My Origin Story & Financial Journey – Scout (Part 1)

TLDR

I’ve never experienced any traumatic events in my life, money or otherwise, so I have no heroic stories of courage to share (and for this I am truly grateful). Instead, my story is about someone who was ignorant about money growing up, had a few fortuitous & life-altering financial moments along the way, then ended up grinding it out in a meaningless career for 20 years on the way to early retirement.

Growing Up & Choosing a Career

Like most kids, I grew up in a household that never really discussed money – never in a good way, never in a bad way, just never. I would see my mom paying bills weekly at her desk and once a year I would see my dad working on taxes in the dining room. Beyond that I don’t remember money ever playing any sort of role in our lives, which I guess is very fortunate since so many people come from families where money is emphasized, mostly in a negative way. I would classify my family as middle-class – we didn’t have anything fancy or extravagant, but we also didn’t need or want for anything. With what little money I received during my childhood (birthdays, holidays, etc) I was always more of a saver than a spender.

After high school I attended a local public university to continue my education – back in the day (1980s & 1990s) college was the traditional & expected route that “everyone” took. From my upbringing, college was the necessary next step in life that led to a full-time career. Unlike many kids I never had a dream job that I wanted to pursue or even an inkling of where to start. My dad worked with engineers and thought this could be a good career path for me, since I was always good at math & science. I learned that engineering paid a decent salary and it was more practical than many other degrees like social studies, philosophy, etc since more job opportunities would be available (my apologies upfront to those who did major in those fields). Thus, a future engineer was born!

The Realization

During high school and throughout most of college I worked part-time at various minimal-skill jobs such as a BBQ restaurant and drug store. These were okay jobs for someone with little skill & no college degree, but I “knew” that I would be moving on to something “better” once I graduated with my engineering degree. Similar to when I was younger, I spent some of my earnings on frivolous things but tended to be more of a saver – but saving for what, I had no idea. One summer I worked as an engineering intern at the local utility company – I was excited because this was going to be a good preview of what my future career could be… Unfortunately, the actual experience didn’t live up to the hype I had built it up to be – it turned out to be another boring job that was just set in a different environment than my previous jobs. Working my way through the rest of college I still had no clue what I wanted to do afterwards with my engineering degree. But based on my previous work experiences and interacting with those who had full-time careers there, all I knew is that this was not the life I wanted for the next 40+ years.

Fortuitous & Life-Altering Financial Moment #1 – Conversation with a Coworker

Upon college graduation I accepted a job at the utility company (mostly due to the lack of other job offers in a poor economy). Fortunately, I had a life-changing discussion with a co-worker one day that altered my financial journey forever… He told me that he would be leaving the company soon to help his wife start her own restaurant. I was shocked because he must’ve been in his early-to-mid-40s at the time! He was able to do this because he had saved as much as he could into his 401k and loosely advised that I do the same. So in 2003, at the age of 23, and with no prior personal finance/investing knowledge I decided to take this advice from a stranger, immediately increased my contribution to my 401k, and unknowingly began my path to Financial Independence with the goal of retiring early…

Fortuitous & Life-Altering Financial Moment #2 – Rich Dad Poor Dad

Already disillusioned with work a couple years into my career, I briefly researched entrepreneurship and real estate as alternative career paths but neither really stood out to me. One day at work in early 2006 I overheard some co-workers my age discussing the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”. The concepts sounded interesting, so I decided to pick up a copy for myself and all I can say is that it blew my mind and fundamentally changed my view of money & investing forever! I learned that a W-2 paycheck alone wouldn’t lead to wealth creation, but instead the rich have assets that work for them to produce additional money. For anyone who has read “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, you already know that this book contains only broad, high-level concepts with no specific steps for implementation. With my curiosity piqued, I started my self-education in personal finance & investing with the most obvious set of books designed for a young newb such as myself: “Personal Finance for Dummies” and “Investing for Dummies”.

Making Changes & the Continuing Journey

Over the subsequent year (as I continued to educate myself), I slowly made changes to improve my financial situation such as opening a checking/savings account at a credit union, opening a taxable brokerage account, and diversifying the mutual fund allocation in my 401k (I had previously chosen funds based solely on past performance). My chosen method of investing was primarily the use of index funds – while I dabbled initially with picking individual stocks (huge thanks to Jim Cramer for this influence), I quickly came to the realization that I was no market wizard and I was fine with receiving market returns and letting compounding work its magic. I continued down my path to early retirement, hoping that with all this new knowledge I gained and changes I had made, I would be able to leave my job in my mid-to-late 50s and shave 10+ years off traditional retirement age.

For over a decade my investing life was fairly unchanged and rather uneventful while the stock market went through various major events and downturns such as the Housing Crisis/Great Recession, Brexit vote, Greek Debt Crisis, etc. Based on my initial research in 2006 and my own experiences over the subsequent years, I firmly believe that while the market can be volatile in the short-term, it tends to “always” rise over the long-term. I tuned out the noise and kept shoveling as much as I could into both retirement accounts and a taxable brokerage account.

And then came 2018, which presented another life-changing stage in my financial journey, because this is when I found the Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE) movement…

MORE OF THE JOURNEY TO COME IN PART 2…

Links/Resources

Reader Questions

What was your financial upbringing like? Growing up, was money discussed in your household? If so, was it in a positive or negative light?
How did you first learn about personal finance & investing? Were there any resources that you’ve found particularly helpful and would recommend to others?
Have you experienced any “Fortuitous & Life-Altering Financial Moments” of your own?

Leave your answers or comments below – or email us directly at info@epicfinancialjourney.com