What unique things have you done to get ahead financially?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good advice, but OP said they are over spenders not savers. Honestly it your spending is out of control, just buy less or cheaper stuff. So when you buy coffee, buy a smaller cup. When you need clothes, buy less items. Delay haircuts. Mow your own lawn. When your pet dies, don't buy another. If you have subscriptions that you dont use cancel them. It adds up. Soon you will have more money to save.

Because OP said “We have young kids, UMC income and had a hard time saving and not blowing it on who random things.”, I feel like your excellent advice is lost on them. I do love that idea to just buy a smaller drink. I feel like that is within reach for a lot of people - one less drink at happy hour, 2 more weeks between haircuts, wait 6 more months before upgrading a phone. It really does add up, but it’s like telling someone who struggles with their weight to just eat carrot sticks instead of chips.

I think the key for OP is to automatically move money where they can’t see it.

OP has to want it badly enough to make the mental shift. We can’t do that for it. Being a saver is not rocket science, it’s just a mindset and it really helps if both partners are on board. I’m thankful my DH led the way because I’m not sure I’d have been as frugal on my own, but now thanks to his influence, we are sitting pretty in our mid 40’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We ended up buying a second home to force ourselves to save money.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen on DCUM ever hahaha

I actually think it is quite smart of OP. If you can't trust yourself to be disciplined about liquid cash, make it illiquid. It's like a diet. You have to choose the one you can stick with even if it is not the ideal.

It may work out for OP but it's not smart. The smart move would be to automate transfers to a brokerage account that you, an adult, have the willpower not to cash out the next time you want to go on a little vacation.

[Anonymous]

OP it sounds like you have some issues with impulse control. Maybe see a therapist about this? The answer is obviously to spend less money but if you have trouble doing this, perhaps you need to figure out why you're acting this way and techniques to regulate yourselves.

[Anonymous]

certainly not unique that we did it, but somewhat unique that we financially survived it.

Purchased first house upon college graduation in 1999. FHA 3% down in Vienna. Age 23. Refinanced, rented out and moved in 2021, again low money down. Then took advantage of the crazy loans they were giving anyone and everyone and purchased 2 new builds no money down in Loudoun county and flipped them after renting out long enough before we 1031x those into better rentals.

all of this gave us a gigantic head start in our early/mid 20s. Rolled the Vienna house into a 1031 exchange in 2019 for 50% down in a dream home. moved into it in 2020 and refinanced to an extremely low rate. Also have a Vacation home that we used our primary home before this one we Covid purchased in 2020. Again low rate, low mortgage. we also have airbnb it and it brings in about 65k in income with operating expenses of 38k\yr.

[Anonymous]

Bought a home in DC before it was desireable. The price had nearly quarupled when we sold it after 14 years.

Rented the basement of the DC house for about 10 years.

Worked at a furniture store to furnish said DC house.

[Anonymous]

Why do so many of these responses come down to home ownership as a very young age. I am sorry I am not buying what you are selling - I think most of these people had help that they are not being honest about financially.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many of these responses come down to home ownership as a very young age. I am sorry I am not buying what you are selling - I think most of these people had help that they are not being honest about financially.

Yup, or made good "bets" on real estate that easily could have gone the other way. Buying a house in DC in 2003 has worked out well, but if you lived in a slower growing metro area (think say Cleveland or Detroit), the same decision wouldn't have worked out as well. We like to think we have more control over this stuff than we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do so many of these responses come down to home ownership as a very young age. I am sorry I am not buying what you are selling - I think most of these people had help that they are not being honest about financially.

I'm one of those people. We got $10K from my ILs toward the downpayment, which was $14K because our Cap Hill RH cost $140K when we bought in 1996 (FHA loan).

Very young age = much lower housing prices.

[Anonymous]

- I made a pragmatic choice to pick a high paying career that I don’t hate vs following my dreams to have a creative but more uncertain/unstable career.

- I support DH through the ups and downs of him being an entrepreneur. This diversifies our family financial profile — I have a high paying stable job with benefits, he has high risk high reward opportunities for us to build generational wealth. He would also be a terrible employee so really there’s no choice…

- We saved at least 50% of our cashflow (after retirement contributions) until we reached $5M in liquid investments in our mid 30s. Now we are saving a bit less as we are reaching the higher spending years of balancing kids and careers, but we never touch the liquid investments which continue to grow. This was enabled by me having a high paying job as a young adult, DH having equity wins through his company, and us having kids later in life (requiring IVF).

- We GC our own home renovations picking subs that we vet. This can be a ton of work initially but we usually get a high end renovation at 40-60% of the cost of going with a GC.

We also make some financially unhelpful decisions for QOL reasons like —

- living in a VHCOL city to be closer to family
- living in an expensive walkable neighborhood in said VHCOL region
- paid for expensive grad school in my 20s that I probably didn’t need
- traveling a lot

[Anonymous]

Moved to a state that had no income tax when I was young. I moved for a job, not for financial reasons.

I've saved hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years from not paying state income tax.

[Anonymous]

DH and I both worked 2 jobs when we were younger. I worked a weekend prn shift at a hospital. He worked some extra hours at a second job also. That was our spend $. We saved 1 salary for 3 years until we have DC. Twenty-five years later, that is our nest egg for reture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Got married at 26 and we always lived well below our means and invested a lot and pretty intelligently. Nothing unique! Thirty years later we have a very high NW, well into eight figures.

Nothing unique just super high income or inheritance?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've always had a money-loving heart. I never spent money unnecessarily. Had roommates until I married. Bought groceries and cooked, didn't travel to expensive places, saved early and often.

Married and age 50. NW north of $7M. Never had a super high HHI income--we are at our peak now ~$330k/year combined.

That is a super high HHI income. I want to call you a moron but I realize that won’t really help anything.

If you think peaking at 330K HHI is high for someone that has a NW of 7M, you're the moron.

[Anonymous]

We have one car. My partner bikes to work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lots of good advice, but OP said they are over spenders not savers. Honestly it your spending is out of control, just buy less or cheaper stuff. So when you buy coffee, buy a smaller cup. When you need clothes, buy less items. Delay haircuts. Mow your own lawn. When your pet dies, don't buy another. If you have subscriptions that you dont use cancel them. It adds up. Soon you will have more money to save.

I am a spender and I need little tricks like this to get me to save (not that I am any model for how to do it - I'm reading this thread because I love to spend money. My best trick is that every time I check my checking account, if it seems like I can spare some $ I put another $50 or $100 into my investment account - I've gotten up to $30,000 in a few years doing it this way).

I would disagree with the pets advice - pets bring so much joy and happiness to a home. They are worth every penny. But if you really don't want to spend that money, you can foster - shelters and rescues will usually cover all the expenses while you have the pet in your home.