Similar to probably many of your stories, my financial journey has been an interesting one, filled with ups and downs. I wanted to take a post and tell some of my own financial story. Perhaps it’ll inspire you, entertain you, or spark some ideas for things to try in your own life! I will say that I’m still writing my own personal finance story and although I’ve made lots of progress, there’s still plenty of room for improvement!

The young days

My parents instilled within me a sense of frugality. Growing up we always had more than enough, but they taught me to be thankful for what we had and not to be envious of others that had more. From a young age I was always looking for ways to make money and was pretty good at saving but ironically not great at spending. My father recalls a story in which I refused to break a large bill to get a soft-drink at the store. He could tell I was thirsty and called me out on my frugalness. Although I got an allowance, I was always scheming up ways to make more money and always had a side hustle going on, whether it was selling nicer pencils, hawking Tech Deck skateboards or tutoring when I was in middle school. It was during this time frame I feel that I learned the value of working hard for a dollar and the importance of saving.

My college days

I will say that I am truly blessed and thankful for my parents providing for my college education. They definitely sacrificed some of their own finances to help me get a degree without debt and it was a huge blessing to me. However, anything beyond college tuition and my dorm room was on me. Therefore I worked hard each summer, working 3 or so jobs 6 days a week to save up. I really wanted to focus on my studies and having fun (not always in that order) so I attempted to make enough during the summer to not have to work during the school year. It was in this stage of life that I learned the importance of budgeting, as I had a few thousand dollars that had to last me two semesters. I created a budget basically dividing that amount out and kept track of my weekly spending to make sure I was somewhat still on track. Most April’s/Mays saw me nearing zero pretty quickly but I did always manage to make it home ready to start working again.

My first post-college job

Despite applying for probably a hundred jobs, interviewing for probably 25, I only got 1 job offer out of college. It was working for a healthcare revenue cycle consulting firm and I was slated to be an associate, making a decent associate wage. I certainly wasn’t making as much as some of my peers, but I was making a respectable amount as a young professional. Fun side story – the job didn’t start until January (I graduated in May) and I ended up working part-time that fall for an online retailer or army/navy/survival/tactical surplus. I learned a lot about online retailing and bought way too much stuff before I left. That January, I packed up my things and moved to Atlanta. I was pretty broke at this point; maybe having a few hundred dollars after having put down the deposit, rented an apartment and moved everything down in a U-Haul. Although seemingly broke, I thankfully was still debt-free and was excited to start my career as a young professional.

The first few years saw me slowly trying to build up my financial standing. Unlike my peers, I didn’t go out and buy a brand new Mustang or Camaro (true stories) and didn’t eat out every meal on the weekend. I tried not to take too many fancy trips and focused on balancing enjoying life while building my savings. I started out by contributing 2% to my company’s retirement plan, just enough to get the match. I first focused on building up an emergency fund ($1,000…then up to 3 months expenses) and building up my savings account (two different things). Once at a more stable level where I felt like I could weather a setback, I started contributing more to my retirement account, slowly building it higher and higher. It was a year or so after starting that Mrs. Money Finance and I got serious and I made the move to buy a ring. Thankfully this first job came with a signing bonus that really helped out. I was able to set that aside while I saved up for my general savings.

Real life happens

I ended up staying at my first real job for almost 4 years. It was a stable job that I got about a 10% raise each year. With each raise I increased my retirement account contributions, eventually making it to 13% (and then the company matched 2%, bringing me to 15% which is the recommended amount). I continued building up my general savings and allocating some of that money to buy a house. My investments outside of retirement were minimal, with maybe a few hundred dollars of “mad money” in some stocks. I kept myself debt free and paid off my credit cards each month. I drove my paid for Jeep Cherokee until it got stolen, which was an interesting learning experience in and of itself. After the Jeep I ended up leasing an electric car as Georgia was giving away an insane tax credit to do so. During that time I kept saving and eventually paid cash for my current car. During that phase of life, Mrs. Money Finance and I were serious about getting her student loans paid for. It was a goal of ours and we came up with a plan to pay it down. I think we paid about $1,000 each month, trying to hammer away as fast as we could. Some large wedding gifts really helped out too, and although we spent some of that amount on vacations, we tried to be diligent and put most of it to her (our…#marriage) debt. Towards the end of those 4 years, we pulled the trigger and bought a house. In between paying down debt, we were also aggressively saving for a down payment. We definitely had a lot of fun during that time and had a social life, but it was much more contained and focused. We’d skip dinner and just do drinks, share entrees and say ‘no’ to long weekend trips to the beach or seeing movies. We were motivated with our plan to get out of debt and buy a house and weren’t going to be distracted by it!

The jump to a better job and grad school

After about 4 years at my first company, I was sensing that growth opportunities were decreasing. As with most companies, it’s a pyramid which means there’s less room nearer to the top. Although I was a good worker, they had their favorites and those folk were slotted for the next level. I saw the writing on the wall about a year before it really would have been obvious and I decided not to take a chance there and instead start looking elsewhere. I ended up getting a job in healthcare IT where I still currently work on implementations. It was a huge blessing with a promotion and a nice pay raise. I’ve continued getting annual raises (although not 10% like my first job) and get an annual bonus. I straight away kept contributing 15% to my retirement, and took advantage of the employee stock purchase program and currently contribute 8%. Those of you keeping score at home will realize that means I stock away 23% of my salary before it even hits my paycheck. It’s certainly aggressive but I feel like I’m in a stage of life where I feel that I need to be aggressive with my savings and investing. Mrs. Money and I are still DINKing it (dual income no kids) and so we’re trying to save all we can for right now. We’re still debt free (aside from the house) and are focused on building our savings. Mrs. Money always knew she wanted to get a masters degree in education but in true YMF form, wanted to build up some savings and pay off her current student loans before jumping back into school again. She’s currently 1 semester into a 2 year degree and is enjoying it. Thankfully she vocalized this desire a long time ago, and we’ve been squirreling away money preparing. We’ve cut back on extra mortgage payments and extra saving for the time being, and are focused on having her go to school debt free. Even better is the fact that her employer pays about 60% of her tuition costs, which is so incredibly helpful. All she has to do is get A’s and B’s and then gets reimbursed 60%.

Where we are now and where we’re heading

I like to think we’ve made a lot of financial progress in our nearly 5 years of marriage (wow, my relationship with this blog is longer than my marriage…#commitment). We paid off her student loan debt, paid cash for both our cars, bought a house (the bank owns most of it) and are putting her through grad school. I’m saving 15% for retirement and I think she’s at 14% (we hope to bump it up with her next raise). It was definitely hard work getting to this point. Lots of saying “no” to things not in the budget, lots of nights watching Netflix, lots of trying to stay off social media as to not be envious of our peers. Mrs. Money and I agreed upon our goal early on – that we wanted to be financially stable and have a good financial base for our marriage. In theory we’d like to retire early and be able to pass along financial blessing as our parents did for us to any kids that we may have in the future. We’ve gotten to a point where we can say “no” less and do more social things which is certainly nice.

We’ve made a ton of progress and we’re certainly not hitting the brakes anytime soon moving forward. We plan to continue saving and investing the bulk of our income for as long as we can. Mrs. Money has most of her grad school ahead of her, and that’ll require us to keep saving to pay for that. Thankfully our cars are in good shape, but we’re still saving up in our car fund for future cars. Our retirement contributions are almost where they should be, and we’ll bump Mrs. Money’s contributions when she gets her annual raise later this year.

It’s been an incredible journey so far, definitely with some setbacks but we’ve been blessed with good jobs and a good budget to help keep us on track. We know where we’re going financially and continue to make the best of all we have!

How about you? How have your finances changed in different stages of your life? What goals have you accomplished and what goals are you looking to still achieve?