Thanks LeeAnne! You’re definitely right – the light comes on at different ages for different people. It took me awhile. I haven’t always had the closest relationship with my dad and we don’t always see eye to eye on things but the more I started down the path to FIRE the more we connected. MMM and later BAS were the kicks in the butt I needed, I think because they were a different way of looking at this stuff that I responded to – less of “this is the correct adult thing to do” and more to a rebellious “stick it to the man” way of thinking that’s more likely to get excited about this stuff. I’m glad you liked the post and thanks for reading! I’m honored J Money allowed me to share it on here.

Thanks Liberty! I’m now trying to pass this on to my niece and nephew, hopefully leading by example. My dad’s lessons stuck in there somewhere, but it took reading MMM and BAS and others to reconnect me to them. But the core was there, thanks to the now happily retired old man haha

Nice! Yeah, the funny thing is I do wear shoes like that now – my sister works for an online shoe company based here in IceTown so I get crazy good deals. I got a pair of Nikes for $20!

Haha… I remember those days too :)

Except for me it was Payless shoes! I had to beg my parents to get me Nikes even if they were the cheapest most basic model they could find, and boy did they sure find those haha… Best $29.99 they ever spent in those days, at least to my 6th grade self ;)

Suz: Your dad sounds amazing!! Especially that hobby of his ;)

That’s awesome Suz! Thanks so much! It’s funny to me that FIRE is what brought me back to some of the things he tried to teach me when I was young. FIRE wasn’t too hard for me when I found it because a lot of the values were there already, because of the old man (but I wasn’t saving much).

A story that always stuck out early on involved sneakers — it was the late 80s and all the kids had Nike Airs or fancy reeboks or whatnot – and I had Kmart shoes. Kids want to fit in, and with some Christmas money in hand I was determined to buy some of these overpriced shoes. My frugal dad thought it was ridiculous but took me to a mall store to buy them.

I found the pair I wanted, and my dad said “OK, this is your money, and if you want to buy them, you can. But first we’re going to take care of these other errands and you’re going to think about it before we come back.” Duh, of course I was going to buy the shoes, right? Nope. By the time I got back, I realized it was kind of silly to spend that much on shoes. My mom and grandma thought my dad told me no, but I insisted it was my decision. That one has always stuck with me; I almost never buy anything on a whim, and definitely not since I started on FIRE.

And. Side bar: I also credit my father for my love of coins and paper currency. We accompanied him on numerous trips to coin shows growing up. I was the only child who carried that obsession into adulthood. :)