Financial background: Came from a comfortable middle class family. Lived in a city with a low crime rate. Went to a well rated public high school. Dad completed some college, mom completed a high school diploma.
High school: My parents provided a car, cell phone, and all the basics including clothes, shoes, school supplies, and one laptop.
College - Associates Degree: Parents allowed me to stay in their house rent free for one year after high school while at community college.
College - Bachelors Degree: Parents paid for some tuition, one year of living on campus, and about $200 per month. I took out a Federal Student loan with interested deferred until 6 months post graduation. I also worked in the dorms for two years to cover room and board.
Full time career: Parents assisted my moving to a new state (Borrowed their pull-behind trailer, helped carry furniture, gave me old appliances such as a blender, etc.). I picked up my own cell phone payments, paid off my student loans within a year, and saved up for a house downpayment.
First house: Parents helped me renovate my first home (labor, not money). Parents now act as landlords for said home.
My husband had a nearly identical background (cross off community college, add in three years of ROTC scholarship instead of working in the dorms). We decided to choose his career over mine (for now), and now we live comfortably (in our opinion) on only his salary.
Debt: Home renovation loan we are scheduled to pay off in three years and a mortgage with 58K left on it.
Our financial backgrounds SEVERELY impacted our lives. We are thankful to our parents, and know how privileged we are. We both are irritated when people talk about "pulling yourself up from your bootstraps" because we have first hand knowledge about how things completely out of your control can help or hinder your life.
Our financial goals now include:
Paying off our home renovation loan (three year goal)
Emergency savings - this number has a minimum which we have reached, and continue to add to, and will take from to buy our next goal when/if the time comes.
If able to do so, buy an RV, use as primary home (3+ year goal, depends entirely on career)
Save up enough so each child can have the same financial privileges we did. (This will be ongoing until we are able to fulfill it.)
Meta: We realized while I was working an extremely demanding job, that after a certain salary your time, sanity, and well being are worth more than the extra cash. Yes, it was a great advantage to set ourselves up in a way we feel comfortable. However, I suffered mentally after such a grueling job. I'm still building my self worth back up and getting bad habits developed during that time under control. We're trying hard to maintain a healthy work-life balance, and growing as individuals. Once we made a realistic budget, we found ourselves happier with our income than we were when we had double it.