As someone who learned almost nothing about finances growing up, I think getting educated was my greatest achievement. It allowed us to retire with dignity in January this year. Chris
Hanging in there. And learning from my many mistakes. One of the best lessons (learned the hard way): Don’t panic when the market takes a dive. It’s a buying opportunity. Buy carefully and make the most of it!
Whenever we have purchased a house, we have resolved to pay off the mortgage in under 5 years. We did it four times. Each time it got easier ‘cos we had built up equity in the previous house when we sold it and had a larger down payment for the next one. Our current house (the most expensive one) was paid off in 3 years.
We are planning to move to a HCOL area and plan to stick to the 5-year deadline, even if we have stopped working by then.
In the first five years after my financially disastrous marriage ended, I paid off the house, and in the next 23 years I grew my net worth from near zero to $2M at retirement, all while never earning more than $75k as a teacher. I’m grateful for having a frugal temperament and for finding free information in the library and on sites such as HumbleDollar.
Second time around I married well. My first wife divorced me at 49 and I remarried at 60. My second wife and I are in sych on so many things, including financial matters. Certainly in the context of “greatest financial achievement”, being lucky enough to be blessed with such a great partner has radically increased my success in all things financial. So yeah, marrying well is my greatest financial achievement.
When we found our first house, during Jimmy Carter’s inflationary mortgage rate of 20s% back in 1980, my wife & I both worked 2-3 jobs, 7 days a week, overtimes & double shifts, additional in-house calls, etc in order for us to paid off our mortgage in less than 3 years. Having no debt to begin our investment & saving journey would be considered our greatest financial achievement, because that debt-free, compounding snowball effect on your investment returns are very real.
When we got married in 1994 someone gave us a book called How to Manage Your Money by Larry Burkett. This set us on a path of reading about personal finance and applying the concepts. As a result we have never had a car payment, or debt other than a mortgage, for the past 30 years. We paid off our mortgage many years ago in our 40s. Early in our marriage we carried cash in envelopes for various budget categories to keep us from overspending each month. When the envelopes were empty we quit spending. Our greatest financial achievement has been living well below our means and investing the rest for three decades.
Selling our home and moving to a condo even though we are still relatively young (late 40s). We donated/got rid of a ton of unnecessary stuff so we can focus more on experiences instead of things. Being childfree definitely made this “purge and move” easier.
Tranistioning from a suicidal, 21 year old compulsive gambler who was in mountains of debt to someone who writes on spirituality and money occasionally on Humble Dollar.
Being financially in good shape in our 60s despite a late start and a lot of early mistakes. We didn’t come from families that had money or were good with money. We had bad role models and were extremely ignorant.
One problem with the HD forum is I don’t get alerts when someone replies to my post, so I didn’t see your request until just now.
I got a late start on my career after playing minor league baseball in my twenties. I didn’t really start making decent money until I was about 40. My wife cleaned homes and offices for additional income. We always saved 20-30% of our income in retirement accounts. We took family vacations to National Parks and gave our children plentiful opportunities in sports and music. We built new homes in desirable neighborhoods, doing much of the work ourselves, and then sold and rolled the proceeds into the next home. By our third house we were mortgage free. My wife is an amazingly hard worker, which has made all the difference.
Thank you, Jonathan. I’ve been following you since your wsj days and I’ve always enjoyed your perspective and common sense on investing. All the best to you.
My financial awakening came later in life and I didn’t start saving for retirement until well into my 40s. Once I got on board, I’m glad I had the discipline and motivation to get educated about finances and save aggressively. I was able to comfortably retire 15 years later at 60. Do I wish I had started earlier? Sure. But I also believe that our life lessons happen a certain way for a reason.
I was at Air Force pilot training (UPT) in Del Rio, Texas in 1980. My fiance and I had postponed our wedding for various reasons but cost was a big one. On a whim we quasi-eloped and she flew down to Texas where we had our wedding in front of our UPT class at the base chapel. Things were tight on a second lieutenant’s pay (and I still don’t know how our harder-working enlisted folks make do).
On our one-day honeymoon to San Antonio, I ceremonially handed over what was now “our” checkbook to my bride $375 in the red. Despite that and a 42-year flying career, we are still very happily together. We moved many times, raised 3 amazing children, and experienced many ups and downs as we all do in life. I’m now in my second year of retirement and jokingly tell folks now that I am home all-the-time, “Well she hasn’t killed me yet so all must be good!”
Despite the setbacks we all experience in our lives, we managed to reverse that -$375 into a comfortable nest egg. Our parents were very frugal being post-depression babies. My mother was a Boglehead (before there were Bogleheads). Their down-to-earth faith-based trust to fear nothing allowed them to even leave a little to my brother and me in the end.
Hopefully our “end” is years away (but I keep catching glimpses of it up ahead going around the bend). Our lesson for everyone is that financial makeovers don’t happen overnight. Ours at the time was 40 years in the making. Your financial future is a marathon, not a sprint.
Teaching how to fish. Teaching my two sons how to invest with low cost cap weighted index funds. I helped them get started…but they are both way ahead of their peers. One now has a Master in Finance and is teaching me.
Growing up on welfare in a housing project with a divorced parent, I was fortunate to attend college through a special government program. Greatest financial achievement was earning over a million dollars a year more than once, with most other years in the top 1% of earners, statistically. Now retired and living way below my means, with no defined pension plan.
I have worked full time continuously since I was 25 and have maxed out every retirement plan since I turned 26. This is the answer that makes me seem virtuous and meshes with the dominant culture of this newsletter. But the luck of being born into a family of professionals who taught me how to take advantage of privilege and paid my way is the biggest achievement and one I had no control over. Starting at my salaried job with zero debt, after an A average Ivy League education, would be my greatest achievement if I had anything to do with it.
Well, many; however, the best one was after my last divorce in 2007. I was left with about $70k in my 401k. We robbed my 401k to pay off (our debts from the marriage) of about $200k in loans, credit cards, etc.. All part of the divorce decree. No penalty for robbing the 401k, for those of you wondering, just look it up in the IRS code. My Ex had a $650 an hour divorce lawyer that came up with that side contract in the divorce decree.
I was sleeping on the floor of my brothers home on a twin mattress, could not get a credit card for a $300 pre-paid card and was making six-figures+. Credit bureaus and credit card companies don’t care what you make. Why, well it’s the dreaded FICO score or dings on your credit. Anyway, I retired in 2016, with $458k in my 401k, a seven-figure defined benefit lump sum, as well as, a supplemental retirement plan lump sum of $700k. So, persevering after the last divorce, finding a wonderful new wife, sacrificing and re-building my 401k balance, taking care of my sons obligations from the divorce and re-building my credit in those 9 years was my greatest financial accomplishment.
PS – Those pesky credit card companies are begging me to apply for their cards… it never ends with those vultures.
Just continuing to invest over the years and later in life figuring that budgeting could be a good thing before I retire. Budgeting led to learning about tax planning and I think most readers get all the rabbit holes one can go through in their personal financial journey.
I was also fortunate to work for large companies that gave me stock, options and both. I didn’t know what to do with them so kept them and they continued to grow. I’m more intentional today than I’ve ever been. If only…
I was lucky enough to invest in Berkshire Hathaway after the 1987 stock market crash thanks to reading John Train’s The Money Masters book. Following Mr. Buffet’s advice in Forbes magazine, I tracked down a copy (this was in the pre-Internet days) of Phil Fischer’s Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits book through his family foundation. (It was a really hard book to find back then). I also spent months reading and re-reading the Benjamin Graham book The Intelligent Investor. Those three books (and Graham’s Security Analysis book) gave me enough information to become a pretty successful investor.
Starting my first company with $3,000 to selling my previous company for 150M. I grew up in a working class household, worked full-time through college, never took a business class, and though hard work, integrity driven focus on my customers and employees, I was able to achieve more than I dreamed. I have achieved the financial American dream many X over.
Having no cash in my pocket until after college and entering the work force I found it easy to save. I could go weeks and weeks without cashing pay checks, so saving was easy. But I had no idea how to invest so the funds did not grow. Now that I am 20 years out of the work force, and collecting Social Security I have learned how to carefully sell a few options each month to supply enough cash to cover all expenses and tuck away a dollar or two for a rainy day. I am in control of my financial well being. And, I sure do not understand people talking about removing 4% per year to live on?? Any decent sum of money tucked away can easily earn 10 to 20% per year. Live off the income and not the nut itself.
I set goals at eighteen (really). It took the next fifty years, but I met every one of them and more. Someone else may have done better and sooner, but given my career started as a mail boy right out of high school, I’m happy and FI. Likewise for non-financial accomplishments.
I’d point to two things. First, I’m thrilled that my two kids have grown up to have good financial habits. I made a big effort to teach them about money. Even when you do that, there’s no guarantee it’ll work, but in this case it did. Second, I quit working on Wall Street after six years, leaving behind the highest-paying job I’ve ever had. It would have been so easy to keep collecting the big paycheck, but I traded money for happiness—which seems like an obvious thing to do, but it’s harder than it sounds.
Having been a Getting Going reader for well over a decade (in fact, I think it was two decades — I began reading your column in the WSJ in 1992), from the day I first learned you had taken that job on Wall Street, my immediate thought was this: That Jonathan Clements is so clever. He has this life purpose of helping ordinary people invest wisely and helping them avoid financial myths, misconceptions, and questionable sales/marketing tactics. Now he is using his reputation to get a job on Wall Street and make a super income. I bet he will do this new job for a few years, and save up money for a personal publishing venture, and then go back to his true calling (basically, carrying on his Getting Going writings, but in self publishing). All of that came true. I also noted that your Wall Street job focused on customer education, if I remember correctly.
As someone who learned almost nothing about finances growing up, I think getting educated was my greatest achievement. It allowed us to retire with dignity in January this year. Chris
Hanging in there. And learning from my many mistakes. One of the best lessons (learned the hard way): Don’t panic when the market takes a dive. It’s a buying opportunity. Buy carefully and make the most of it!
ONE THING: Staying the course through market down cycles. Has made all the difference (and is not easy!)
One thing I learned: Wife’s input is a contrary indicator. When she asks if we should be buying/selling stocks, do the opposite 🙂
Whenever we have purchased a house, we have resolved to pay off the mortgage in under 5 years. We did it four times. Each time it got easier ‘cos we had built up equity in the previous house when we sold it and had a larger down payment for the next one. Our current house (the most expensive one) was paid off in 3 years.
We are planning to move to a HCOL area and plan to stick to the 5-year deadline, even if we have stopped working by then.
In the first five years after my financially disastrous marriage ended, I paid off the house, and in the next 23 years I grew my net worth from near zero to $2M at retirement, all while never earning more than $75k as a teacher. I’m grateful for having a frugal temperament and for finding free information in the library and on sites such as HumbleDollar.
Getting 4 kids through college with no debt—theirs or ours!
Second time around I married well. My first wife divorced me at 49 and I remarried at 60. My second wife and I are in sych on so many things, including financial matters. Certainly in the context of “greatest financial achievement”, being lucky enough to be blessed with such a great partner has radically increased my success in all things financial. So yeah, marrying well is my greatest financial achievement.
Achieving financial security by staying the course, being patient if not always wise and avoiding debt except a mortgage repaid 20 years ago.
All that and always working together with my wife on every goal.
When we found our first house, during Jimmy Carter’s inflationary mortgage rate of 20s% back in 1980, my wife & I both worked 2-3 jobs, 7 days a week, overtimes & double shifts, additional in-house calls, etc in order for us to paid off our mortgage in less than 3 years. Having no debt to begin our investment & saving journey would be considered our greatest financial achievement, because that debt-free, compounding snowball effect on your investment returns are very real.
When we got married in 1994 someone gave us a book called How to Manage Your Money by Larry Burkett. This set us on a path of reading about personal finance and applying the concepts. As a result we have never had a car payment, or debt other than a mortgage, for the past 30 years. We paid off our mortgage many years ago in our 40s. Early in our marriage we carried cash in envelopes for various budget categories to keep us from overspending each month. When the envelopes were empty we quit spending. Our greatest financial achievement has been living well below our means and investing the rest for three decades.
You might enjoy this article by Ken Cutler from earlier this year:
https://humbledollar.com/2024/02/prophet-motive/
It certainly made me rethink retirement, and was part of the inspiration for an article I wrote soon after:
https://humbledollar.com/2024/02/fire-meets-ice/
Thank you, Jonathan. I respect and admire you so much. You and HumbleDollar have taught and inspired me a lot over the past several years.
Selling our home and moving to a condo even though we are still relatively young (late 40s). We donated/got rid of a ton of unnecessary stuff so we can focus more on experiences instead of things. Being childfree definitely made this “purge and move” easier.
Tranistioning from a suicidal, 21 year old compulsive gambler who was in mountains of debt to someone who writes on spirituality and money occasionally on Humble Dollar.
Leaving NYC for LA at 18 with 1,400 bucks and building a robust life that includes a wife and two grown children. It can be done.
Being financially in good shape in our 60s despite a late start and a lot of early mistakes. We didn’t come from families that had money or were good with money. We had bad role models and were extremely ignorant.
This was us too, Dr Lefty. So thankful I was able to learn for us. Part of my learning was the book Pat mentioned earlier. Chris
Marrying someone that was also a saver allowed us to be mortgage free at 40 and able to retire in our late fifties.
Raising five kids with a modest income and still achieving financial independence in my mid fifties.
Tell us more. Sounds like quite an accomplishment
One problem with the HD forum is I don’t get alerts when someone replies to my post, so I didn’t see your request until just now.
I got a late start on my career after playing minor league baseball in my twenties. I didn’t really start making decent money until I was about 40. My wife cleaned homes and offices for additional income. We always saved 20-30% of our income in retirement accounts. We took family vacations to National Parks and gave our children plentiful opportunities in sports and music. We built new homes in desirable neighborhoods, doing much of the work ourselves, and then sold and rolled the proceeds into the next home. By our third house we were mortgage free. My wife is an amazingly hard worker, which has made all the difference.
If you go to the top of this thread, you’ll see “subscribe.” Click on that and you can sign up to be alerted to replies to your posts.
Jonathan, for whatever it’s worth, I’ve subscribed as you suggested, but I’m still not getting alerts.
HumbleDollar’s web developer just did some trouble-shooting. It should be working now.
Thank you. I did get the alert for this comment.
Thank you, Jonathan. I’ve been following you since your wsj days and I’ve always enjoyed your perspective and common sense on investing. All the best to you.
My financial awakening came later in life and I didn’t start saving for retirement until well into my 40s. Once I got on board, I’m glad I had the discipline and motivation to get educated about finances and save aggressively. I was able to comfortably retire 15 years later at 60. Do I wish I had started earlier? Sure. But I also believe that our life lessons happen a certain way for a reason.
Raising five kids with my wife and now having enough money resourses that we should never be a burden on them as adults.
Luck.
Yes, I’ve been a compulsive saver, but the luck of having a highly supportive family made it possible to begin early on.
Didn’t realize I replied earlier. How do I delete a comment?
It’s okay to reply twice!
I was at Air Force pilot training (UPT) in Del Rio, Texas in 1980. My fiance and I had postponed our wedding for various reasons but cost was a big one. On a whim we quasi-eloped and she flew down to Texas where we had our wedding in front of our UPT class at the base chapel. Things were tight on a second lieutenant’s pay (and I still don’t know how our harder-working enlisted folks make do).
On our one-day honeymoon to San Antonio, I ceremonially handed over what was now “our” checkbook to my bride $375 in the red. Despite that and a 42-year flying career, we are still very happily together. We moved many times, raised 3 amazing children, and experienced many ups and downs as we all do in life. I’m now in my second year of retirement and jokingly tell folks now that I am home all-the-time, “Well she hasn’t killed me yet so all must be good!”
Despite the setbacks we all experience in our lives, we managed to reverse that -$375 into a comfortable nest egg. Our parents were very frugal being post-depression babies. My mother was a Boglehead (before there were Bogleheads). Their down-to-earth faith-based trust to fear nothing allowed them to even leave a little to my brother and me in the end.
Hopefully our “end” is years away (but I keep catching glimpses of it up ahead going around the bend). Our lesson for everyone is that financial makeovers don’t happen overnight. Ours at the time was 40 years in the making. Your financial future is a marathon, not a sprint.
Teaching how to fish. Teaching my two sons how to invest with low cost cap weighted index funds. I helped them get started…but they are both way ahead of their peers. One now has a Master in Finance and is teaching me.
Staying in our “starter house” with a renovation and addition instead of buying bigger… and paying that mortgage off early!
Reaching Financial Independence at age 30 🙂
Managing finance until the day I die. I prefer a lifetime achievement rather than a one-time accomplishment.
Growing up on welfare in a housing project with a divorced parent, I was fortunate to attend college through a special government program. Greatest financial achievement was earning over a million dollars a year more than once, with most other years in the top 1% of earners, statistically. Now retired and living way below my means, with no defined pension plan.
Probably paying off our house before turning 40. My wife and I have accomplished a lot, but I hope we’re just getting started!
I have worked full time continuously since I was 25 and have maxed out every retirement plan since I turned 26. This is the answer that makes me seem virtuous and meshes with the dominant culture of this newsletter.
But the luck of being born into a family of professionals who taught me how to take advantage of privilege and paid my way is the biggest achievement and one I had no control over. Starting at my salaried job with zero debt, after an A average Ivy League education, would be my greatest achievement if I had anything to do with it.
Well, many; however, the best one was after my last divorce in 2007. I was left with about $70k in my 401k. We robbed my 401k to pay off (our debts from the marriage) of about $200k in loans, credit cards, etc.. All part of the divorce decree. No penalty for robbing the 401k, for those of you wondering, just look it up in the IRS code. My Ex had a $650 an hour divorce lawyer that came up with that side contract in the divorce decree.
I was sleeping on the floor of my brothers home on a twin mattress, could not get a credit card for a $300 pre-paid card and was making six-figures+. Credit bureaus and credit card companies don’t care what you make. Why, well it’s the dreaded FICO score or dings on your credit. Anyway, I retired in 2016, with $458k in my 401k, a seven-figure defined benefit lump sum, as well as, a supplemental retirement plan lump sum of $700k. So, persevering after the last divorce, finding a wonderful new wife, sacrificing and re-building my 401k balance, taking care of my sons obligations from the divorce and re-building my credit in those 9 years was my greatest financial accomplishment.
PS – Those pesky credit card companies are begging me to apply for their cards… it never ends with those vultures.
Just continuing to invest over the years and later in life figuring that budgeting could be a good thing before I retire. Budgeting led to learning about tax planning and I think most readers get all the rabbit holes one can go through in their personal financial journey.
I was also fortunate to work for large companies that gave me stock, options and both. I didn’t know what to do with them so kept them and they continued to grow. I’m more intentional today than I’ve ever been. If only…
I was lucky enough to invest in Berkshire Hathaway after the 1987 stock market crash thanks to reading John Train’s The Money Masters book. Following Mr. Buffet’s advice in Forbes magazine, I tracked down a copy (this was in the pre-Internet days) of Phil Fischer’s Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits book through his family foundation. (It was a really hard book to find back then). I also spent months reading and re-reading the Benjamin Graham book The Intelligent Investor. Those three books (and Graham’s Security Analysis book) gave me enough information to become a pretty successful investor.
Starting my first company with $3,000 to selling my previous company for 150M. I grew up in a working class household, worked full-time through college, never took a business class, and though hard work, integrity driven focus on my customers and employees, I was able to achieve more than I dreamed. I have achieved the financial American dream many X over.
Having no cash in my pocket until after college and entering the work force I found it easy to save. I could go weeks and weeks without cashing pay checks, so saving was easy. But I had no idea how to invest so the funds did not grow. Now that I am 20 years out of the work force, and collecting Social Security I have learned how to carefully sell a few options each month to supply enough cash to cover all expenses and tuck away a dollar or two for a rainy day. I am in control of my financial well being.
And, I sure do not understand people talking about removing 4% per year to live on?? Any decent sum of money tucked away can easily earn 10 to 20% per year. Live off the income and not the nut itself.
Easily earning 10 to 20% per year is not something most professionals do
I set goals at eighteen (really). It took the next fifty years, but I met every one of them and more. Someone else may have done better and sooner, but given my career started as a mail boy right out of high school, I’m happy and FI. Likewise for non-financial accomplishments.
I’d point to two things. First, I’m thrilled that my two kids have grown up to have good financial habits. I made a big effort to teach them about money. Even when you do that, there’s no guarantee it’ll work, but in this case it did. Second, I quit working on Wall Street after six years, leaving behind the highest-paying job I’ve ever had. It would have been so easy to keep collecting the big paycheck, but I traded money for happiness—which seems like an obvious thing to do, but it’s harder than it sounds.
Having been a Getting Going reader for well over a decade (in fact, I think it was two decades — I began reading your column in the WSJ in 1992), from the day I first learned you had taken that job on Wall Street, my immediate thought was this: That Jonathan Clements is so clever. He has this life purpose of helping ordinary people invest wisely and helping them avoid financial myths, misconceptions, and questionable sales/marketing tactics. Now he is using his reputation to get a job on Wall Street and make a super income. I bet he will do this new job for a few years, and save up money for a personal publishing venture, and then go back to his true calling (basically, carrying on his Getting Going writings, but in self publishing). All of that came true. I also noted that your Wall Street job focused on customer education, if I remember correctly.