Financial Success? what event changed your financial future?

[scfr]

The first event was realizing that I had to take responsibility for myself and fill in the gaps in my financial knowledge.

[Magnificence]

I was very successful till I meet my wife...
Since this time my money is all gone into shoes and bags

[TexasHusker]

When I began working at age 23 in the corporate world, my goal was to be free from "working for the man" at age 40.

So I went about things in the traditional way - 401K, some stock investing, etc. I realized at age 40 that:

1) I had fallen way short
2) The investment paths I had chosen were intended for the masses
3) The masses have no interest in breaking out of the corporate world before age 65
4) If I kept up my current plan, I might die before I reached 65 because I was so miserable.

At that point, all heck broke loose - I quit contributing to 401K, borrowed against it to buy real estate and open a franchise, and borrowed even more money to buy several properties.

At age 46, I kissed corporate America goodbye because I had finally made some real headway. I then did something else unconventional: I completely liquidated my $400K 401K fund, paying all taxes and penalties, and used the money to expand my business and buy more real estate.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

[Magnificence]

.... and used the money to expand my business and buy more real estate.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

A wise move!

[tripods68]

We been frugal for years, Except after finally listening to Dave Ramsey FINALLY! something interesting happened. We got 'Gazelle Intense' in paying off our debt a lot faster. We are maxing our retirements, and taxable investments while paying down our home mortgage a lot faster. Finally we put a monthly budget in place to direct our $$ with a purpose. It made a huge impact relationally and financially.

[bennkar]

That's true, but there can be a very big difference in getting to those two points. It was much quicker and easier to get to a 750K portfolio since the market returns are far greater than real estate returns.

Our house is worth maybe 230K. We paid 142K 22 years ago. So that's about a 2.5% growth rate. It would take a very long time to get to 750K at that rate.

Contrast that with our investments where we've gone from $0 to $750,000 in about the same time period (more like 24 years). A huge chunk of that $750,000 came from earnings, not contributions.

Not saying I am smart - but I am lucky (and bought a fixer upper as cheap as reasonable). I got my house 18 years ago, paid $131K, nearby comps come in around $400K today. Around a 6% growth in my case. I was putting extra towards the payoff in the early 2000's when the market was too high, and so the drop in '08/'09 didn't hit my bottom line as bad as it could have (I had way more wealth in the house than in the market due to putting extra in the house). Since around 2010 I have been maxing out my retirement accounts which has worked good too. Just saying you never know - investing in a house can work out, but there's no guarantee either way.