Like so many here, I came across the Warren Buffett and began reading his reports and glommed onto his no-nonsense tone and what felt like obvious logic. I was in my mid-20s when Roger Lowenstein's biography hit the library and I devoured it. My father had passed, leaving me a small inheritance that I was interested in making much bigger. B shares had been issued a year or two before, so I could nibble my way in. I look back now and shudder (not really, the amount is tiny compared to the return) that I paid about $50/commission as I took baby steps rather than just one solid chunk. But I was young and no one in my family ever invested in the stock market. My dad was older than Warren and lived through the depression in a very desperate way and it never left him.

I sold the house he left me. I took the proceeds and dumped most of them into more shares. I moved to a cheaper area and eventually found a cheap house to put a few bucks down on. I was self-employed so I loaded up my self-employed 401K to the max, adding more shares. I won't say I lived frugally, though some might say that hiring local kids to help move rather than a moving company was a frugal move. My gf and I rarely went out to eat and we saved.

TIME made me look like a knowledgable investor. I held onto a core holding in BRK, in non-IRA accounts, in Roth IRA, in the self-employed 401K which I rolled into a trad IRA to lower the paperwork once I retired (disability actually but that's another sob story, no need here).

I'm nowhere near as well-off as many of you, but I'm doing just fine. Better than I ever expected, really. I mean, sure I played with compounding and imagined what I'd have if I'd compounded at 22%, but at 12% or so, that's still better than most.

I may be mistaken but it sure looks like if I die first -- and that is the likelihood -- then my wife will get a stepped up cost basis that will save plenty in capital gains. And if not, well, there's still plenty to go around.

SD