<p>Retirement first for us. A financially savvy friend pointed out to first-salaried-job me that I could start shovelling money into a tax-advantaged retirement fund. That was the first big savings habit to take hold. Kids didn’t come into the picture for years after that, so there was no competition between savings priorities. </p>
<p>The spouse and I attended UCs, and initially planned for our children to be able to afford a UC or CSU. Private college costs weren’t something that we thought of as directly affecting us. If we’d attended privates ourselves, or if we were considering that for our children back then, it would have affected our college and retirement savings strategy.</p>