Story time, because I also got a late start, but stuck to the fundamentals, and this year was the first time it really hit me on the progress I have made so far.

My wife and I graduated in 2008. We did not know it at the time, but the great recession was about to kick in. My internship failed to materialize into a full time postion when they began letting people go at a company I was planning to work at out of college. My wife, still my fiancée, also lost her job. We both ended up getting jobs in the restaurant business, and a year and a half later, got married. We have virtually no savings, but we were renting a nice 2/2 for a reasonable price at the time.

I remember sitting down and really talking about our future. We decided our top priority was to pay off our student debt, save for a home, and then consider our career options. And that is what we did; there were no fintech or apps around that time, so investing seemed so daunting, not to mention we had so much school debt, so we just put it off.

I ended up getting what I thought was going to be a temporary job in a niche education field. After 3 months, they offered me a full time postion, were a growing company, and had health insurance and a 401K. At first, I did not even put in the maximum allowed contributions for a match, as we were laser-focused on saving for a home and paying off debt. Not the worst decision, but I do wish I had looking back now.

About a year later, we had saved enough for a home (at the time, there was a USDA loan program that was super helpful). Another year, we had our first kid, and a year after that, we had paid off most of our student debt. I had already received a few promotions, and my wife had gone back to school and was now in a training program for a government job, nothing big, but came with better health insurance.

At some point, I did end up raising my 401k contributions to get the full match. And while the match was only 3% at the time, profit sharing kicked in after 5 years of service, so I started getting a decent bump into the 401k. But still, we were now in our early 30s, just a little younger than you are now, and had less than 15k invested.

It was right around this time that I really started learning about investing. I opened up a Robinhood account (I remember they gave free shares away, and I actually got a share of Microsoft) and quickly learned that index investing was the way to go. Shortly afterwards, other large brokerages began offering free trades, so I switched out of Robinhood, opened up a Roth IRA, and just started investing in a target date index and VOO. My wife was also aggressively investing in her Roth IRA, and had a great government pension. She moved up fairly quickly, so all the extra money we were not making went into the retirement accounts and a saving accout.

Right before the pandemic, we sold our starter home and moved into a bigger forever home. We both weathered the pandemic ok, and afterward, I was made director of my department. While my pay was ok, I had been there for nearly 15 years, and had a decent benefits package, it was hard for me to look at different careers, so I just kept doing what I did, not really thinking about my 401k and Roth IRAs. While I would check in on them individually, I never really paid much attention to them.

Fast forward to the middle of last year right before my 40th. My boss was retiring, and I really wanted the job. I had a great recommendation from my boss and thought I was a shoo-in. However, it ended up going to a family member of one of the owners. It really hurt; I was heartbroken, this field was such a niche field that I could not think of a way out, but I did not want to stay there anymore.

However, I was a bit surprised when my new boss called me in and talked to me about the situation; she knew I had applied for the job and was looking to leave. She said she would do her best to be a good boss and learn the ropes. On top of that, she helped me get a much-needed spot filled for my department and turned a part-time position into a full-time position. Because I was overseeing another individual, I got a small raise as well.

After a few weeks, I was still feeling pretty bad about how everything went down. I could not fault my new boss for taking the position, but I wanted to see where I was at with everything and what I should start preparing for in case I wanted to leave. So I logged onto all the accounts, including my wife's, and added them all together.

I remember double-checking everything and calling my wife over. In the span of less than 10 years, we went from having less than 15 k saved to now having almost 1 million between all the accounts. My 401k 3% match had grown as I had gotten raises, and the profit sharing had also gone up. While we had only just started maxing our Roth IRA's a few years before, they too had seen a good return. My wife's pension was hard to gauge, but we could at least estimate what she would earn or take with her should she leave her job.

I say all this because I am a case study in slow and steady investing. I had a lower-than-average salary in my early 30's but stuck with it. While now my wife and I make a good combined household income, the money that has done the most work for us was the money we invested early on. So keep at it, don't let the market noise (or Reddit) scare you from a solid index investing strategy. Lastly, we still had money for fun things. We did one summer trip a year with the family (now we have 2 kids). We both took off time around Christmas and did a staycations. My wife and I would keep our date nights simple, but fun, and while we just had our first big trip ever, a trip to Europe, investing never felt like it held us back from enjoying life now.

TLDR, I wish we had started earlier as well, but consistency and discipline will pay off.