We get a lot of snark from our age cohort. One time a friend asked me “Were you raised during the Depression?”

But now in our mid-30s, it’s made everything so much easier. We don’t have debts to worry over, our house will be paid off before my husband turns 40, our son’s college education is on track to be fully funded before he starts high school.

We have friends who are stuck in jobs they hate, or in underwater houses, or unable to start/expand their families or pursue their dream careers because of lack of money. Many of them started out with more than us, or come from richer families.

I think about money, frugality, investing, because I like to and I have unmet goals, like giving more to charity – but I *never* have to worry about there being enough to pay the bills, or fill a prescription, or choose the highest-quality child care, or quit my job to get my child through a rough patch. The peace of mind is something I think most people have a hard time even imagining, but it is really wonderful.

This reply isn’t meant to sound braggy or to discount George’s point. I’d just like VT Moose to know that I enjoyed reading his article and wish there were more young voices like his in the PF world.

I’m in much the same boat as VT, a year into a well-paying career in my field and just beginning to form an understanding of Personal Finance. I graduated from college debt-free by learning from my parents’ mistakes, avoiding consumer credit and serving eight (mostly part-time) years in the US Army.

I won’t apologize for the fact that debt repayment and foreclosure articles offer nothing more to me than cautionary tales and reassurance that I’ve made the right financial decisions from a young age.

This is the type of article that I, and many other young professionals, can relate to. Personal Finance can be a confusing and overwhelming topic and there is a lot of poor, and even misleading, information out there. It’s nice to hear from a peer who is struggling with the same issues as I am.

VT’s financial decisions may not be as dire as others on this site, but they are in no way less important.

I have complete faith that you will be doing awesome before too long.

Like anything, you have to start somewhere and chances are that you’ll get better as you continue. Overcoming the fear of starting is the hardest part, after that, the rest is practice. (which reminds me of SO MANY THINGS I’ve gone through in life, but I’m well on my way to becoming a more dynamic and confident person)

One of the reasons it was difficult to run the Roth Sprint was that I do have lots of other goals which I am trickling money into. I have to admit that it was hard putting that ridiculous dim view of the future ahead of targeted savings for much more tangible things. Honestly, I’m not even that interested in retirement in the traditional sense, but it seems like a good idea to have that taken care of regardless. I’ve always assumed that this is something that I can do alongside my other goals (remember that part about optimism?)

I definitely agree with the NOW approach, but I also don’t want to be constantly thinking about improving my financial situation. I no longer need to check Mint everyday, which is definitely a step in the right direction.

The view from the top is AWESOME and it’s even better because you pushed your limits getting there!

I’m definitely going to keep it up!

On the budgeting note, I’ve definitely been getting better, but many of my endeavors have involved the same spending to save theme. For example, my biggest budget overflow is usually dining out, so I bought a CSA share to incentivize myself to cook, which has been mostly successful. So much kale, but at $25 a week, it costs as much as an unplanned meal with friends at a local brewpub.

While I’m not in a position to max out my Roth IRA at the moment, this article DID inspire me to increase my contributions from $100 to $150 a month.

I’ve got to agree with the seemingly overwhelming sentiment in the comments… the fact that we’re young and even conscious of long-term investing is a good sign for how secure we’ll be in the far future, regardless of the details of how we’re doing it. At least, that’s the feedback I constantly get from older mentors when I bounce my investing strategies off them.

It’s not like that Roth money disappears – if everything changes in the writer’s life as expected, with a high income, lots of extra money to sock away, maybe a partnership to build, the early Roth contributions can be an opportunity fund or just a reason to not invest as heavily in the future and use that future cash flow for some other investment.

But if things don’t go as expected, and there are bad/lean years in there, the money might be necessary for retirement and will definitely be appreciated by that future 59 1/2 year old.

It’s a win-win situation. It’s not like the writer dropped out of law school to put the tuition money aside for retirement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roth_IRA#Income_limits

Seems unlikely. Can you reference something from the IRS that states there is no income limit?

But what about the financial actions I can take NOW that will have an impact on my life NOW? For example, what could the author have done to avoid the stress he subjected himself to because of his decisions? What does he need to do to get his spending down to a level where he doesn’t need to float any credit card charges?

Furthermore, if you do enough digging into your relationship with money, you’ll probably find goals that really do speak to you. For me, that is early retirement. For others, that may be putting a ridiculous down payment on a house. For still others, it may just be having things under control to the point where they don’t worry about finances or even really spend too much thinking about finances. All amazing stuff.

I think that reaction, probably a very natural reaction, to 'additional' money in the Roth as "barely…" and combined with thinking ahead to
59-1/2" exemplifies all that is wrong with current PF thinking.

IMHO, we should not expect nor preach to recent graduates to fund their retirement. It is almost impossible for someone in their twenties to think that far ahead without losing perspective.

What SHOULD be taught and emphasized to everyone, especially those at that age is to save and invest in order to BUILD WEALTH. I think the concept of building wealth can be grasped by anyone at any age. And it could be much more embraced by younger people than focusing on retirement.

A young person who focuses on saving and investing to build wealth will end up with a much broader world view than one that focuses on saving and investing for retirement.

And those who focus on building wealth will be wealthier when they get to retirement age than those who focused on saving for retirement.