LOU'S TIP: "Tomorrow" is the Enemy of Financial Freedom

Every journey begins with the first step - including your financial one.  Procrastination is a barrier to your journey - and hence to your financial success.  How do you eat a "financial elephant"?  Answer: One bite at a time - starting today!!!

Debbie (my wife) and I didn’t “seriously” start on our financial journey until we were both 42 years old.  Why 42?  I retired from the United States Air Force on my 42nd birthday (September 30th 1996).  Up until that point, neither of us were serious about “investing in our future”.   Why – you ask?

Simple.  We felt like we were too young to think about retirement.  After all – we were only 42 years old.  Only “old” people retire.  We weren’t “old”.  “Retirement” was way out there in our future.  Besides, I was a retired Lieutenant Colonel (with a pension) and Debbie was a teacher (with a 403B and a future pension).  Why would we need to worry about investing in our financial future?  Our pensions would take care of that – right?

Thanks to both Debbie and me being Libras (i.e. – “balanced”), we knew our financial future was in our hands – not the Government’s.   By “Government” – I mean “Social Security”.

So, there we were, age 42, with “almost” nothing to show for all those years (at least financially).  What had we done as a couple to ensure our financial freedom?

To be honest – very little.  Our biggest plus was – we were both disciplined.  We never lived beyond our means.  Debbie was a “stay at home mom” for the first 20 years of our marriage.   We lived on my military salary for those 20 years.  

We finally wised up back in 1992 and contacted a professional financial advisor.  He set us up on the right track to secure our financial freedom.  So, here we are 29 years later; both retired and enjoying our financial freedom.  How’d we do it?  By eating that “financial elephant” one bite at a time – with the help of our advisor…