Lessons in Wealth and Happiness from my Grandpa

My Grandpa was not a wealthy man, in fact, he was a blue-collar maintenance man working in an oil factory where crude was refined into gasoline.  He was just a hard honest worker and a good saver.  My Dad was the same.  Me, I grew up middle class and did not know at the time that we did not have many of the luxuries that my son today thinks are normal.  For example, I remember in elementary school living in an extremely modest 3/2 in a working-class neighborhood, getting second-hand clothes and no-name shoes.  My mom would take my sister Katrina and me to these hairdresser schools to get free haircuts from trainees.  I’m sure the haircuts were fine for a kid, I mean as a 5 and 10-year-old do you really care what your hair looks anyway?  We rarely went out to eat, never went to Disney, and didn’t keep up with the Jones’s.  I didn’t even know who the Jones’s were but I assure you they weren’t living in our neighborhood-Harbor Isles off state road 434.  The one area we were abundantly wealthy in was family.  I always felt loved.  I always felt safe.  My Dad, although working different blue-collar jobs, would never miss a baseball game or practice.  I mean never.  We had dinner together every night and my little sister Katrina and were, and remain to this day, best of friends.  As the Exxon stock slowly and quietly built up in the background, we grew up not knowing about financial wealth.  My parents were frugal and we thought everyone had second-hand clothes and no-name shoes.  I remember once in middle school asking my Mom if we were poor and she just laughed and said no of course not.  Although the family budget was tight, life was grand.  My sister and I felt loved and I will always cherish those memories of growing up in Harbor Isles.  As we grew older our financial wealth grew.  The ’90s was a good time to be a buy-and-hold dividend stock investor.  My parents retired, began living the Dividend Lifestyle, and we moved to Lake Mary.  I was in High School and Katrina in Middle School and it was then we began to realize we weren’t poor after all.  My Dad slowly began sharing stories of long-term savings and investing and how Grandpa Fred reinvested all those dividends.  I was taught how my Grandpa moved to the island of Aruba in search of a good honest wage, and how he saved a portion of every paycheck and bought company stock and never sold any.  I learned that my parents finally were able to live off the dividends because they were so careful with money and bought me those second-hand clothes for a purpose.  They were now able to pay for our college for my sister and me, even paying for Katrina’s Master’s Degree with Home Depot stock that my Dad bought in the 90’s when I thought we were poor.  Because of my parents' prudence, they were able to retire at a young age and live the Dividend Lifestyle and I could not be more proud of them and their influence on my sister and me.  I only hope to give the same to my son, Chance.