While my wife and I are progressives we have always been conservative with money. Using coupons, no problem. My one vice (aside from cars) is really good dark roast coffee, and we are fortunate to have an outfit that was founded by Alfred Peet out your way in SF, here in the Chicago area, so I use their Peet's app to accumulate points and get free coffee. We buy everything via the credit card, basically live off it, BUT we pay it off monthly and never get hit with interest charges, if you can do that, you get to use their money for up to 6 weeks. Great convenience. We have never had a car loan, pay cash, (although we still have to endure being ushered into the 'finance' office where they try to sell us a loan and stuff on the car we don't need). I would take a car loan if I could get a no interest or very low interest loan, but it just has not happened on the cars we have been interested in.
Personally I think I have always been wired a bit differently, have been able to resist the 'spend it' culture here in the US. It would be almost impossible to do it with today's college costs, but when I went a good school was around 3k/year. I lived at home, got a scholarship and Pell grant, paid nothing for a college education except for books. Worked part time during the school year and full time summers. By the time I graduated I had a nice lump sum saved up and got interested in trading, first stock I ever bought was Babcock and Wilcox, they made steam generating equipment for nuclear plants and the stock doubled. I thought I was a genius. Didn't always work out that way though <ggg>.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think your background might be similar in some ways to mine, yours at HP? My wife and I spent a couple decades working for IBM, she as a semi engineer and I was a software engineer. We got tired of the corporate rat race and took a huge risk in 1997, both quitting and going out on our own, she as a consultant and me as a trader/investor. I will say that buying IBM stock when it cratered before Lou Gerstner came on board provided a nice cushion and was a big help in leaving.
While it has been a crazy ride at times we are at the point now where SS has kicked in, we are fortunate to have defined benefit pension plans from IBM, so they have kicked in, throw in interest and dividends, along with (very important!) Medicare, and I find in some ways I am a better trader as I don't have to be in to generate income, I can really pick my spots.
I will say that since we have been on our own from 1997, health insurance has been one big worry. When we lived in NY there was almost no choice for those buying individual policies, and you had to worry about pre-existing conditions. The ACA, while not perfect, helped with choice and did away with the pre-existing condition situation. However, medicare is really good, while you don't want to have to use it, many exams are free and it is zero deductible. |
