Things we didn’t buy in our 20’s that our friends did

After graduating college and finding that 9 to 5 job, it starts to sink in — I’m an adult.

Along with that comes the pressure to look the part.

Whether you have your dream job and are making six figures right off the bat, or are still barista-ing and collecting child support (from your parents), there’s pressure to do things and buy things that adults do and buy.

Especially in our late 20s, my husband and I saw our friends pay for a lot of nice things and at times I’ve been jealous.

But by holding back on purchasing “stuff” or taking on monthly payments, we had a lot of extra cash to save and invest which grew rapidly over a few years, and ultimately allowed us to purchase a home in cash— all leading us on our journey toward a financially independent life and early retirement.

While we may very well decide to spend on these things later in life, we both strongly believed that our 20s were the most crucial time in our life for saving. We were in a unique position of earning, particularly prior to children, and if we didn’t capture and invest that income, we’d be losing big time.

1. New or Expensive Cars

Most of my friends and peers took out loans on cars as a first step after graduating college — some even before they had jobs.

I had a boyfriend just after college who bought a $17,000 Xterra right after he graduated, while working a minimum-wage job at the gym and hoping to go to grad school (with no money saved). His family and friends told him it would be a great idea to finance the car and build his credit. The $350/ mo. loan payments, on top of his student debt ensured he could never save a penny. I always thought it was the stupidist thing.

Granted, my husband and I are not “car people,” (a rare but amazing quality to find in a man I must say) so this wasn’t too difficult for us. We wanted reliability and safety after having our first child, and that was about it. We had some poor luck with getting into accidents that totaled our cars so we had to buy a fair number of vehicles in our late 20s.

We never paid more than $6,000 for a car — and always paid cash.

If we didn’t have the cash, we waited and shared a car and drove each other around. It was a pain for a little while, but worth it in the end.

I think our cars have been great! They are reliable cars that run well, sit comfortably and even though they may be 8 + years old, I really don’t see that much of a difference between what we drive and what our friends with the brand-new editions drive — other than a mountain of debt and a monthly payment on their part.

Frequent Vacations or Weekend Getaways

The 20s are a great time to travel, no doubt. But when you spend money on one thing, you forfeit another. That’s the science of it all.

If your plan is to spend the majority of your life at work and then vacation a few weeks out of the year, sure, why not start that pattern in your 20s? But we want a different kind of life.

We were lucky because my husband’s job took us to Japan for a year when I was 27, and we did a few small and inexpensive trips in the mountains of Japan and surrounding Ryukyu Islands. We minimized the expense by camping and backpacking, staying in hostels we found on Airbnb, or building long layovers into flights that were already planned back to the States.

Many of our friends abroad spent thousands to hit the big tourist destinations like Bali, Vietnam and Thailand. Some would take weekend trips every month or two to Tokyo or other attractions in Japan. And it was really more a turn of events that we couldn’t control that kept us from doing the same. To be honest, we were planning a big Vietnam trip, but it didn’t work out.

Looking back though, we are grateful that we were able to save that money because it allowed us to buy a second car in cash when we returned to the States.

Now living in Southern CA., many of our friends and peers take long weekend getaway trips — like going to Hawaii for a birthday — or Vegas for the heck of it. Even the small trips to Palm Springs and Mexico add up eventually.

Again, that’s great if your life is going to be spent at your job and you’re only going to break away for a few weeks out of the year. But our goal is to soon be able to take a whole summer to backpack and camp in Glacier National Park, or spend 30+ days as a family doing mission work in South America — all without the pressure of making payments back home or the constraints of “time off” from a job.

We’ve done a few little trips over the last two years to visit family, but for the most part we live one block from a beautiful beach and that’s enough. Also just exploring the two-hour radius from our home (San Diego in one direction, LA in the other) is keeping us busy.

While a luxurious night in a pretty hotel on Coronado Island might be nice — knowing we have a house but don’t have to pay a mortgage for the next 30 years is nicer.

New or Expensive Furniture

This one has been hard for me. I love to nest and having an inviting and visually-pleasing home has always been important to me.

I’ve often complained to my husband in the last few years that our apartment is full of “college furniture.” Most of our items were cheap, second-hand finds (or third or fourth) or free. They mostly don’t match and some things are not in the best condition like our Ikea bed that has slowly slumped and collapsed.

Now that we finally have a permanent home in Northern CA. that we own 100 percent, we are planning to splurge a little on furniture and household items. But we will still be looking for bargains and if we can find nice items that are gently used, all the better.

TVs or Fancy Electronics

I’d be lying if I said this one was completely true. We were duped into buying brand new iPhones when we got to Japan for 1,000 bucks each. It’s one of my financially-conservative husband’s biggest regrets about our time there (LOL). We were overwhelmed and rushed to get phones set up and with the language barrier, we didn’t realize we had options. But oh well, you live and learn.

We’ve never owned a TV and because (thank you mom & dad!) we both had Macbooks from college, we’ve been able to use our laptops for 8 + years without replacing.

I’m not tech-savvy enough to even describe the other things we didn’t buy — like sound systems or $300 headphones.

Cable or TV Subscriptions

We’ve never paid for cable and have not spent a penny subscribing for digital entertainment. Not that we are totally against it, we just have found entertainment freely through podcasts, etc. and have mooched off my in-law’s Netflix.

In general, we try not to watch TV though and its unbelievable what some people pay per month for cable (or if you’re subscribed to Hulu, Netflix, Roku, Spotify, etc. they all add up).

Again, all of the above (except the cars and the electronics) have at some point made me jealous or frustrated, but now that I’m turning 30 and we have made some big strides toward our financial goals, I’m able to see this all in the right perspective and am so thankful for the path we’ve chosen.

In reality, there’s a whole lot more I could have saved and sacrificed in the temporary for the long-term goal.