Hi, from a 55 yr old wife, with a 57 yr old husband, of almost 33 years.
We live in Ohio, in farm country. I'm the country gal, learned frugal-ness at birth from my parents, married to the city guy, whose parents never heard the word frugal. He moved out here and more or less became countrified and frugal-fied.
We bought a house that no one even looked at when it was listed, a year before we were married. We put in a new heat system, new wiring, new plumbing, the list goes on, and never hired anyone until we added on, and then it was just the shell. We did the rest. My dad was a field tile contractor, we even put in a new septic system and tiled the yard ( for drainage - around here it's necessary)
We bought our house, on an acre, for 45,000, the mortgage was for 35,000 in 1980. The mortgage was at 12%!!!! So when we had enough money saved to refinance, we figured what the heck and we just paid it off in 1989.
Not bad for 2 college-degree-less blue collar kids who started with 0!
I became a SAHM when our first, of 3, was born, with the plan to go back to work when they were bigger. My husband moved up in his job to a point that it was a smarter decision for me to not work. He talks about retiring when he's 62 but I know he won't even consider retiring before then. Up until last year we had to have his health insurance at work because our daughter has a health situation that no ins company would touch her and his employer has included children up to their 26th birthday for the last 15 years. Now she gets insurance through college and with Obamacare now, I think she'll be ok.
The money we invested when we were younger is now paying off, last year the investments value grew to twice what his income was. I think he likes his job though, where they have him now is worthy of his intelligence imo.
Love reading the posts and thankful I was allowed to join