[Jims5543]

I am not driven by accompishments. I am a capitalist and I am not ashamed of it.

My father got up and left the house every morning at 5 and did not return until 7. When my parents were trying to scrape some money together for a downpayment on their first house I was about 10 years old. I remember my dad coming home from work and then him and my mom (with me and my little brother in tow) would go out and clean banks and office buildings. All for a downpayment on a 25K house in 1975.

I was on the same path when I was 25 years old although I was lucky to be able to save up and buy my first house in 1988 for 45K at the age of 22. I worked my butt off and my $460 a month mortgage was steep for me making $8 an hour.

I was paycheck to paycheck just like my dad. I left at 5:30 in the morning for work, and did not return until 6 pm.

So I was in the same exact rutt. When my 1st kid was 2 years old I decided enough was enough, I took a job at a rather large corporation when I was 29 years old. My yearly salary doubled to 40K a year.

Now 10 years later I am in the six figure range, self employed and providing jobs to 5 people right now. (used to be 15 people)

My goal is to make good money and free myself up to be with my family as much as possible. I see my kids almost every morning before work, and I am home by 5-5:30 every evening. I spend my weekends with my wife and kids and we travel and do everything together.

Now that I have some money in the bank, I can say that Money = luck.

If you have 20K in your checking account and the tranny blows on your car, no big deal you fix it.
If you have $20 in your checking account its a huge deal that will screw you up for months.

I will never take for granted what I have, sometimes I laugh inside when I have to pay to get something fixed because I can remember a time when it would be a devestating blow.

My accomplishments? All I care about is being a good dad to my kids and raising them to be good people, being a good husband to my wife and spending the rest of my life with her enjoying each others company.

Everything else is trivial.