When I was practicing law, my colleagues would talk about how lucky they were to put their kids through college or. “I don’t know how we did it, but we put the kids through college , and now we’re hoping to start saving for retirement,” they’d say. In reality, they were saying much more—“Wow! We’re so lucky to barely be able to put the kids through college, now we’re just crossing our fingers that we’ll be able to start saving enough to retire.” I was on that path too, toward a life of just scraping by, where I’d spend just as much (if not more) than I earned, living financially strapped. It was only a matter of time before I made the same comments and had the same financial destiny. I thought having my own law practice would make me financially free, but my path (owning my own firm) wasn’t going to lead me there, as I learned from my colleagues. So I decided to get off the beaten path and head down a road less trodden, as difficult as it might be at first. In the end, the views are worth the extra effort. Why is it so difficult to get ahead? 1. We unnecessarily spend money on the “latest and greatest,” things we don’t need (but that emotionally appeal to us) 2. Debt—once we’re in the red, and spend based on habit and emotion, it can be very difficult to break patterns, discipline ourselves and get out of debt 3. Taxes take up to 50 percent of our salary.