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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Treebore" data-source="post: 2365751" data-attributes="member: 10177">I have a wife and 3 kids. Been married the past 14.5 years and our first kid was born on our one year wedding anniversary.Finances sucked for the first 5 years, then I heard Dave Ramsey on the radio and realized he made sense. I/we didn't go to the extremes he suggested, but in 9 years we have reduced our debt by over $60,000.00 and increased our net worth from just above nothing to over $2.1 Million. Not with real estate either. Our income over the last 9 years has gone from $42,000.00 to a current $58,000.00. We are working on things right now that should raise that to between $84,000.00 to as high as $120,000.00 if it goes real well. BTW, all of my income is stated as AFTER taxes, it is actual take home.What have been our "tricks", like Eric said, buy only used cars, 4 years or older are usually best. Biggest trick of all, live as far below your means as you can stand it. We have lived well enough below our means to where we have been investing 30 to 40% of our income for the last 9 years.You want a get rich scheme? I just told you how to do it, free of charge. Lots of little tricks of living cheaply, but you can learn those on your own, besides they are heavily dependent on your personal situation. But anyone can do it this way, but it is not easy. Lots of sacrificing now for what you get later. Lots of telling yourself and your kids, "No, you can't have that." But it is paying off and will continue to do so for us. In fact, I was so in the mind set of "living like I am poor" I was freaking out about my wife being medically discharged from the Army. Then one of our fellow gamer buddies (meaning he frequents this board) called me and talked to me about finances. He started making me realize we have a LOT of net worth. So I have cashed in about $70,000 of it, found some great opportunities since then, and now I know we are going to be just fine.We are still fighting the BS the Army has pulled on my wife and hundreds of other disabled soldiers, but we now have two Senators helping us make the Army take care of their own, just like their very own regulations have said they should, which they have been blithely ignoring. Until now.Plus the Veterans Administration and Social Security look like they are going to take care of my wife like they should as well.Anyway, you can control your own life, and make yourself rich, but it isn't easy, it isn't quick, but it is possible. Plus you can do it with a wife and kids. In my case I don't know if I ever would have without them. They are what gave me my focus for the discipline that has been necessary, and my wife is the same way. Plus she has been the "genius" in our investments. I would have never used her investment strategies, and neither would any financial advisor I have talked to over the years. A very unorthodox approach, but with extremely high returns. An orthodox approach would have our net worth at about $200,000.00 right now.So a woman can make money a lot faster than she can spend it. But she has also been the reason we aren't worth substantially more than we already are. She does have a serious spending compulsion, but she does her best to fight it.So here we are, driving around a beat up 11 year old Explorer, living in military housing, own a home in Charleston, SC that is in a "not so good neighborhood", and own a 11 year old conversion Van. But our net worth is over $2.1 Million and growing because of it. Our "bills" are less than $1500/month plus the $1500 being eaten up by the military housing we are currently living in.So yes, you can do it. But it won't be easy by any means. Oh, and when you do become worth a lot, don't let your family know. They will run to your door and try to guilt you into helping them out through their financial hardships. Then when you refuse they quit talking to you for not giving them the help. In a few more years I'll be willing to help my parents and brothers, but my kids inheritance and my future financial security will happen first.Besides, they could have listened to me all these years and have done those all for themselves. I'm not going to shoot my portfolio down to help them out because we did what needed to be done and they didn't.So don't tell your family you have a lot of money until you have enough to help them out without seriously damaging or destroying your financial plan. They won't take it well when you tell them no.</blockquote>

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