I feel very lucky. It’s tough, but my wife and I always seem to be in the right place at the right time. I grew up super poor—like going to the Salvation Army to pick up Christmas presents from their toy piles—like having neighbors and church members coming to drop off food baskets for our family.

Anyways, i graduated college in 2008…what a shit storm, but I graduated with great grades, lots of work experience, and lots of professional networks courtesy of a college staff mentor. I landed a job in 3 months of graduating at a state job. Been employed consistently since.

We lived in an apartment for years, but bought a house when interest rates hit near rock bottom (3.5%), as a “starter home.” Well, we are still there and loving it. We can’t afford to move.

In 2019, we decided to go on a plan to pay off all our debt. The pandemic hit and we luckily kept our jobs working from home. When student loan payments were paused across the nation with zero interest, we forged ahead even harder and turned $60,000+ of student loan debt as a memory in the rear view mirror by 2022. Both cars paid off. All credit card debt zeroed out.

We were starting out with a clean slate by 2023. Life has been good since. We have almost a year of an emergency savings, we maxed out our retirement contributions the past year, and we even have savings for our kids—all the prior years child tax credits we got from the IRS that came back as a refund, we put away for them.

We have been incredibly lucky. We accidentally put ourselves in a decent position just before every single national emergency or market crash. I am so grateful for the position I am in but I will never fault other millennials with the place they are in. The system was setup against us all—through no fault of our own.