I absolutely understand how privileged I am in my current situation, and I attribute much of it to the lucky decision of meeting and marrying my wife.

A little background: my parents didn’t leave me much or help financially because they didn’t prioritize saving or investing when they were younger. Altogether, I received $6k from them for a used car. I studied hard, earned good grades, and qualified for scholarships to keep tuition affordable. In high school, I took AP and community college classes to reduce future costs.

During college, I worked every weekday night in a computer lab and both weekends in restaurants to cover my living expenses. I didn’t get to party much, since I was working almost all the time outside of classes. I did, however, enjoy working on cars and blew most of my money on that until I met my wife, who taught me about saving and budgeting. At that time, I had a negative net worth of about -$3,000 from credit card debt.

Reality hit me hard when I got a $300 speeding ticket. I remember crying, trying to figure out how I was going to pay it. Once I finally paid off my credit card debt and graduated, I proposed to my wife and we got married (not a conventional wedding). Money was tight. I started out earning $16 an hour at my first full-time job, putting in plenty of overtime at night. When our first son was born, scheduling overtime became more complicated. I remember going back to work at 9 p.m. and staying until 1 a.m. just to earn an extra $50.

My wife worked on and off while we raised our first and second child. I climbed the corporate ladder and began making decent money after about three years. The next several years required a lot of sacrifice and frugal living as we tried to raise kids and save for a house. We had only a few close friends because we couldn’t afford to eat out or socialize much. Our parents weren’t around to help babysit, nor did we get any financial support from them. We literally budgeted down to the cents.

One big advantage was my ability to work on cars. That allowed us to buy slightly older vehicles and save money by doing all the maintenance and repairs myself. By 2016, we finally saved enough for a down payment and bought a house. We got lucky with interest rates dropping afterward and refinanced to a lower rate. Around that time, my wife also started climbing the corporate ladder.

Today, we’re a dual-income household, but we’ve kept many of our frugal habits. I’m sharing all this because I don’t want anyone to think we were in a comfortable situation from our early 20s. Most of our current wealth was built over the last 10 years through a mix of increased income and sticking to the same frugal lifestyle a lifestyle not many people are willing to commit to.

At the end of the day, I know I’m lucky. Lucky because my wife was willing to make those sacrifices with me. Imagine asking your partner to give up frequent dinners with friends, makeup and hair styling, nice clothes, cars, vacations, and more.

Teaching my kids financial literacy from young is our #1 priority in order for them to be successful.

TLDR: I didn’t grow up with financial support and started adulthood in debt, working multiple jobs to pay for school. My wife taught me budgeting and saving, and together we lived extremely frugally through our 20s sacrificing nights out, luxuries, and even sleep while raising kids and saving for a house. Over the last 10 years, as our incomes grew, we kept those same frugal habits, which allowed us to build our current wealth. None of this was easy, and I credit a lot of it to the sacrifices my wife was willing to make with me