It is never too late. By Chris

I would like to dedicate this post to Jonathan.

My spouse and I started with nothing. We left college with debt and moved to a HCOL area in the mid 1980s. We knew nothing about money other than “if you can’t pay your credit card off each month, quit charging until it is paid off”.

We are Christians and felt called to tithe our income, so we worked up to the full 10% of gross income that is traditional. We never missed it. Even when times were hard, we were always ok. Sometimes I have no idea how, but after 40+ years I know for a fact that you can never out give God.

We never made more than $100k in a year until the last 8 years my spouse worked. We were the first generation who had to figure out our own retirment b/c the pensions changed to 401ks. We were so dumb that we didn’t understand the part about leaving money on the table if you don’t put enough in to get the company match. We had no idea how much we should put in the 401k until later. For many years we just put enough to get the match. We didn’t know you have to put in more.  Our HR was not as good to help as I am sure RDQ’s was.

In the early 1990s I listened to Christian radio and found a few programs that talked about finances. I started to check out books from the library. In my studies I never came across Jonathan’s writings, believe it or not. I wish I had, it would have saved some time. I didn’t find him until HD.

We were way behind on our retirement savings. As I learned more, we did better.  By 2016 I had finally found Jonathon and HD. HD was one of my favorite websites to read. I learned so much from all the writers. I used the guide to research topics I didn’t know about.

The past 10 years have been amazing for us. Everything finally “clicked”.  My spouse found a well paying job that made low $100k. I didn’t waste the opportunity and used what I had learned from HD and others to play catch up. And we were able to catch up. Our net worth now is in 7 figures and we retired with dignity 21 mos ago.

We are a Humble Dollar success story. We are just regular people.  I hope what I have written will encourage any others like us that even if it is late in the game, you can still get there. I so wish Jonathan was here to read my post, this is why he was so passionate about what he did. Chris

The post It is never too late. By Chris appeared first on HumbleDollar.