For me, it was my grandfather. He saved as much as he could, set up (whole) life insurance accounts for his grandkids, invested in stock to pass on. He was a

For me, it was my grandfather. He saved as much as he could, set up (whole) life insurance accounts for his grandkids, invested in stock to pass on. He was a traveling salesman in California, selling frozen foods when Birdseye just came out with the concept. He gave mew a few shares of stock, I sold them for cash a few months later when I wanted to do something I just _had_ to do at the time. He also gifted me with a Bicentennial Coin set, still in plastic. It got spent, probably within the year. He last gave me the life insurance policy, saying that when he set it up, it would require no payments. It had changed to needing annual dues, so he suggested I cash it in. I kept it. Years later, after he had passed, my wife and I were trying to get our financial act together, and lo and behold - A whole life insurance policy has a cash value. We borrowed against it and paid of the worst of the debt I owed when we met. We paid it back. It became the starting piece of our financial planning. We had life insurance, then we built up 6 months of living expenses. We bought our first piece of investment property to provide for our own retirement (I seriously don't expect there to be much of the Social Security I have been contributing to - matches your complaint about pensions, I think). We borrowed again and made the down payment. Now we have an extra $1000 cash flowing from the property, we are paying off the policy loan and looking for the next piece of property. I wish granddad were here now - I think he would be proud. I still miss the hell out of him.