I was born in NYC. I was educated in NYC and New England (on full scholarships). My family was "lower middle class" (euphemism for "poor but proud") and the emphasis was on the future through ME -- MY education (too late for my parents), etc. My parents were thrifty (to put it mildly) and terrified of the stock market -- every nickel they saved went into bank savings accounts. Even so, they saved enough so they had a better life in retirement (in terms of material things) than they had during their working years. It was impossible for me to not notice the phenomenal power of accumulating savings a little bit at a time, and also the importance of having financial resources when you really needed it ...More (and couldn't just go back to work and earn more). In other words, I learned from their example. I opened an IRA as soon as IRAs existed (1974), even though I didn't make enough at the time to qualify for "putting in the max" -- the IRA rules have changed a lot since then). Every little bit counted. I didn't start investing in stocks until I had accumulated enough in CDs and government bonds to make me feel comfortable about the possibility of losing money. I'm now retired and primarily dependent on bond interest and stock dividends for my retirement income. I'm a "buy and hold" kind of person and not at all a gambler by nature, although I have "enough" now to take a few calculated risks every now and then. My most recent risk-taking was to put about two percent of my holdings into ten different "cloud computing" companies (more than half of them "big" players, a few of which actually pay decent dividends).
incredulousinboyntonbeach