Freed by 50

My whole life I wanted to be rich. I know, this puts me in a small subset of the population called “everybody,” but I always knew I was different. I was different for two reasons: 1) Even at a young age I was already trying to get rich, starting “businesses” and taking steps to put myself on a path to “money,” and 2) Everyone isn’t rich, which is to say, if everybody wants to be rich but isn’t, they must not be trying.

My family was never rich, but they pretended really hard. As a kid, I was unaware of this. I just thought we lived really well. Not quite as well as my really rich friends, but definitely better than the poor people I knew. Looking back now, the families that were truly wealthy definitely saw through the cracks. They knew what I didn’t. That under the veneer my family was pretending. Maybe that’s why my girlfriend’s dads didn’t welcome me with open arms. Also I was an asshole.

Despite my early attempts, it took me a long time to realize some important facts of finance. The first being the difference between rich and wealthy. I did manage to make more money than my friends. In elementary school there wasn’t even a competition. I was making money, my friends weren’t even trying. Every Saturday I’d have my mom drive me to 7-11 where I’d spend my allowance on candy. I hate candy. I’d bring it to school and over the course of the week I’d sell all the candy to my classmates for a 50% markup. Profit!

Later I discovered a cache of old sunglasses my father had tried to sell in a flea market years before. There were hundreds of them. I started selling them everywhere I went. School, parks, a stand in front of my parents house. This was a huge windfall because I didn’t even have to invest anything. The stock was free and the profits just kept coming. Compared to my friends, I was rich!

Only I spent every penny I earned. I can’t even remember any of the things I bought with that money. I just know I spent it all. Despite being the only person I knew turning a profit in elementary school, I entered junior high school with the same amount of money as everyone I knew…none.

When I started mowing the lawn I didn’t just mow my parents lawn, I banged on the neighbor’s doors and offered to mow their lawns too. This was no small task. We all lived on 3/4 acre lots and I just had a self-propelled walk-behind mower with a 24″ cut. This took me the better part of a day to do, but I’d make up to $80/week doing it. Of course if I had to guess where it all went I’d say to Sega Genesis or Sega CD games.

I started “real work” at 16. I was a camp counselor. Again, most people I knew didn’t start doing this kind of work for another year or two. I was ahead of the curve. There were other benefits too. The girls I worked with were all 18 and they had to hang out with me all day. I learned a lot that first year. In the five years I worked that summer job I also learned how to negotiate a pay raise. By the time I “retired” from being a counselor I was at top pay. Something none of my coworkers could boast. But alas, every penny went into my car or the till at the bar. The path to wealth continued to elude me.

The second thing I learned very early on is to chose your partners carefully. Back in my candy business days I brought on a “partner” named Ryan. Ryan was a huge jerk, but he was popular and we were passable friends. Ryan promised to kick in money. He never did. Ryan wanted half of the profits. Ryan gave away or ate the products. Ryan and I got in a fist fight at recess that landed us both in detention for a while. I never partnered with anyone on a venture again.

In college I made money however I could. I’d tried work/study programs but they were too intrusive to my free time and didn’t pay much of anything. My crowning achievement was probably finding a company that paid per click to surf the internet, linking all my roommates computers to my account, then creating a program to move the mouse around and click randomly while we all slept. This reliably earned us about $200/month and allowed us to throw free parties. I also fixed computers for half the price of the local shops, and helped people overcome a certain age issue college students tend to run into. I didn’t really want for money in college, but I also left penniless.

One thing I learned before college was to choose one’s career carefully and deliberately. I was always pretty good at most things whether I tried or not. I was good at math, a passable writer, I can work with my hands, I can hold my own in a debate, electronics and computers just make sense to me. What I’m saying is that I had options, but I wanted those options to lead me to being rich. So I narrowed it down to three choices: 1) Architect, 2) Lawyer, 3) computer guy (seriously this was 1996 I think the actual term was “computer guy”).

I chose lawyer. I set off for college with a declared major of “Pre-law,” which in freshman terms means taking a lot of history and politics classes. The summer after freshman year my parents had a very successful lawyer friend over for dinner to talk to me about my chosen path. He did nothing to dissuade me from becoming a lawyer, but told me a pre-law major was a waste of time. He pointed out my clear aptitude with computers, and said most lawyers know nothing about computers. He told me anyone can apply to law school with any undergraduate degree. He instructed me to get a computer science degree, and if there were no good prospects to go to law school. If anything, I could wind up being a lawyer with deep technical knowledge, which was something he said a firm like his might really need in the future. Funny enough, I never revisited law again.

I’m not one of those guys who graduated college, got a $200k/year programming job in Silicon Valley and started spouting about personal finance and retiring at 35. I didn’t even have my shit together, professionally or personally until about 32. I’ve documented here my career struggles and how I almost left my career path entirely. Despite my lifelong drive to be rich I ran into hurdles I wasn’t prepared to overcome and I churned for years, sometimes making huge mistakes, trying to find a path out. Life offered me shortcuts at least twice (that I’m aware of) where I’m fairly certain I could have chosen the marriage path to great wealth…and a lifetime of servitude to father’s in law who would have controlled my every move.

Instead I chose to do this myself (by myself I mean I give all credit to my wife). I’m about to turn 43, seven years from my goal of freedom. I’m a net worth millionaire with a phenomenal, high paying job. I save almost 60% of my income and still live a better than average lifestyle. I (and when I say I, I mean my wife) call the shots in my life and decide the direction. I’ve busted my ass from a single digit age until now to reach a goal of being “rich” and instead found myself wealthy. Soon I hope to be free.

Note: This was supposed to be a post about being offended by the “rich” people around me and instead the backstory section became an entire post in itself. Hopefully my next post will be on target.