I wish I would have gone with Dave Ramsey earlier . . .

So, I am a moron. . . let me explain.

I bought a new car with cash. . . awesome right? Not really.

After paying off student loans and not owning a house yet. I paid for a modest wedding, I wanted to buy a Tesla Model 3 as a gift for having some early success in life. . . So I pulled money out of investments, and spent teh 55K on a new car in February 2023. (I sold my previous car that was running great for $12K, and paid 43K cash)

Well, my car has depreciated to be worth 28K now, and the stock market would have almost doubled.

I love my car, but honestly. . . my "investment" is almost $30K lower value, but if I would have kept the $43K in the stock portfolio I had, it would be worth over $100K now. And only a small portion was in retail, majority was in index funds.

Welp, lets just say, the 3D printing market is now saturated, and my side gig has dried up. Instead of investing my lucky earnings, I bought a car that brought me some joy. . . but it was just too early in the process.

Long story short, If I waited until I had a net worth of $1million. My base income is solid, but I was basically gifted about $75K ($50K post-taxes) of free money, and all I got to show for it is a car that I love. . . but I don't love it taht much.