<prompt> Human: I saw this post What was the worst financial mistake you have made? and I learned a lot by reading the comments. Which made me think we can also learn a lot by sharing our successful decisions  <response>: Living a college lifestyle for my first year out of college. I graduated college in four years, but all of my college friends were either on the 5 year plan, a year younger than me, or went straight to graduate school. This meant I was literally the only one working right away, and I had a job with great pay that was within reasonable driving distance from campus. So, I decided I would live an extra year of the college life without classes but with money. I paid 400 in rent, split utilities 5-ways, and bought community beer once a week cuz I was a big spender. I saved well over 75 of my after-tax income that year, and the compounding factors since 4 years have been extraordinary. 