May 17th 2007, I retired at age fifty. Health reasons? Absolutely not. I never had ONE sick day in my entire 35 year career. I am a millionaire. I paid myself first. Know what? I have IRA savings equal to my life earnings. (The Secret? Compounding).

I agree with David Bach’s pay yourself first concept. Budgets are not the way. Yuck. No fun. My spouse and I just agreed on a split of the expenses, he had his money, I have mine and we live well within our means and enjoy life.

I went to the library today to research some books on investing and find David Bach’s DVD Pay Yourself First and come home to find him on TV.
I can tell you the pay yourself concept works. I did it. On very limited income.

How did I do it? Started saving early. One of my friends in college was a doctor\’s son. He got me interested in Gradison Cash Reserves. Then, as an employee I put money in GMAC demand notes. When I had enough to diversify, I began with GE stock and some mutual funds.

Always put the maximum into 401K plans and got the employer match. Always rolled over to IRA when left employment. For many years I saved about 33% of my income. Yet I had enough cash so I never bothered to balance my checkbook. Last year I set up to contribute $20,000 maximum in 401K as well as $5,000 maximum in Roth IRA. We never paid interest, we earned it.

We paid cash for our retirement home (on private airport), cash for both car/truck.

So David Bach, now that I am a MILLIONAIRE..that was very EASY…

Central Florida