The Climb- maybe not Everest but no doubt a mountain

I realized late in life what finances were all about. I believe it was around the age of 27 that all life's past lessons from my parents really clicked. Luckily for my wife, Laura, and myself it was not too late. Let me say that neither my wife nor I was completely financially ignorant. We had purchased a condo and had very good credit (scores over 720). Unfortunately, we also had lots of debt: student loans, car loan, about $60,000 in credit card debt and a mortgage of $134,500. All told we were close to $250,000 in debt with very limited assets and no real savings or retirement accounts. Over the course of the next decade, we managed to rid ourselves of every debt except our mortgage while building my wife's 401k balance to over $100,000. My proudest day (financially) was the day we paid off the mortgage on our condo, July 27th 2010. We were completely debt free and both my wife and I were turning 40 that summer. We went out to dinner at "The Keg" about a week later relishing what we had accomplished. Our conversation included remembering that one point in time when the amount of debt seemed overwhelming we were thinking of declaring bankruptcy but we choose to instead work hard, save and pay down over $250,000 in debt. What a feeling of accomplishment. I knew all the tricks of whittling down 10 credit cards with balances to zero. Kinda of like playing the shell game from time to time but working the special offers that credit cards would send once balances were paid down by $1,000 or $2,000. Taking advantage of zero percent interest rates and moving balances to take advantage of those 6-9 month offers. I believe it was not later than our dinner arrived that it hit me that we still had a mountain to climb financially though because in essence we were at zero debt but also had no savings to speak of other than my wife's 401k. Do not get me wrong our condo was worth $220,000 due to market apprciation from 13 yrs of owning it even though the great recession had already taken punished real estate values. Now we needed to build up an emergency savings of around $10,000 as earlier savings of $2-3,000 had proven very useful in the past. We still needed to save for college because we grew our family by two kids over those 10 yrs. New saving was needed for cars since both of ours were 1998 models (honda, acura). We had grown accustomed with purchasing major items with cash and wanted to do the same for our cars. Our home would need newer appliances at some point. We even desired a newer home as our 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1100 sqr ft condo was feeling cramped and the kids already had bunk beds. Tripping over toys was commonplace. Lastly, retirement savings. Everyone goes through struggles and struggles with finances just makes everything feel that much more difficult. I learned early in my marriage that financial problems caused lots of relationships to sour and I did not want that to happen with Laura and I. Overall, we learned more over the years than we initially wanted to about finances but both of us have also incorporated finances and our understanding into our occupations. My wife, Laura, has become and expert at putting together financial plans for clothing retail businesses and driving product to profit attaining levels. She already knew the clothing retail business very well but having the skills to understand financial statements and identify the items that needed to be focused on improved as we worked on our family financial statement every two weeks. I have always believed that cash and positive cash flow allows the ability to recover from financial mistakes. I always looked at our budget in a way to see where the available funds could make the most impact and I still do to this day. I change careers from the health care field to the financial field. My mom is a physical therapist and a very good one at that. I grew up with and understanding of sports injuries and treatments. I used this knowledge to become a personal trainer and exercise physiologist in physical therapy clinics. I had lots of fun helping people but always knew that career path required long hours and usually working two jobs all the time. After a few years, I just wanted to learn more about business and finance. I probably was more persuaded by all the business managers getting huge stock bonuses back in the mid 1990's than anything else. So I decided to switch careers to banking. I worked as a teller for Redmond National Bank (we had only two branches, both in Redmond,WA). One thing a small community bank does is teach you a ton about the banking system. Lucky for my both the CEO and CFO were also very good teachers in explaining how banks working. As a teller, I not only learned about cashing checks, maintaining a balance register, but also about audits, fed fund borrowing and the how and why Certificate of Deposit (CD) promotions were needed and run. I learned about the lending side with Key Bank. A few years later I became a licensed financial professional with my Series 7 and 66. I put in time early as a financial professional with American Express and decide after a very short time that it was not for a new person to the industry like myself. I loved working for Banc of America Investment Securities taking calls as trader/customer service rep until they moved the call center out of Seattle. I had an intersting experience at ShareBuilder but ING Direct purchased the company soon after I arrived and made a mockery out of the business. Pacific West Securities employed my services last and aided in my understanding of independent financial services business. The founding family closed the Pacific West Securities in 2012 due to the changing business enviroment (not good for independents). After a variety of investment industry experiences, a person comes away with a very good understanding of the different types of businesses. Over the past year with my wife's blessing, I have started a non-profit organization called Building America's Foundation. If you have a few spare moments of time, I would encourage anyone to check it out. While this post is very lengthy, I hope each person that reads it will come away with a better understanding of where I am coming from and understand more about what has shaped my views. Ultimately, building wealth takes time, patience, determination, a learning from one's experiences and ,of course, a dedication to live within their means (on a budget if necessary). My wife and I created our first budget back in our college day when we moved in together. Today, we review our budget every two weeks (payday) and maybe even more often. If you have ever seen "What about Bob?", all it takes is baby steps and you can achieve great things. Till my next post- take care, Todd Schuerman