Your book is exactly right. I liked the bottled water part, because once I figured out just what two bottles of water at $1.00 each costs you over your life time, and it was amazing. Add a candy bar to that. As a school teacher I had the opportunity to counsel other teachers badly in debt. Anyway, I have never had a credit card, paid cash for my cars, my house and all else.
In 1972 I decided to buy one house a year for ten years, hold them for ten years, and then sell one a year for ten years. I finished my plan in 2002 – five years after I had already retired. By 1980 I had enough money coming in (I was a low paid school teacher) to begin putting 10% before taxes into a Deferred Comp plan. The next year it was 15% and eventually, I figured out how to save 25% of my before tax income, which I did until the day I retired. We teachers have to go through retirement counseling and when I did, I brought in my savings, bank statements, stock accounts and most importantly the social security statement. When the lady doing the interview asked me why I thought I could retire early. I handed her first my SS statement which totaled all the money I had made in my life time. She wasn’t impressed. I then showed her my Deferred Comp total and she literally fell out of her chair. I had saved more money that I had earned in my entire lifetime. Ha! I really had fun at that interview.
