Best Financial decision of your life (pension, state, retired, years)

[harpreetwalia]

Hi,
This is a general question which I always wanted to ask for people who have retired or have enough to retire.

What was the best or worse financial decision you took in your life which eventually helped your retirement?

This is more like a lesson for someone like me who is looking as to what are few financial things needs to be done which will decide our retirement.

TIA

[arwenmark]

Buying the retirement house we now live in five years ahead of time. I knew we would not be able to afford to stay in your family home or anywhere in that area. So I looked for and found a suitable but cheap house in a lower cost of living area. I started looking and did find it Five years before my husband was forced to retire do to Parkinson's disease.
If I had not done that we would now be living under a bridge somewhere. Or more likely not living at all.

[NYgal1542]

Accepting my retirement situation as it is, not as I had hoped it would be. That has been a wonderful blessing.

[aslowdodge]

At my age I didn’t have time to invest in the market to have enough for retirement plus my employment was not going well to even add to my retirement accounts.
I pulled my money out of the market and and invested in rentals. In the end it took about 4 years of doing this to double my net worth and generate a cash flow that exceeded my income and actually retire early.
At the same time I moved to a lower col area which made that cash flow go even farther so it was actually a total financial reversal for me.

[TroutDude]

Amortizing my mortgage over 20 years and paying weekly. As a result, without any extra payments, it was discharged in 12 years.

[bgrasser]

After owning my own businesses for many years; RE, laundromat/dry cleaners, flower/gift shop, and electrical contracting, in my late thirties my wife/partner and I sold/dissolved all business holdings including RE except our primary residence, after a 6 month breather I got my tool bag together and joined a trade Union,
which provided me a living wage, great healthcare, along with a fine retirement.

[brightdoglover]

Getting my RN and a stable job with a pension and slogging through at the pension job since age 48. A great institution but hard work. Choosing the pension was the smartest thing I did.

[Rachel976]

Buying a stock that had been unfairly punished in the recession. It was worth 30x the purchase price a few years later, equivalent to about three years' salary. Best stock pick of my life, which I attribute to 40% good research and 60% great luck.

[fallstaff]

I can't really decide which of these would be the Best. I guess they're tied?

1) Staying in the Air Force for 20 years. Steady job. Medical bennies. A small-but-at- least-I have-one pension.

2) Throwing almost every nickle I had into the stock market in 1985

I would also include, perhaps, as a force-multiplier, what NYgal1542 said. It's easy to get greedy and want more. And if you feel like you've been screwed you probably have been. But I've always found it useful to maintain a realistic perspective.

Fav quote: There is no dignity quite so impressive and no independence quite so important as living within your means

[loves2read]

I used some money from an IRA to buy extra years in my teacher retirement system--bringing my total retirement years to 20==
Part of those were transferred from a job working for the state
But buying the extra 3 yrs really boosted my retirement which I took early because of a change in SS regulations
I worked half a day as casual labor for the Dallas ISD which pays into SSA and into the TX teacher Retirment system--
In effect the $50 I earned that half day "capped" my teacher Retirment money and meant I don't lose about 2/3 of my spousal SS....
That was a two-fer I guess--not just one thing...

It would have been better if I could have retired from the Texas employee's system but couldn't...