http://blog.mangomoney.com/money/thanks-for-handling-the-money-mom

So for me, frugal it is.

So my role models are my parents – always paid cash, saved a lot, worked hard, and retired at 58 with a solid net worth. I hope despite my early spendthrift years, I can end up as well off as they are now.

@marsha – My father also told me once that they had thumb scanners at the front gates at disney world and that thumb-sucking children were not allowed in. So I guess he doesn’t really subscibe to the “never lie to your kids” school. I don’t really have an opinion on that because I don’t have kids, but I don’t think it was particularly psychologically damaging to me.

Did you mean to write dispensable rather than “indispensable”?

Most people think he went off into the wilderness and lived off of berries–which is very far from the truth. Walden Pond is a nice 20-minute stroll from Concord Center, and old Henry used to walk into town every time he felt like cadging a free meal from Ralph Waldo Emerson (which was often). He also left his clothes there for the Emerson’s washerwoman to get clean.

He was well known for being an exasperating moocher who seldom even bothered to thank other people for their efforts on his behalf. That being said, he must have had some degree of charm, since everyone in town not only put up with him but actually liked him.

Posts and threads like this one continue to reinforce how ‘personal’ personal finance is. It is the amalgamation of the influence of one’s upbringing, the pressures exerted by society (media, friends, family, etc.) coupled with one’s goals and the determination which fuel their fulfillment. I can certainly understand why there are so many different requests for posts ranging from frugal living to rich living and every combination in-between.

I was probably raised pretty close to the poverty line most all my life. But my mom (divorced thrice) always worked hard to see that we had what we needed. I only caught glimpses of our situation on occasion. I don’t think they ever had more than a few hundred dollars saved. Our school clothes were often bought on lay-away, or charged on the Sears card. But I was never without food, clothes or shelter.

Despite that, I was encouraged to save, but never saved much. I dropped out of high school during my senior year only to pass my California high school proficiency exam at 29 years of age because I wanted to take a correspondence Paralegal course for which I was rejected because I had no high school diploma. I didn’t need the diploma because I had already benefited from the role model of a family whose dad was a self-employed handyman/janitorial business owner.

I was intrigued by the freedom he had to make his own hours. I had some full-time jobs, e.g. building crop-dusting aircraft from the ground up (absolutely loved this work) or being a tune-up mechanic at a tire and battery shop, or being a “Innoculator Technician” for a mushroom spawning company, etc. But those jobs all felt like jail. 8 hours a day in the same building day in, day out. I kept thinking about the freedom of the handyman.

I started a janitorial business on a motorcycle (imagine carrying a bucket of cleaners and a broom while riding to my first account – a $68.00 per month small USDA office that took 45 minutes to clean once a week).

Here’s where some influence from my family enters the picture: They weren’t any good at making money or saving/investing it, but they loved to read. I came to appreciate that basically all knowledge is available in books. I was directed to a great book helping me to market, estimate and bid janitorial contracts, understand customer service, and basically run a small business.

My little business grew. By the time I was 23 I was pulling in 6k per month part time. I sold that company and semi-retired for a year. Skipping ahead to save digital ink….I later, started another janitorial company that netted me 7k per month working less than 3 hours per week. I moved to another state to do volunteer work. While there I bought my first house with cash.

Reading, I was intrigued by real estate investing. I invested in about a dozen different books, read plenty on internet forums and websites, etc and did my first flip at the end of 2003. That learning experiment netted me 13k. In 2004 I started buying up houses and decided to keep them for a new part-time residential real estate rental business. I really enjoyed that immensely. However, I had to learn how to estimate values (CMA’s) study mortgage loans, increase my construction experience beyond that I learned from the handyman role model I spoke of earlier, market properties, etc, etc…

We now own 8 properties. Four of them are paid off. I just paid off my house (which I purchased 15 months ago) yesterday. I drive a payment free 2009 Nissan Altima (purchased new). We have lived for 3 years in Costa Rica. Traveled to Panama, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua. We have also done volunteer work in Colombia.

In October we are taking a Hawaiian Island cruise with my lovely wife of 30 years.

We are semi-retired and most would consider us financially independent at this point (I’m 49) I consider us to be frugal to a reasonable degree. However, I do admit to having a Starbucks Gold Card and enjoy reading on my Kindle. We are considering the possibility of moving to another South American country for another foreign volunteer assignment next year. My wife wants to, I’m not sure I’m quite ready yet.

We never aspired to be rich. We could’ve been quite easily, but we’re not. We’ve kept life simple so that we would not be enslaved to an 8-5 lifestyle. We have only ever worked part-time since I was 20 years old. I got into the whole consumer-oriented lifestyle early on enjoying what was for me new-found wealth. If I wanted it, I bought it (usually on credit) I came to see it as another form of slavery limiting my options just the same as a full-time job does. I opted out. I hate debt, although I now know how to use it as an effective tool (the so-called “good debt”). We found our volunteer work far more rewarding and our financial decisions were a means to that end.

Balance and moderation are the keywords in my life. While I enjoy the ERE blog, I will not ever aspire that that lifestyle. My favorite blog is the one your reading right now. I commend JD for that and I love the comments section for all its color and variety of views, experiences and wealth of information. Read and glean. Remember that you can learn something from everyone, both positive and negative.

I like the topics in this blog, but can’t always read it daily and much of it is about topics that I already do well in (conscious spending, living frugally, etc).

What I am trying to improve is my investing skills, and just now spotted JD’s update back in April about diversification. That is a really interesting article — in my perspective — and I just requested the Bogleheads book from the library.

JD, we’re the same age and I’m looking to rebalance too. It would be great to hear more updates about your progress with this.

I think it would be interesting to get a better feel for the demographics of the readership. Maybe some type of poll ??

It’s all a matter of degree, priorities and means. In the above example, you used STUFF to create wonderful EXPERIENCES. That definitely blows the mind of anyone who is extremely black and white about the value of stuff vs. experiences.

If you came to my house, you would assume that my husband and I are wealthy, yet everything in the house came from Goodwill or a garage sale.

I am both extremely frugal and living the high life.

Katy Wolk-Stanley

If you don’t have a lot of money, you are likely to be interested in saving money, living cheaply etc which is why you tend to see a lot more frugal posts here and elsewhere compared to the opposite (whatever that is).

We knew there were things other people could afford that we couldn’t, but I think that was tempered with my parents’ volunteerism and donations — we understood that there were people who had a lot less.

I don’t have kids yet, but I hope to be able to teach them how to make smart choices.

I work in the non-profit sector, in an area that’s somewhat controvercial and therefore even more poorly funded than most, so I get the idea of choosing something that is personally rewarding, if not financially lucrative. However, I also am someone who thinks a big part of being ‘rich’ is having money for luxury items… not infinate money, but more money than is necessary to live. I find that PF blogs give me the positive encouragement I need to manage my life as it is now (young, sexy, and broke!;), but that I rely more on business and entrepreneural blogs for wisdom on achieving goals that will help me to be ‘rich’ as I see it… which even then, I stuggle to apply to a very non-business world.

I think we need to make sure that we don’t rely on PF blogs to be too many things to us – I know I look for my representation in a lot of different places, and I find that helpful.