Most important financial decision in your life

[jollystomper]

1. Marrying DW. Financial conflicts are the biggest reasons marriages break up. It was important for me to find someone who had similar financial goals, wanted to save instead of spend, and was willing to sacrifice short term financial pleasures for long-term financial stability.

2. Learning from the financial mistakes and successes of others. Growing up I saw a LOT of folks make bad decisions on education, relationships, illegal activities, etc. Rather than say "that can't happen to me", my fear was "that could be me". That motivated me to not only avoid those mistakes, but to seek out those who were successful - not to envy them, but to learn from them.

[freedomatlast]

For me, the key decisions were:

• Getting an engineering degree right after high school
• Getting into management when the opportunity arose (bigger bonuses)
• Trying to be almost totally independent, ie: fixing rather than buying new, learning to repair everything myself such as cars, appliances, all home repairs, furnace, HVAC systems, etc.
• Never buying new when used will do.
• Buying a fixer-upper in a great neighborhood for my first home
• Buying rental property
• Refusal to carry debt on depreciating assets
• Always having an extra beater car that I use for local use
• And of course, LBYM

[Dog]

Both DH and I are savers
Both subscibe to LBYM
We don't pay someone do something we can do ourselves
No expensive vices

[PERSonalTime]

LBYM was #1!

[Lagniappe]

Deciding that I wanted to be FI. I didn't know anyone who had achieved FI growing up, but I decided that this was what I wanted. This led to researching what it would take to get there (LBYM, YMOYL, asset allocation, index funds, bogleheads, finding people who had achieved FI, etc.)

The realization that it was possible and the decision to achieve it changed my outlook on life, my relationship with money, and my subsequent actions.


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[RobLJ]

1. Growing up with parents and grandparents from the Great Depression, with savings ethos compensated by spending for goals (including enjoyment).
2. Marrying DW more frugal than myself.
3. Going to and completing grad school.
4. Having 2 children, which focused that salary/assets were not just for myself.
5. Despite being a Humanities major (or because of it), being interested since teens in economics and investments.
6. Reading anything I was interested it, with parents and DW who encouraged that.
7. Taking responsibility for a 403b from the beginning, given my interests in economics.

And getting the hell of our OK/Texas during the 80's oil bust to grad school.
A lot of this was luck or circumstance by the way--what if Galbraith, the Great Depression, and economics bored me? If it was uninteresting, I undoubtedly would not have pursued it. Also my father cosigned a 1k loan to get me to grad school 1/2way across the continent to California, cheerfully. It was a lot of money for him.

Final comment--I'm a little saddened by the mini-theme of no kids, although I don't doubt this was an important factor in most or all who mention it. In my case, having kids increased the impulse to save since the responsibility for them going to college, etc, was on me/us. Otherwise, I probably would have blown it on books and maybe travel.

[LoneAspen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobLJ 1. Growing up with parents and grandparents from the Great Depression, with savings ethos compensated by spending for goals (including enjoyment).

I always find it interesting when I read something like this, because my parents also grew up during the Great Depression and were very frugal. We always had the basics (housing, food, cars, etc) and didn't want for anything critical to living, but never had anything I'd consider "nice".

The one example I can always think of as a kid was...my parents didn't like to travel, so the yearly family vacation (which they probably wouldn't have even done if not for us kids) was a drive to Opryland in Nashville for a few days. Nothing ever more than that, nor anything different - same old thing year after year. As a kid, I remember hating it because other kids' families always went to Disneyworld, or Yellowstone, or other "cool" places and then we had to hear about it when school resumed and all the kids got up in front of class and talked about where they went over the summer.

My sisters inherited some of my parents' penchant for frugality, but I did not. My parents got even more frugal as they got older, which I was exposed to more because I was born a few years after my sisters. While I did manage to save, I never hesitated to buy something nice for myself once in a while, or go on a vacation to somewhere I really wanted to go (and spared no expense doing it). Drove my Mother crazy.

My sisters and I have often commented about how our parents never treated themselves to anything "nice" while they were alive. They always seemed to be in frugal mode, and never really got to enjoy what they'd saved up all those years, and like the old saying goes, you can't take it with you. Always made me a little sad for them.

[BellBarbara]

1. Taking a huge risk to uproot my 10 year old to the East coast to take a new job which elevated my career trajectory.

2. Second marriage to a man who shared the same financial values - LBYM, save, etc. enabling us to retire at 56 and 57.

[Mo Money]

Being a bookworm. One day, on my lunch hour, I went to Waldenbooks (presumably now defunct) and stumbled upon the personal finance section. Saw a book titled "Your Wealth Building Years" by Adriane Berg. I bought it. It taught me the time value of money (I was probably 27 or so at the time). Fast forward: I am now 53. But for that book, I would not have gotten the desire to FIRE. The Rule of 72 that Ms. Berg's book taught me has treated me well....

[Senator]

Living below my means
Getting out of the USAF after only 4 years to pursue life
Completing college and getting an IT degree
Staying Single
Not having kids
Buying Real Estate in 2008+. Picked up 5-four-plexes, one each year
Discovering this forum and realizing it's possible I can FIRE

[mjs111]

For me:

1. Being raised by frugal, smart-money parents who instilled in me early-on the value of saving and compound interest. This got me started saving by the time I was 6 or 7 and investing in my early twenties, both much earlier than I likely would have done if left to discover these things on my own.

2. Staying single with no kids. I have nothing against marriage, and if I meet someone I'm attracted to (who's also attracted to me) who also happens to be good with money I might be up for it, but so far those things have not aligned just yet.


Mike

[W2R]

After my divorce, I did a lot of soul searching and spent a great deal of time in introspection. One of my goals was to pin down what I really want.

Deciding to figure out what I really want in life may not sound terribly financial, but the financial implications were tremendous.

[mystang52]

Believe it or not, it was my decision to start payroll savings plan of $6.50 per biweekly paycheck back in 1984, to get a $25 paper Savings Bond once a month. DW was stay at home Mom, we had 2 young kids and a small house. Seemingly living paycheck to paycheck. Besides mortgage, we had no debt........and no savings.
I didn't know what we could afford to save, but I knew we wouldn't miss $6.50. That amount grew VERY quickly, as I "discovered" the pay-yourself-first savings approach.
It changed our entire future financial picture.

[RobLJ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by LoneAspen I always find it interesting when I read something like this, because my parents also grew up during the Great Depression and were very frugal. We always had the basics (housing, food, cars, etc) and didn't want for anything critical to living, but never had anything I'd consider "nice". My sisters and I have often commented about how our parents never treated themselves to anything "nice" while they were alive. They always seemed to be in frugal mode, and never really got to enjoy what they'd saved up all those years, and like the old saying goes, you can't take it with you. Always made me a little sad for them.

Oklahoma Grandad and grandma were very frugal (also the Worcester Mass grandparents), but he saved, brought his own land --where his father had taken him at the turn of the 20th century--and built his own rather humble cabin in one of the prettiest areas of Colorado. He retired about 5 years early from the Post Office, then spent half the year in Colorado (paradise) and half the year in Southern Oklahoma (not so much). He was a great fly-fisherman. Now, we own a cabin in Southeastern Colorado, so his influence was immense.
What are you going to do with your money?

(I tried to buy his cabin to keep it in the family but couldn't quite swing two mortagages, in the 90's when we were starting out with two kids in child care. The one we bought is very similar in size and appearance only modernized and winterized.)

[jkern]

This may sound like a broken record:

1) Education with an Engineering degree
2) Well paying steady job
3) LBYM, save and invest starting at an early age
4) Became self educated on personal finance and investing
5) End result: retired at 51

[aja8888]

After reading all these posts about everyone's most important financial decision(s), life changes, etc, I see that one decision I made was much more basic than collective ones along the way to accumulate funds to position me (us) to be FI.

I'll call it "the fork in the road" decision. A little background....

I was born to into a very poor coal mining family in Pittston, Pennsylvania during the second WW. Dad went off to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese and I was raised by Mom and my Lithuanian speaking grandmother in a coal company house. Even as a very young boy, I remember the coal deliveries and having to go to the bathroom in the outhouse in back, no matter how deep the snow was. We had no indoor plumbing.

When Dad returned from the war, he moved us to Connecticut to work as a laborer as the coal mines were shut down. I went into first grade and couldn't speak English so I was sent home to learn it. Seventeen years later after I graduated from a Technical High School as a draftsman, I went to work, and shortly after that, went in the USAF.

After four years in the USAF, I returned home to find my parents separated and Mom living in Pa with my grandmother in her final days. While in Pa, I thought about all of this and decided that I was not going to follow my family's footsteps and stay in these depressed surroundings. So, I decided to go to college and see where that would take me.

And it all worked out pretty good.

[Unpaintedhuffhines]

The best financial decision I made may sound like a horrible decision. Early in my married life (30 years ago), I got into debt to the tune of $8,000. All the usual things - furniture, going out, a vacation I think. One year into married life, I was staring at a MasterCharge bill of $8,000, did the math on what the minimum payments would mean, and I freaked out - I paid that off as soon as I could (it took about a year), and never looked back. Other than a mortgage, I haven't owed anything since.

[AnIntentionalRoad]

Starting a business and working myself to the bone and then selling it. Lots of luck. A very conservative wife who keeps me grounded.

[scrabbler1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobLJ Final comment--I'm a little saddened by the mini-theme of no kids, although I don't doubt this was an important factor in most or all who mention it. In my case, having kids increased the impulse to save since the responsibility for them going to college, etc, was on me/us. Otherwise, I probably would have blown it on books and maybe travel.

As one of those childree people who were able to retire because of that terrific lifestyle choice, I am overjoyed at those many other posters here who credit being ER to that. While I made the choice to be childfree at age 20, at least 15 years before I saw ER on my radar, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is not gung-ho about having kids as a way to achieve ER. Besides being able to ER thanks to being childfree, my life leading up to being ER was much, much better than it would have been had I not been childfree. I would have been totally miserable if I had kids.

To me, anyone who is able to ER while having kids surely would have been able to do so had they been childfree, as long as the kids were not net revenue generators versus their costs. I don't buy into the "having kids made me save more." Those people always had the ability to save with or without kids, and they would have been able to save even more had they been childfree.

[dallas27]

Being child-free certainly helped me. Allowed me to focus on career and freed wife to work some and help run my books. Got married at 22 also, I imagine the tax benefits and shared living costs of that didn't hurt either.


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