I agree that even I sometimes am blown away by how much I spend on food when I go out. I must spend at least 500 monthly and that doesn’t even count groceries!

It definitely makes you consider where else that money could be going. I’m only allowed to eat 2 meals a week now at a restaurant I’m still a foodie so I need something to look forward to, but I told myself all weekend long and occasional weekdays is a bit excessive

Congratulations!

My big hurdle now is student loans. Big breath…go time!

You are so right that all of those little moves add up. It’s hard to see it at first, though. When we started to get our act together, it was crazy how quickly things fell into place. All it took was a ton of small life changes and determination to change our lives for the better. So far, so good!

That is awesome that you bought a house at 25 and have your act together at 28. I was still digging my hole of debt at your age =)

I can totally relate! A lot of people don’t get it. In fact, I think my mom is the only one who really “gets” us at all. My parents paid off their house fairly early and I watched them reap the benefits as I grew up and became an adult. In fact, I think I inherited my crazy debt aversion from her. It just didn’t really set in until the past few years =)

I know what you mean about the hidden costs of rentals. They can be a serious pain but I do believe they will be worth it in the long run. Ours will be paid off before our kids go to college and I know that I will be thankful that we went through all of the trouble at that point!!!!

We did give generously in 2012 and have plans to be even more generous in 2013. Let’s leave it at that.

What I wasn’t able to donate in 2012 was time. I literally have none to give unless I were to try to find a place to volunteer in the middle of the night while my kids are sleeping. I do want to have more time to volunteer in the future and becoming financially independent is part of that plan.

I lived a life similar to your except that I am about 15 years ahead of you. While we scrimped and save on evertything else, we always put donations to charity at the very top of our list. It seems as though when this is made your top priority, everything else tends to fall in place.

The cool thing about the real estate market today is you can buy a home for about the price of a decent car.

This deletes your house note and moves you that much closer to not having to work.

Add a garden to that and bulk purchases and now your really saving money.

I would love to read an “inside view” of what you do because it is indeed something people don’t deal with frequently, nor willingly. You say it is a family business. I’m assuming it’s your family’s business, or your husband’s?

I’m also very curious about your rentals. We have rentals too. They have often cost us more than we thought they would, but we still keep plodding on with them, because we feel they will one day enable us to “opt out” sooner rather than later.

I’m 28 and I’m trying to get my financial foundation in place NOW so it has time to grow.
I’m lucky enough to have had the lightbulb turned on at a fairly young age.I bought my house at 25 and I’ll be purchasing my first rental property next year. I have a 4-year plan in which I want to pay my mortgage off and have two rentals.

Little things like working a second job, moving my savings to an online bank with higher interest, trying to save 50% income, contributing to my 401k up to the company matchup (though retirement is something I need to ramp up more), not accruing interest-earning debt, fighting lifestyle inflation/ upgrades, avoiding monthly services that I don’t use, mindful living to keep costs down. Individually these things don’t make a big impact, but add them all together, with time and commitment and I just might be able to achieve something specatacular. I could “retire” by 34.

All of those have become my life and it’s amazing what you can become accustomed to. It’s way too easy to feel like you’re doing ok if you live like the status quo. That’s not a good thing in my eyes because the status quo is spend spend spend, and work work work 40 hrs/ wk for 50 years and lifelong debt.

I think your vision is logical and realistic and it’s a shame that more people don’t have the same desire to shape and manage their life. The hardest part is figuring out what you want….it’s pretty simple to come up with how to get there if you have goals and can see the “big picture”.

I am SO excited to finally have a GRS writer that I can relate pretty nicely to.

In my case, I’m working on rebuilding my financial foundation. Years ago I got in the pattern of using my savings and even my retirement when things got rough, and it’s made my future look bleaker. I’m refusing to give in to depression. I work constantly at saving money and building things back up. As of today, I have a 2 month emergency fund, and money saved for my next car, which was NOT the case last year. I want to continue what I’ve been doing and I’m tracking my progress on Quicken, so I’m feeling cheery and optimistic. Hoping to be debt free soon and putting more money away for retirement!

Thank you and write more!

Jeb