Reply #51: Being poor was one of the best things that ever happened to me

[FreeJoe]

I was raised by a fairly prosperous upper middle class family. I think my father earned an upper middle class income, but we lived much leaner because he grew up in the depression.

When I got out of college, I was not particularly driven. I frittered away several years during which I moved out on my own and slowly watched my capital base disappear. I earned a small, irregular income. It seemed to be enough at first, but then stuff started to go wrong. My car broke down and I put the repairs on my credit card. I charged a bit more than I made. I didn't feel like I was going crazy buying stuff, but I always bought a bit more than I brought in. After a couple of years, I realized that I had dug myself a nasty hole. I spent the next several years climbing out. That experience - practically not dating, no eating out, no car (in a non-transit friendly city), often buying food based on calories per dollar - changed my perspective. Now I feel very fortunate to have learned my lesson in my mid 20s and have benefited from it ever since.

I learned a lot from those years. I learned that a lot of stuff that people think is important isn't. I learned how important it was to save money for emergencies. I learned a lot of self discipline. I wouldn't want to repeat those years, but I think they were at least as important to my later successes as were my years in college.