I'm 56 and Mrs. Irish is 54. We started dating about 10 years ago and we got married 9 years ago. When married we both had good jobs, but she had a townhouse that she was upside down in and we couldn't sell it so she let the bank have it. We both had debt. I was paying $1000 a month in alimony (Long story) She didn't get child support. We had 3 teenagers living with us and a 9 year old in a blended family. We had virtually no savings or retirement.
Fast forward to now and we have built up our 401k plans to about 1/4 of a million, we have a nice savings for emergencies, we have beach property and mountain property that are both paid for and we are in the process of building our mountain retirement home and paying for it as we go along with no debt.
We currently each put 14% of each paycheck before tax into our 401k plans and that number goes up 1% or more per year depending on what kind of raise we get.
If the Lord keeps blessing me and I am fortunate to keep my current job I plan on retiring in 9 years at 65. I do have a pension that I am vested in but it's not enough to live off of, but that combined with my S.S., a little each month from the 401k and I plan on doing some handyman stuff on other folks cabins for something to do and a little extra spending money we should be alright.
My point is this: Even though it may seem difficult and next to impossible to overcome your current set of circumstance, it is possible. You have to focus and set your priorities. I drive used vehicles that I buy cheap, fix up, take good care of and when I sell them I usually either break even or actually make money off of them. Irish Jr. has been driving a 1999 Mazda Protege for the last 2 years that we bought for $2500. Mrs. Irish put 250k miles on her 2003 GMC Envoy before we sold it to our oldest son for $3500 and then we actually splurged on a new Mazda CX-5 for her, but she will drive that car until the wheels fall off. It is the only depreciating asset that we have purchased since we got married.
Our house is furnished with unique finds that we bought a yard sales, and it looks damn good. We take inexpensive vacations, and stay in quirky, locally owned, but nice and clean places. We bring our own food and cook when we go to the beach. We take our lunches almost every day to work. So does Irish Jr. When we do go out to eat, we like to go to places that have great food, but reasonable prices.
We love comfortably, but we also live frugally and we put as much as possible in our long term savings. We've never bought a new boat, new motorcycle, new 4 wheeler, only one car, and that car was only $20k.
