[Demonpenz]

Originally Posted by lewdog

Hopefully others chime in. I don't want to look like a know-it-all and I myself am still a young investor (31). I do like talking about finances though and reading about it. I have done a lot of financial planning reading in the past few years. Learning about wealth building, retirement planning and investing. There's lots of decent forums where you can find information and for the most part, I think does a pretty good job of educating without someone trying to sell you something like seeing an adviser, plus the fees on top of that.

My parents were good role models in this. Able to retire fully at 57 years old in 2010 having never made a combined household income over $100k. They simply made consistent investments from their mid 20's on. Never sacrificing a years worth of savings for a "major" life event. I hear people use this reasoning all the time. Not saving for retirement to buy a new house, a new car. Taking years off investing when you're young loses you so much money in compounding interest by the time you hit retirement.

I don't solicit any financial advice to people in real life, like friends, unless they directly ask me a question about it. We have some friends who are terrible with money. Close to $100k of debt (that's also their yearly income), outside of a mortgage they barely afford. I just smile and nod when they talk about all their new purchases.

A recent example was our other close friends who asked my opinion on not contributing to retirement for 2 years to save up for redoing their kitchen and floors. Mind you their house is nice, but they didn't like the tile color or the kitchen setup. They are very open with us about finances and told me he contributes 10% of his salary to his 401k. He makes $120k, so he was contributing $12k per year. His wife doesn't work. They contribute to no other investment accounts outside of his 401k. I showed them that if they did not contribute that $24k to retirement over 2 years, that even with a modest 5% gain over 30 years, they'd have $100k less in retirement in 30 years just for missing those 2 years! They were shocked and decided cutting expenses was a better way to save. If more people understood compounding interest, with decades to continue investing, more young people wouldn't skimp on their contributions.

Its all good I just need to get a fire lit under my ass to get those accounts together.