One of the three parts of our foundation.

Early saving and spending was encouraged by two books.
Master Your Money came out shortly after our youngest was born.
Ron Blue outlined basic principals 
on how to lay out finances.
He seems to be the father of the "baby step" program
that Dave Ramsey grew to a multi million dollar business.
We became an envelope/pay yourself first family.

Later, that same year, we met a financial advisor.
She was newly divorced with a young teen to support.
Smart as a whip, she knew it was important to start NOW.
We invested in Fidelity. 

1989 was the last time we had credit card debt.

The advisor gave us Jane Quinn's Making the Most of Your Money in the early 1990's and told us to read the Financial Times every day. We ended up with the Harold, but the idea was the same. Gain a base of knowledge and accumulate information about companies.

We learned the market and took some chances with cyclical stocks as well as long term investments. 

Years went by. Our broker retired. She was our last real advisor. We became acutely aware that if we were ok with the risk, we were the only ones who really cared about our money. 

We cashed out of our Fidelity to purchase our first house (sixteen years into marriage).  Our comfort level was, " a house paid off is more important than the risk in the system". 

After getting our "children" settled (one did college, the other didn't), we worked on simply building up our own accounts. Lived on one salary and saved the other. Stocks were chosen, bought and sold. Homework, homework, homework. We doubled our accounts and then really looked to see, we were in the position to retire.

Did you follow a similar path? What was the best move you made saving before retirement? The best?