My earliest piece of financial advice came from an episode of the Flintstones I watched as a kid. In that episode, Fred somehow becomes or is mistaken for some wealthy tycoon. When he is asked how he made his millions, he says, simply, Buy low, sell high!"
I never used Firecalc, but I did learn things over the years from other sources. One was from my mother who heard advice from Dr. Bernard Meltzer, who hosted a radio call-in show back in the 1970s and 1980s called, "What's your problem?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Meltzer
His advice, relayed to me by my mom, led to my buying my co-op apartment in 1989 and my first foray into investing my after-tax money in tax-free muni bond funds in 1990 with Fidelity Investments.
Fidelity has provided me with (free) investment advice over the years, starting with a good stock mutual fund in the mid-1990s, in time to ride the 1990s boom. In 2008, with the help of one of their local Account Executives, we set up my financial picture in their RIP program which showed me in fine shape toward the ER I was getting very close to starting. (I would not find this forum until 2009, after I ERed.)
I remember watching Wall Street Week back in the 1990s now and then, but never became a regular viewer of it.
I remember hearing about the 401k when I was in college and how good it was, but I don't recall who or what told me about it.
For a few years in the mid-1990s, I received a gift subscription to The Bottom Line newsletter. It was interesting but not enough for me to keep up the subscription.
Then there is a funny line about compound interest from a Seinfeld episode ("The Junior Mint") I have quoted in this forum a few times:
"George: "Yeah, interest. It's an amazing thing. You make money without doing anything..."
Jerry:
"Y'know, I have friends who try to base their whole life on that principle."
George: "Really? Who?"
Jerry:
"Nobody you know..."