Let me tell you, if I told people what I have available to me in liquid assets, they'd call me rich. I may have had some money invested in my old bank accounts that was from my parents helping me learn saving money, but st this point, I'd say all my money is my own. Most of my early gains come from trusting my father to invest my money in the stock market. He got in early on things that went up in value 1000% over the course of two decades.
I am debt-free, own my house and car, don't live by the paycheck... and my income is probably what people would still call poverty-level these days ($35k before taxes)
I blame debt for a lot of people in my age group that have trouble. When I looked around at my peers in my 20s and a bit of my 30s it's what I always saw. Tons of student loans. Needing a new fancy "cool" car at 18-20. Traveling all over on credit. They never could wait for anything. Meanwhile, I paid for college by working full time and for the most part giving the school checks every semester. It took me six years to get a "4-year" degree, but I walked away not owing a penny. I bought a car for $3,000 cash I'd saved two months after I graduated high school. It was in really nice shape, but wasn't trendy and modern. It was also damn comfortable and got me where I needed to be every time. I drove that until I was 25. I didn't really travel much until I was nearly 30, and even then it's not a huge amount I spend.
The thing is, everyone looks at me now like I'm rich, but most of the people around me who think that have more income than me or at the very least think I make a lot more than I do. Yeah, I have nice stuff, and yeah, I don't stress about money at all, because I don't have to. I only have mortgage debt, I could get rid of that if I wanted without too much pain. Car titles are on hand and clear and will be even though I'm looking at buying something else soon. I paid my dues the hard and patient way, when they were instead paying the bankers.
Nothing but the mortgage for debt is great. I really rushed my mortgage plan as fast as I could, because the interest accounts for so goddamn much of the repayment. Made it a 30-year plan just to be sure my own monthly budget could handle it, then made large lump-sum deposits whenever I had a good amount available.
Yeah, I could work on getting rid of the mortgage, but it's so small and so low interest I just don't bother.
I remember with cars though, when I first got a car loan at 25. I started looking at the interest and wondering why the hell I wanted to give that to the bank. So I paid it off pretty quick. My plan since I was young-20s was always to improve and never go backwards. It started really simple. One example, I realized that insurance could be had cheaper if I paid for the policy in a full lump sum. That next policy term, I paid the policy and then saved the money to pay in full for the next one. Now I'm done, I save for the future one every term and pay it in full. That's let's say $50 a year I've kept in my pocket. I did the same thing with cars. After I paid that loan off, I saved a reduced amount from the payment for 5 years while I used the car I had. Then the next car I just bought and now the banker doesn't get his cut.
Awesome! My parents talked to me about saving and investing but I didn’t listen until my late 30s. So better late than never. My goal is to be debt free within 3 years. Congrats
Let me tell you, if I told people what I have available to me in liquid assets, they'd call me rich. I may have had some money invested in my old bank accounts that was from my parents helping me learn saving money, but st this point, I'd say all my money is my own. Most of my early gains come from trusting my father to invest my money in the stock market. He got in early on things that went up in value 1000% over the course of two decades.
I am debt-free, own my house and car, don't live by the paycheck... and my income is probably what people would still call poverty-level these days ($35k before taxes)
I blame debt for a lot of people in my age group that have trouble. When I looked around at my peers in my 20s and a bit of my 30s it's what I always saw. Tons of student loans. Needing a new fancy "cool" car at 18-20. Traveling all over on credit. They never could wait for anything. Meanwhile, I paid for college by working full time and for the most part giving the school checks every semester. It took me six years to get a "4-year" degree, but I walked away not owing a penny. I bought a car for $3,000 cash I'd saved two months after I graduated high school. It was in really nice shape, but wasn't trendy and modern. It was also damn comfortable and got me where I needed to be every time. I drove that until I was 25. I didn't really travel much until I was nearly 30, and even then it's not a huge amount I spend.
The thing is, everyone looks at me now like I'm rich, but most of the people around me who think that have more income than me or at the very least think I make a lot more than I do. Yeah, I have nice stuff, and yeah, I don't stress about money at all, because I don't have to. I only have mortgage debt, I could get rid of that if I wanted without too much pain. Car titles are on hand and clear and will be even though I'm looking at buying something else soon. I paid my dues the hard and patient way, when they were instead paying the bankers.
Nothing but the mortgage for debt is great. I really rushed my mortgage plan as fast as I could, because the interest accounts for so goddamn much of the repayment. Made it a 30-year plan just to be sure my own monthly budget could handle it, then made large lump-sum deposits whenever I had a good amount available.
Yeah, I could work on getting rid of the mortgage, but it's so small and so low interest I just don't bother.
I remember with cars though, when I first got a car loan at 25. I started looking at the interest and wondering why the hell I wanted to give that to the bank. So I paid it off pretty quick. My plan since I was young-20s was always to improve and never go backwards. It started really simple. One example, I realized that insurance could be had cheaper if I paid for the policy in a full lump sum. That next policy term, I paid the policy and then saved the money to pay in full for the next one. Now I'm done, I save for the future one every term and pay it in full. That's let's say $50 a year I've kept in my pocket. I did the same thing with cars. After I paid that loan off, I saved a reduced amount from the payment for 5 years while I used the car I had. Then the next car I just bought and now the banker doesn't get his cut.
Making sure the banker doesn't get his cut is a great motivator to avoid debt. Too bad most people only see everything in monthly payments.
Awesome! My parents talked to me about saving and investing but I didn’t listen until my late 30s. So better late than never. My goal is to be debt free within 3 years. Congrats
Do you have a wife,girlfriend or a kid? Cause that's fucking crazy