buying Vanguard Health Care in DW's IRA like 20 years ago! And yes, I have a 10-bagger in a stock that I bought in '97/'98, but I didn't have a ton of money back then so it is only 2.5% of my portfolio.

 

[SecondCor521]

No home runs.... a lot of singles and a few doubles. <snip>

All the rest was boring.... worked hard, got some occasional promotions, LBYM, saved regularly and invested in no-load, low cost index funds.

+1

Also, I was born on third base. I've executed well, but any healthy person with a decent brain who was put in my shoes would also have succeeded.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Many individual factors, some through hard work and some dumb luck. Probably the biggest single factor was learning how to make websites and do search engine optimization back when the web was a new thing and there was not a lot of competition. One of the Google guys even used to hang out on a forum with us plebians before Google took off and they became billionaires.

 

[laurence]

Married my LBYM spouse, we then cashed out her stock options at a biotech for about 50k net and used it as down payment to buy a house in San Diego in 2001 for 274k when I was 26 years old. Everything else was work hard get good education in STEM fields yadda yadda but that move allowed us to have significant equity even when the real estate market crashed and let us sell and buy up to a really, really nice house on a golf course for less than 500k at age 34 that we still live in today. With the drop in interest rates over the last decade our mortgage payment is about the same as it was for the smaller, first home way back then, but our income is literally 3x that now.

 

[RobLJ]

Borrowed $1500 (Dad cosigned) to go from Texas to grad school in SoCal in 1980, just before the Savings and Loan slump--met my LBYM wife in SoCal.
Everything else started from there.

 

[atmsmshr]

Carefully selected good parents and country.
Enlisted in USN while in high school - gained work habits, skills and GI bill plus VA mortgage.
Good mega corp right out of college.
Put 401k contributions into low cost SP500 index, and left it on autopilot for a few decades.
And smiles from lady luck.

 

[Dash man]

Like others have said, divorcing first practice wife that had no concept of saving, just spending. Married second (home run) DW who knew to LBYM. A couple of years after we married she got a couple of big promotions and stock options came into play as her company had significant growth. It took some arm twisting to get her to cash out some options each year to diversify. But it’s paid off nicely.

 

[flintnational]

No home runs but:

Best coaches - My parents, in-laws
Played in a great ball park - The USA in prosperous times
Best team mates - DW

The singles and doubles most in my position could have hit:

Textbook LBYM
Early saver
Good salaries
Index investing
Moderate pensions
Moderate real estate success
Moderate stock options
Managed career well

FN

 

[iloveyoga]

Lots of good things, but one of the best was joining my company 401(k) back in the 80's. I did not know what I was doing, but I signed up and then each year I increased my deferral. In later years I was able to max out. We had great plan design and decent investment offerings. I used the stock investment options right from the start, along with the real estate option.

 

[Midpack]

Peter Lynch?

Yep!

 

[DektolMan]

First I had an uncle who mentored me as a teenager in investing and saving.
Second, married my LBYM spouse.
Third, at age 22 took the risk and DW & I moved out of state, bought a business financed by the owner. We grew the business, maxed out SEP contributions and saved, saved, saved.
Retired last year age 61/60

 

[IMATERP]

Back in 2001 (prior to 9/11,) I relocated from Washington, D.C. to North Carolina. Once in NC, I found out that if you worked for the State of NC for 5 years, a State employee would receive paid Healthcare from Age 60 onward.

I spent the next three years applying for a State position and I hit the hiring lottery in September 2004. Not knowing the process was rigged, I ended up getting a job with the State which I have subsequently stayed with for the past 13 years.

This benefit is no longer available to new hires and the State is still keeping their part of the bargain. The gift that keeps on giving...

 

[hopeisnotaplan]

Maybe you have many but I’m guessing to be Fired you had to have hit at least 1 homer

Stock options and patience to hold most of them to near full term over many years. An fortunate to have them with a mega that grew consistently for a lot of years.

 

[fancy free]

Marrying a LBYM man with the same values and goals, which set the stage for FI/RE success.

Starting my own business as soon as I graduated from college. Retired 20 years later.

Spending my IRA contribution in Jan 2001 buying AAPL at a split-adjusted price of $1.26. As of yesterday, a 136-bagger.

Investing in commercial real estate and lucking into a dream long-term tenant.

The biggest rewards have come from taking risks. Except for the marriage — I already knew he was even cheaper than I was!

 

[frayne]

DCAing over 40 years into stocks and MFs.

 

[donheff]

Married my DW.

 

[Freedom56]

I can think of a few but, most of the way was slow and steady up:

1- Buying a house when I was 24 and flipping it 3 months after taking possession and rolling the 25% gain into a second house.
2- Dumping my full service brokers and financial advisers while in my mid 20's and taking charge of my investments
3- Marrying the right person - a saver (25 years and counting)
4- Buying a second home in Florida after the financial crisis at 22 cents on the dollar - that investment has more than tripled.
5- Leaving the corporate rat race and retiring at 55

 

[Out of Steam]

No home run, but a couple of doubles:

1. DW accumulating generous retirement account contributions in her mid-20s to mid-30s and, unlike most of her colleagues at the time, leaving it alone.

2. My accumulating 25 years plus years of credits on a job with a traditional, inflation protected (for now) pension.

There may be a third base hit coming, a stock ownership plan at DWs current company which looks to be growing nicely.

 

[97guns]

Surprised with the responses and lack of power, I see lots of dinks and dunks, singles and doubles but not many base clearing hits. I thought I’d see some early Apple or Facebook holders or some business owner who blew up their business or some similar stories

 

[kcowan]

I bought AAPL back in '97 for a split adjusted price of ~$.60. I bought 200 shares, mostly because I was really pissed off at Bill Gates and MS at the time and Steve Jobs had just come back. I sold and rebought a few times, finally selling at $89/share. So that's a 150 bagger, which would work out to 37 HRs (plus a double). Not a great part of my net worth, but definitely fun and a good bragging point. I do, however, tend to forget to mention Enron and WorldCom. I fully intend to buy some more AAPL next time it drops down to $89..

we bought in early then when it got to $75, sold it all and repurchase half at $52. In those days I believed in asset allocation. Still holding 2100 shares.

I can think of a few but, most of the way was slow and steady up:

1- Buying a house when I was 24 and flipping it 3 months after taking possession and rolling the 25% gain into a second house.
2- Dumping my full service brokers and financial advisers while in my mid 20's and taking charge of my investments
3- Marrying the right person - a saver (25 years and counting)
4- Buying a second home in Florida after the financial crisis at 22 cents on the dollar - that investment has more than tripled.
5- Leaving the corporate rat race and retiring at 55

Pretty similar story for me! Corporate moves covered the flipping costs. Maximized employee stock purchases. DW#2 very practical.

 

[Music Lover]

Surprised with the responses and lack of power, I see lots of dinks and dunks, singles and doubles but not many base clearing hits. I thought I’d see some early Apple or Facebook holders or some business owner who blew up their business or some similar stories

I guess that proves that "boring" LBYM and smart choices by reasonable people is usually all that is required to retire early...

 

[BeachOrCity]

I was fairly pleased with myself when I purchased Ford bonds back during the bankruptcy scare.

The face rate was 9% and I bought them at a 50% discount. They mature in 2021.
I think the YTM is something like 17% per year.

I smile every six months when the interest payment comes in.

Thats awesome! Classic high risk high reward. Luckily you picked ford and not GM!

 

[scrabbler1]

Several extra-base hits including a few homeruns.


Homerun #1 - working for a company which began its ESOP program during my prime earnings years of the late 199s so my holdings would be worth nearly $300k, my magic number for me to retire 9 years ago at age 45.


Homerun #2 - not strictly a financial decision, but it turned out that way - my decision at age 20 to be childfree. The money I didn't spend every year, keeping my expenses nice and low while building a nice, big portfolio, has greatly enabled me to retire 9 years ago at age 45.


Triple - buying my co-op apartment in 1989. While this was just before the RE market tumbled in 1990, the savings compared to renting only grew over time, leading to the first "double" shown below.


Double #1 - using some of the market gains of the late 1990s to pay off my mortgage in 1998, only 9 years after obtaining it. This was a big step toward being able to semi-retire in 2001, leading to my ER 7 years later.


Double #2 - finding a good bond fund to invest the proceeds of the ESOP cash-out, a solid monthly income source to fund most of my expenses in my ER.


Single #1 - paying off my high-interest (~8%) student loans in 1987, less than 2 years after I had to begin repaying them. I owed only about $8,000 at the start, but getting it out of the way saved me some money.


Single #2 - doing research and buying good, reliable cars and making sure they lasted a while. The car I bought in 1992, a 1-year-old used car, lasted until early 2007. Its replacement car is now just over 10 years old and should last me at least 5 more years.


Single #3 - all the money I saved by never wanting to smoke any cigarettes.