Investing: My Smartest Money Move Ever

Money growing for me, compounding year in and year out, always had an appeal.

I vividly remember as a grade school child helping my parents outside our house when my grandparents, of the Depression-era and World War II generation, were visiting. My grandmother found a dime on the ground and gave it to me to save.

She said something like, "that's how the Mellons and the Rockefellers got their money."

Saving money appealed to me. It represented security and a tangible reward for a personal discipline.

The first 20 years of my career after college took me through a short stint in radio broadcasting before I entered the non-profit world where I wrote and edited a small monthly magazine for a Christian mission organization. I didn't earn much money. As a young newscaster in Central Pennsylvania I made about $4.95 an hour. That was just above minimum wage.

But I started saving on a regular, consistent basis. I may have set aside about $25 per month. This is when I started saving for retirement and I consider that the smartest money move I have ever made. I started saving young and I avoided debt.

Then I entered the non-profit world where I had to raise my own support. I am embarrassed to say how little money I earned although I developed life-long friendships. But the good news is I was making so little I also couldn't spend money on small items or big ticket items.

Anything extra I wanted, I had to find a way to earn through small, part-time jobs. One time, I bought a plane ticket to Vancouver so I did a few weekends of phone sales. This strategy kept me out of debt.

A few years later, by age 26, I got married to a woman who was a nurse and just got her master's degree as a nurse practitioner. She came from a missionary family and her parents had lived frugally. She made a good income as a nurse, but she gave generously to people in need and she, too, saved.

My marriage to her was the second smartest money move I ever made!

During our first year of marriage, I went to work for another non-profit where I didn't earn much per hour but they matched up to 3% of the money we put into retirement savings. I set aside 10% of my income and had the 3% matching.

I also started investing in Janus Funds at this time after reading through various publications like Money and Forbes. Okay, I wasn't real sophisticated but I kept a simple plan of saving as much as I could and consistently.

By the way, Investopedia is my favorite web site for learning about all types of investments and learning how to interpret data.

Saving money, especially for retirement, is the smartest money move a person can make. I have a passion to tell high school and college graduates to save long-term early on - whether it's for a home or retirement. Starting early means you'll not have to try to invest large sums of income later on to catch up.

I know there are different, specific strategies for older investors who didn't start young but the same principles apply - being consistent and managing debt load.

I've never earned much money compared to my peers but we've managed to build a significant retirement base while managing our debt, even during recent years when I've had financial and career strugggles.

Saving money for your needs 5 to 10 years down the road, and saving for retirement, doesn't mean you're greedy. In fact, we've become adoptive parents to 4 children (now mid-teens to age 22) and guardians to 2 boys who moved into our home during their teen years. Our one son came to us last year at age 19 and we were the first family he ever had. We are also grandparents to our 6-month old granddaughter.

Out of 7 kids (which includes our granddaughter), 5 have serious emotional and even developmental delays. We may be faced with their care at some level for many years to come. We can't count on their help at retirement age so the smartest money move we can make as parents in our mid-40s is to make sure we have the retirement money we need.

My advice: be consistent and be content with modest gains.