<prompt> Human: I have been an active reader and sometime poster in PF for about 2 years now. I have actively tried to apply things here and there to my life and a growing business and it has saved me.I am now an extremely frugal person. I live well below my means with a wife and child and we make our situation work. I also have a business I started over 5 years ago and without this sub it probably would have failed.I got my standard of living is low enough that I didnt have to pull money out of my business or I could pull 1000 a month to live off of. I got my family to buy in and the frugal mentality carried over to my business and to my employees.It has been a brutal 5 years trying to make this work. I have heard my wife cry more than I wish. I have wanted to quit many times. I have constantly wondered if this was all worth it but we have kept at it.I reinvest every bit of profit my company makes to fuel our growth. While I have been trying to repair my credit over the last few years I dont get much from banks. We have to save to purchase things we want. I have raised my credit score about 100 points in the last year though. Mid 600s and soon I will break 700 in the next year.I have learned that everything worth doing takes time. Emergency funds are there to avoid the huge fees that come with running out of money. Our system is set up to reward people who plan ahead and arent in a huge rush to get things done. Systems take time to develop and implement.We were on pace to break 1m in sales by next year. We are a very niche company in the midwest. Its a much bigger deal here then somewhere else and that money can go farther. We just signed a deal that will bring in an additional 800k-1m in revenue this Friday. I was almost in tears. I know the statistics and real stories of how hard it is to make it to this level and beyond. Without the financial discipline I applied in my own life this wouldnt have been possible. We operate on about a 50 margin so we are likely looking at 1m in profit per year now. I dont intend on changing my lifestyle. One of my goals is to buy a large apartment complex to hedge the risk with having all of our money in this business. I hope to be able to do this in the next 5-7 years.  <response>: Reading your post is encouraging. Thank you and more importantly congratulations! 