[dradernh]

Through circumstance and careful planning, we made our way through the remarkable stagflation of the 70s in very good shape. Mostly, we made sure we didn't spend a single dollar unless it was absolutely clear it needed to be spent. Think: we shopped Walmart before it was Walmart. Imagine that in 2024 America.

And yes, we failed to buy Walmart stock when it cost virtually zero in today's dollars. This despite living just down the road from Walmart HQ and clearly recognizing the remarkable value the company was offering to shoppers. I don't know, perhaps it was that we didn't have a nickel to spare for buying stock. Looking back today, I suspect that must've been it.

Nevertheless, both of us, after spending our working lives working for wages (i.e., not owning our own businesses or being self-employed), retired from gainful employment, respectively, in 1994 and 1997.

The moral of this and every other story is how many of them there are out here in the real world!