One thing that I learned, albeit at a later age is that if you put something, anything aside and don't touch it, it will grow.  That could be $5 or $10 per week or whatever.  I'm one of those people that will pick pennies or other change up off of the sidewalk and put them in my pocket.  Change goes into a jar, and when the jar gets full it goes to the bank and gets deposited.  I first started out with a simple savings account.  When that account grew enough I invested in a couple of "short term" CD's (5 years).  When the CD's matured, I had enough money to open up a Money Market account that earned a bit more interest than a simple checking account, and that's where those pennies and change still goes to this day.

 

I took a portion of my Money Market account and invested it (after consulting with a financial adviser) in the mid-to-late 90's.  In the meantime I continued to save money in both a regular savings account as well as my Money Market account.  At a certain point, my financial adviser convinced me to either "cash out" or get out of the stock market and look for a safer way to invest the money that I earned.  I opted to "cash out" what I earned in the market, and after paying my taxes I put the money right back into my Money Market account (where it still sits today for the most part).

 

I did all of this as an enlisted man in The Navy and got out shortly after selling my stocks.  I have since held a few different jobs working for companies that offered a 401k plan and even matched some of my contribution (as little as no match to as much as 4%).  At each company I contributed a minimum of 6% of my income and now do 10% of my income (before taxes).

 

I now have a pretty good nest egg for my retirement which is approaching faster than I would really like.  In the meantime, if something should happen catastrophic be it health issues, loss of job, etc. I have plenty of cash on hand to get me and my wife through it (our children are grown up and moved out of the house).  We don't have to depend on IF social security is going to be there for us when we retire.

 

In the meantime, we started to get sucked into the "easy credit" trap.  I remember my wife actually breaking down into tears when I cut up our JCPenny's, Sears, Chevron and other credit cards that we had acquired.

 

Now I'm not going to sit here and say that we are "wealthy" by any means financially.  However, my wife and I made choices, disciplined ourselves and put ourselves in a position to be able to retire comfortably.

 

I started doing this when I was a young enlisted man in the military around 1994 or so.  Look up what my income was back then.

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