A Journey from Living Paycheck-to-Paycheck to Affluence

Who We Are

Hi there. We are a middle-class family of four. There's me (the wife), my husband, our son (10) and our daughter (7). My husband is an automotive diagnostic and repair technician (aka specialist grease monkey at a dealership), and I am a stay-at-home mom who carpools and does after-school care for a couple of friends' kids. My hubby and I are around 38 years old. I have no certified higher education, and he of course has trade school education. 

I have found that many of the people I talk to have the same problem as we do, which is that we live paycheck to paycheck, usually paying the current month's bills with the current month's paychecks, which invariably leads to us being either barely current, or even sometimes slightly behind. Maybe I'm hanging around with the wrong people...nah. But I do need to start associating with some other people too, ones who actually know what they are doing and are not in the same boat as us, ones whom we can learn from. 

I forgot how, but I stumbled upon a blog called Mr Money Mustache and he has opened my eyes to the fact that what I'm doing really isn't working and if I ever want to get my husband off the treadmill/rat race of working for others for way too many hours a week, we both need a "punch-in-the-face" reality check (MMM's signature phrase, LOL!). So this is our journey. One of a standard American family with two kids, barely making it on one income, and our plans and actions to dig out of this hole, by saving, shoring up our earnings, and investing for retirement. Maybe even early retirement, like MMM did! His core audience tends to be those who make 75K or more a year and who waste a lot of money on lattes and SUV's, but we make way less. I thought it would be interesting to document our path. I don't want this intro to be too long so I'll get into specifics on what we make and what we spend in another post. And what our current plan is to take the first step on the first rung of the ladder up.

Anyhow, glad to meet you, and Welcome!! Please post your own intro in the comments!