Very true,I have learned over the years how to balance all of them. I spend all my free time with my family.

 

You saved a lot because of that. I still wouldn't trade my two daughters, 8 grandchildren and 4 (soon to be 5) great grand-children for anything. in 1980, just before my 40th birthday, after 18 years of marriage my ex wife left my two teenage daughters (13 and15). She said you can have them because you can afford them. She never has tried to come back into their life's.

Trying to be a mother and father to two gorgeous teenage daughters, was challenging, expensive and rewarding. Every time I took them shopping, I was very frustrated coming home with nothing because they couldn't find anything. I started letting them take my credit card to go shopping by themselves and I'd pay the bill.

My main priority was to maintain as stable a home as possible and keeping our house. It took many years to get to the point where I had no debt.. I really wanted a C6 with the open headlights. I finally decided to spend the money 4 years ago, one month after my 74th birthday. Since I was a blue color worker (electrical lineman) I'm not wealthy. I have seen posts by members questioning how a blue color worker could ever afford a Corvette.

 

You and I shared the same situation. I got custody of my daughter right before she turned 7. My ex basically went off the deep end.

I wanted to keep things as easy as possible on her and try to keep things the same. So I sold my Z06, and bought a nice daily driver for us. At about 12, her mom came back in her life for limited visitation. When she became old enough to drive, she got a job and I gave her our daily driver and bought me a truck....nothing fancy. She was responsible for gas and "fun" money, I took care of insurance and taxes.

Another couple years later, I got married and then within a year bought my next Corvette. This one was a low mileage Fixed Roof Coupe as I figured I could get the Z06 look without the insurance premium. After a few years and adding 150+ hp to the rear wheels, I sold this one to help get her started with college. Kept driving my truck for about 2 years and finally picked up the C6 I have now.

But my kid came first no matter what the circumstances were!

 

Oh.....forgot to mention....working in Engineering and IT..... I got turned on to cyber currencies right as they started getting popular. Started out in early 2017 with a very modest investment with Bitcoin, and when I had made a decent amount, sold half and invested in Ethereum.

Don't get me wrong....I didn't get rich by any means as I got out shortly after it started going crazy. I'm a conservative guy when it involves money, so I took what I had and bailed. I wish I had stayed in it just a little longer......but you never know how those things are going to go and I guess I panicked. But I made enough to finishing paying off our house. I've got friends still in it that lost a lot, but starting to make gains again.

Oddly enough, the wife is ready to start looking at other places as she wants to find our "dream" house that we will spend the rest of our life in.

She's like me and conservative with money, but recently developers built a huge add on to our neighborhood on the streets behind us that haven't touched in close to 20 years. So now every tree has been cut down and we have houses sitting directly behind us.

She wants more privacy and a little more land as a buffer. I grew up in the middle of town so I could care less, but she grew up on 100 acres+ in the NC mountains and feels closed in.

Good thing is all these houses are at least 400 sq. ft. smaller than ours, and most have sold already with the cheapest one still selling for about $42K more than what I paid for mine.

I've got realtors contacting me all the time about selling. So that will probably be the next step in my chapter of life.

At least I should make some extra money in that process.....I hope!