So, you didn't save a penny before you got married? How did you pay for a place to stay, or were you homeless?
People saying they started off with "zero" - your parents just shoved you out bare-naked when you turned eighteen and you hadn't worked a day in your life or saved a cent?
I started off out of my parents'home with about $2000 in a savings account, and a couple CDs and got an apartment with a boyfriend. By the time we got married a few years later we had over $10K saved. When we bought our first house we had $24K to put down on it (in 1992).
Sometimes it felt that way! I had to leave my house at 18. I had no real money in savings and parents weren't in a place to help me. I rented a room for $25/week from a nice couple with grown children and extra space. I worked two part time jobs while attending college full time, living essentially paycheck to paycheck. Was responsible for 100% of my school costs, which I somehow managed between working, grants and loans. (I think I won a $500 scholarship once from one of my employers.) Eventually my now DH and I got an apartment together where we shared costs, but I was still in school for several more years thanks to a change of major and schools. Over that time we did manage to save a few thousand intended for a house. Probably foolishly, we spent that on a backyard wedding (each family contributed a few hundred), leaving us with virtually nothing left. (And I hadn't thought of it at the start of this thread, but I had school loans, as well, so actually had a negative balance like many others here, too, when I graduated and married a few monthe afterward.)
Once I started working full time we were able to bank quite a bit (always lived fairly frugally) and save enough for a down payment on a house a couple of years later. Interest rates at that time were 10.5% but ours was actually 11.5% because we put down less than 20%, which also meant we had to carry PMI. (I used to dream we'd lose the house I was so worried about costs.
) Later, when interest rates dropped to 7%, we refinanced, but because home values had dropped, we had to cough up another $10K to put down in order to get the lower rate. (Always something!) But we were eventually able to get rid of the PMI and pay off my student loans. (DH later went to college as an adult and we paid those loans off, too.) We live in a high COL area, so we stayed in our first home and enjoy some nice equity in it now. We added onto it twice, one addition being an in law apt that became a home for my mother, the other a sunroom that gave us more space. We were in the home for 20 years before we did some major renovations.
We've both worked and saved for retirement (and retirement health care) regularly, as well as carried plenty of insurance, including life, disability and long term care, as that helped me sleep at night. (Maybe it's like that for people who've had little to fall back on, idk.) Retirement is still a ways away, but we talk about it. Our kids will graduate from college this year with just one small loan each, we managed to get them through three years without their taking on debt. They should have no trouble paying it off once they're working full time, and it will help them establish credit. They will start off in a better place than we did because of our support - it's tough out there for young people today, especially to buy a home given everything being crazy expensive now.