What’s the 1 financial home run you hit?

[97guns]

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

 

[CaptTom]

No. I hit a single and clawed my way home from there.

First base: Landed a good job and used tuition reimbursement to get an education and move up.

Almost tagged out (messy divorce) on my way to 2nd base. Slid in head first and barely made it.

Third base, 2nd marriage and living below our means to pay off debt (see 2nd base.)

Finally reach home, battered and bruised but with a plan that (I hope) will allow me to enjoy RE.

 

[RobbieB]

None for me, just slow and steady and mostly upwards.

Like many I was a millionaire twice due to the 07-09 dip.

 

[bclover]

Got a job.....

 

[foxfirev5]

35 years of plodding along. No elephant hunting or home runs.

 

[CardsFan]

LBYM

Once you learn to embrace it, everything else can fall into place.

 

[MuirWannabe]

Texas Tomorrow Fund to fund my 3 kids college tuition. Purchased full 4 years for each of them back in 1998. Turned out it was the greatest deal ever. So much so, the state changed the plan a couple years later and almost tried to reneg on what I had purchased although they didn’t.

Ironically at the time I was very unsure if should have done it. So it was uncertain genius on my part. Could never have invested that money better as it turns out.

 

[gauss]

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.

 

[Music Lover]

Boringly simple...LBYM and a govt pension.

 

[razztazz]

Anything that might be considered a "home run" I would say was just being born in the right year. After a brief few years of working at a relatively low wage job I dumped almost every nickle I had into mutual funds in 1984. History did the rest.

Doing 20 yrs in the military and qualifying for Tricare was definitely something like a home run.

Another sports analogy, more apropos, would be to say instead of hitting a home run I was more like Rocky in the first movie. Just kept plodding and slugging and taking it until it was over. I didn't win the big one but I went the distance and that was as good as a win as far as I was concerned.

 

[6miths]

LBYM and DW.

 

[ziggy29]

No real "home runs" but the closest may have been buying a house in San Jose in 1997, which we sold in 2003 for almost twice that. Of course, it would be close to $800K now had we stayed, but still -- the equity we pulled out of that sale allowed us to be mortgage-free after we moved, which was that much more we could save and invest.

Where I am now was helped by that but mostly because of a 26-year career in a fairly high paying field and maxing out my 401K and two IRAs for most of that time.

 

[Scuba]

Got a job with a well paying Megacorp and stayed 20 years. While LBYM, saving and investing also had a role, this one event was the biggest ER enabler.

 

[Bamaman]

My home run was divorcing my spendaholic first wife. She sure had some fine wardrobe--all charged on credit cards.

40 years later, she is still the same. Husband #3 got roped into buying a house 3 times the cost of a normal home. Poor guy will never be able to retire.

 

[pb4uski]

No home runs.... a lot of singles and a few doubles. Make a tidy profit on our first house... prices were rising in the area and we caught the wave and about the time it peaked we moved to a lower COL area... also made a nice profit on a piece of lakefront land that we bought and planned to build on but decided against it.

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

 

[DrRoy]

None for me, just slow and steady and mostly upwards.

Like many I was a millionaire twice due to the 07-09 dip.

Mostly +1. Survived Black Monday, 1987, the Dot Com bear (2000-02), and the Great Recession bear. 7 figures twice from 00-04.

 

[Calico]

LBYM for the past several decades has been the foundation.

Second most important decision would be starting w#rk at my current employer 22 years ago, and recognizing back then the value of the defined benefit pension. Sticking with the job when the new boss-from-hell tried every trick in the book for 4 years to get me to quit. Lo and behold, he has moved on, I'm still here (enjoying my j#b and with a wonderful new boss) and in 38 months I will collect the full pension.

 

[harley]

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.


Other than that, living and investing in the 80s and 90s was probably my best decision. That, and staying married even in the rough times.

 

[Music Lover]

My home run was divorcing my spendaholic first wife. She sure had some fine wardrobe--all charged on credit cards.

40 years later, she is still the same. Husband #3 got roped into buying a house 3 times the cost of a normal home. Poor guy will never be able to retire.

I probably should have said that...3 years in a bad marriage with a wife who spent like we had double the income. A new vehicle for both of us, moved from a good house to a bigger more expensive house, she filled 2 closets full with brand new clothes, etc.

It took me 5 years to recover from my half of the debt, but I consider myself fortunate

 

[Winemaker]

LBYM and DW.

+2

 

[growing_older]

Made lots of mistakes and hit no homeruns, but a steady habit of saving and investing in retirement accounts has overcome all the missteps. Boring, but effective.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

No financial home runs for me. But I would say the number one thing that motivated me and continues to motivate me was to get the snowball rolling toward compound interest and then do everything I can to keep it rolling . The bigger the snowball gets the faster it rolls.

 

[jfn111]

The "Home Run" for me was going to work for mega corp right after College. I started at $11,000 a year with a company car and a PENSION. 33 years latter I retired with said pension and 7 figures in my 401K.

 

[Aerides]

Two goodies:

First: Bought a small townhouse in 2002, sold in 2005. that was the height of the RE boom and I made 100% profit after agent fees. that gave me a nice nest egg to get started. yes that is not a typo I sold it for double what I paid in 3.5 years.

Second: We were FI, and ready to RE. I had been with MC for 25 years and seen most of my colleagues over the years get a package but never got close myself. I started, with subtlety, to talk my boss into the idea...I could see he was nibbling at the bait... 6 months later I was training my replacement and RE'd with 60 weeks paid+extra half year bonus and vacation.

 

[RockyMtn]

Worked for two companies over 30 years. Both had pension plans, stock options, 401k's and excellent salaries. Didn't make any real stupid investment mistakes. The rest kind of took care of itself.