As I reflect on my journey thus far, I felt I got really lucky, even though I am sure I worked very very hard compared to most as well. Without that luck, things would had turned vastly different.
One of the fortunate thing that I had was marriage + money
My wife and I, so far, had never encountered money problems since we started working and then got married. Now, let me explain.
There are many roots of money problems.
First will be your family, i.e. your parents and siblings if you have any.
We were lucky. There were no money problems originated from either side of our parents and siblings, so far. This itself is already very lucky. There are so many people who were tied down by money issues created or faced by their parents and siblings. These are blood ties, you can't just walk away and live your materially comfortable life and let your parents and siblings suffer, at least when you were still young. Now, at some point in time, if you had helped enough and these folks continue to not pick up themselves, you have to decide. Anyway, we didn't have such problems. Our parents were prudent, responsible and likely resolved things on their own to avoid spilling over to us. Thank you all for that. Our siblings, that's the wild card. But once they are all full grown ass adults, they should take own responsibility, so I am pretty sure me and my wife are in that phase already lol. We are that old hahaha. As for nieces and nephews, those are quite distanced as in we should not be responsible for their money issues.
Now that we have a solid base to start our life, the next luck we have are alignment of expectations of lifestyle. Both me and wife definitely enjoy finer things in life. We have our share of loving luxury and branded items, expensive things etc, but we know our limits and we never over stretch and got into card debts. We both don't wear hats too big for our heads.
Next, we got lucky in our careers, as in, we mostly were gainfully employed since we graduated. That long streak of salary coming in every month helped a lot. It provides a solid base for wealth building and living our lives as we expand our family.
I firmly believe that this luck streak ( and I can only hope it will continue, but the past streak has already allowed us to be prepared for future) , plays a huge part in our marriage happiness. We never worry about money so far, and that meant, we don't argue over it. It's just usual nagging by uncle (me!) to wifey to try save more for retirement. Nothing contentious, nothing hurtful. I believe many marriages broke down due to money issues. It can create trust issues, constant stress and anxiety. Then it affects the children.
Oh yes, children. A financially stable (not necessarily well off) family provides a solid bedrock for children to grow up and learn. I believe we gave our kids all the support they need to grow up and learn. In fact, we have to introduce some scarcity to ensure they stay grounded, vs giving them whatever they want (not that we can really do that lol). But you get what I meant. Our resources allowed our kids to either grow up spoilt and entitled, or money smart and respectful. We want the better outcome. It's a happy problem.
I think I mentioned this in some older post...our goal is to stop burdening our kids as we grow old, financially. Meaning, we will be financially independent and do not need our adult children to pay for our expenses. I want us to be the last sandwiched generation.
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