Our road from high school to retirement- one of many routes

Regular readers of HumbleDollar may recall some of this as it has been mentioned by me in various articles over the years.  In essence it is a summery of my adult life. 

There were no moments of financial brilliance. It was mostly just plugging along with an absence of misfortune while trying to avoid doing anything exceptionally stupid. 

I don’t recommend any similar actions for anyone. In fact, if I had to do it over, I suspect I would not recommend all of it for me either. 

The only message here is to illustrate that there are different highways, roads even trails to reach one’s goals. It is possible to be successful if you choose to put great effort into every detail, to utilize the planning tools available to achieve your goals. 

But if you are not a detail person, shy away from numbers or just like to keep things simple, success is also possible. 

The way I see it, lifelong financial prudence, exercising personal responsibility, avoiding unnecessary risk and patience are key to winning. A bit of good life luck helps as well.  

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I didn’t go to college after high school in 1961, but finally obtained a degree in 1978. 

My first job was a union position at near minimum wage.

I stayed with one employer nearly fifty years while many of my colleagues moved on to bigger and better things throughout the years. I was a clerk for the first 15 years and a low level manager for the next 25 years. 

Connie and I married ten months after our first date, eight of which I was in the army in Alabama plus nine more months after we married. 

We had four children in five years. 

We lived on one income our entire marriage. 

I started a very small business from home to help pay college bills. It lasted about six years. 

We bought a vacation home with a mortgage (at 9-1/2 %) a year before our oldest child started college. We rented it most of each summer to afford it.

From 1988 on we had 1,2 or 3 children in college for ten years in a row. We paid 95% or more of the cost. 

I had a pension, but we didn’t actually start saving and investing for retirement until 1982 when I was 39 and first had access to a 401k. I’m glad we did.

My investing is more like hoping for the best, I never had a real plan or paid much attention to the details of my choices. I am diversified, but my fund selection is more like throwing darts. And I have a too large concentration in employer stock. 

My best earning years, including equity compensation, started when I was age 63. I retired the year I was age 67.

Three years after I retired I was informed the non-qualified portion of my pension was calculated incorrectly and as a result my income was cut retroactively by 10%.

We took our Social Security at FRA while still working. 

In retirement we still save for emergencies and in 529 plans. We help our children financially from time to time. 

That’s it, my (our) road from high school to retirement, but I suspect today that road is not as well paved as it used to be.