What has been my relationship with money? That story starts around age 8. Every kid needed caps and beans.
That question just popped into my head. The answer is part of a long journey that always included some form of saving albeit quite modest for many years.
When I was a kid, raising money for important stuff like miniature plastic soldiers, caps for my six guns, beans for the pea shooter and ice cream cones was a necessity. No allowance in my home.
We acquired our wealth by selling Kool-Aid, collected empty soda bottles for the two cent deposit, shoveling snow, shining shoes, selling greeting cards door to door, collecting garbage and shoveling coal in our apartment building and assorted other entrepreneurial ventures. As a teenager I worked in a pet shop and for the city library. My pet shop pay was $5.00 a week - working two hours each day after school and all day Saturday. The library paid $0.75 an hour, but I worked my way up to $1.10.
What did I do with the money I saved? Of course there was the traditional piggy bank as a child. Later there was a passbook savings account - you actually got to see a teller enter your updated wealth in a book and then you brought the book back to the bank to have interest credited. Some money went into a Christmas Club account. Even back then I liked the idea of isolating money for a designated purpose.
When I began working full-time after graduating high school, I signed up to save via direct deposit to our local credit union. They had good interest rates and the best rates on auto loans. My first monthly payment was $49 for a new 1963 VW Beatle that cost $1,895.
Later I enrolled in payroll deduction Savings Bonds and then a 5% discount employee stock purchase plan. I still have some of the bonds now reaching their 30 year limit and all of the company stock, except some shares I gifted our children years ago.
In my early 20s I began dabbling in stocks - totally ignorant about what I was doing and urged into penny stocks by a cigar, cigarette, pipe smoking broker. Good old Leo. It was fun and a way to spend lunch hours watching the ticker, but not profitable. On the other hand, a learned some valuable lessons before they were devastating.
My stock holdings were enhanced in the 1970s when the company used a TRASOP and PAYSOP. They were types of tax-credit Employee Stock Ownership Plans that were available for a limited time. Both allowed companies to receive a tax credit for contributing their own stock to a retirement plan for employees. I have those shares of stock too.
Between 1965 and 1982 I began investing in mutual funds. The money involved was the minimum required by the fund. I was just fulfilling my need to save despite my lack of skill. That money later disappeared into college tuition.
Investing only became a real thing with me when we added a 401k to our company benefits program in 1982. It was my job to manage the plan and communicate it to employees. I learned a lot working on the implementation and designing the employee communications with experts on retirement planning and investing.
I enrolled in the 401k to receive the maximum employer match. I don’t recall the total percentage I saved back then, but I do remember increasing the percentage with raises when possible. In 1982 we were just six years away from starting ten years of college expenses with 1,2 or 3 in school at once.
In 1992 I was made department manager when it was decided the incumbent should retire. From then until 2006 I had various titles including general manager and director but doing essentially the same job - for higher salary. The titles made it easier to work with unions, on acquisitions and with senior management. The games we must play.
In 2006 I was made Vice President- a 45 year quest for me. That made me eligible for stock options, enhanced bonuses and other incentive stock compensation. I kept all those shares of stock too and invested the bonus money.
Today (yesterday anyway) my employer’s stock equals about 20% of our total investments and generate good dividend income - currently reinvested. That percentage of investments in one company is not recommended, however. It’s a misplaced loyalty with me. Every material thing we own is the result of one career with one company and a few very helpful people in that company.
The fruits of our labor are a pension, social security, a rollover IRA (my old 401k) and a brokerage account where the company stock resides along with the first few years of combined Social Security benefits in several muni bond funds.
That’s my relationship with money - always saving and the benefit of lots of time, but likely never optimizing the potential. I followed and still do a rather simplistic, seat-of-the pants approach to everything money. Nothing sophisticated or well planned, never focused on minimizing taxes, but clearly benefiting from the absence of misfortune and the great benefit of an amazing partner through it all - for our 50th anniversary we renewed our vows in Cana, Israel. No wine though.
Big trip travel is probably over for us, but we still have a bank account designated “travel” and as long as I can drive, we will be going somewhere. I wonder if they will welcome us in Canada?🥵
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