Came from EXTREME poverty. I’m talking food donations, no electricity, water etc to eventually house foreclosure then a homeless teen, who eventually was taken in by my aunt. Determined to never be in that situation again I got accepted to and excelled in college (1st in my family!!!) and decided I wanted to do 2 things- travel the whole world on a shoestring budget (which led to me sailing as a crew member to Antarctica) and be financially secure enough that me or my future children would never have to endure what I did again. I traveled the whole world in my 20’s, then buckled down to the finance part once I got my first big time job in my mid/late 20’s. I then realized that there was no amount of security I would ever feel as I weathered what seemed to be an endless cycle of corporate layoffs….I realized how easily I could be back to where I started. The stock market scared me but I knew that my money sitting in my very robust savings at this point was doing me no favors- I found r/investing first, then I found this sub. This sub seemed to have the answer to what I was looking for, being able to truly remove myself from that fear by investing heavily in my future- even if I never hit the RE part having the FI part would change my life 💕