The power of compounding coupled with the Christian perspective of gratitude really works. The Law of the Harvest is real. Congratulations.
I call it the 5 year plan.
Where do you want to be in 5 years? Plan it achieve it. That 5 year plan moves ahead every day and you move with it.
You will not believe what you can achieve when you live that way.
Wanted a house by the age of 25 that was payed for. Missed it by 1 year. Built it my self. 2700 square ft and built it out of my pocket as I had it and it took me several years. Worked every shutdown and startup at night and worked on home during the day.
After that complete, financial savings was save, save and save in differet buckets for different family needs (not WANTS).
Now at 58 been retired for 8 years from the “working for the man” world. Wife and I doing what we want after raising 3 kids.
The thing is no one suffered during this time. We did things together but we did not do wasteful spending on crap.
It does work, no? It started for me when I went through my conversion to Christianity and started really tithing (10%). It was slow but steady. I have never made much money but I save and haven’t owed anyone anything for years. We don’t go to Hawaii but then we don’t particularly care to. We do vacation where and when we like, though. We always pay cash for stuff like cars. We’ve never had a new one and we’ve never had monthly payments for one either. No rent and no more mortgage is a big thing, too. I learned how to use a credit card and use it almost exclusively. I don’ pay interest on it because I keep it paid off and it keeps me from dribbling away money buying cups of coffee at the 7-11 or lottery tickets as I used to do.
It was always my life’s dream to go to Hawaii. Ok, so now I’ve been (4 times) My son was a flight attendant, I flew over there for free, what can I say?????? haha.
You did good. I admire your diligence and dedication to saving. And I admire your choice of vacation/honeymoon spots!!!
Fellow FReeper gives a testomonial of success! Keep up the hard work and you will someday be able to “Live like No One Else!”
Dave Ramsey Ping List (not very frequent anymore...)
;-)
Can anyone recommend the one book to begin with by Dave Ramsey to someone who’s never read him before?
We are in the latter steps, but have lost focus. I recently started saving MORE so that we *can* take that vacation someday. Thanks for posting that encouragement!