Technically, I don’t believe in luck; I believe the unexpected good things that happen to me are blessings from God.
But in casual language, I do use that word. For instance, I might say, “Oooh, lucky me!” but I don’t literally believe that things happen to me because of luck.
So! Here’s an unexpected good thing that happened to me…
In 2000, Mr. FG and I had saved up enough money to move out of our basement apartment and buy a townhouse. We paid $104,000 for that house, and five years later, we sold it for $252,000.
That kind of appreciation for a townhouse was unheard of at the time; the price of that townhouse had stayed basically static for its whole existence before we bought it.
Of course, at the time we had no idea what was coming (we deserve no credit for our timing!), but the appreciation of that house was a merciful financial boost for us at a time when our income was pretty low.
We sold it at the height of the market and bought our current house at the same time, so when the market dropped, we did temporarily lose some of what we’d gained in the sale of the townhouse. We were always money ahead, though, even at the lowest point of the market.
But still, I often think, “What if we had bought our townhouse in 2004 instead of in 2000?”
If we’d put off buying for even another year, we might have been completely unable to get into the market at all.
So, that’s a big ol’ “Whew!” when I look back at the timing.
Like you, I’m not a believer in luck necessarily, but one thing my husband and I talk about somewhat frequently is the incredible timing that brought us to our current location just a couple of years before the world went wonky. I cannot tell you how many people have told me they wish they were somewhere like this, where we can go outside without masks (because there are no people); we were already prepared for a lack of supplies (because we live so far from them, anyway); and the community is supportive and helpful.
My husband likes to tell people that God told him to move here, but I guess you can call it luck. 🙂
This is similar to our house too, we bought an old house on a 2 acre split lot and sold the house and 1 acre for what we paid for it. Less commission we got the acre for 10k, most 1/2 acre lots locally were around 70k. We built a house & paid it off in about 13 years.
I picked a larger floor plan as there were 4 living here now that the kids are married and live out of state the house it WAY to big but we love the area we are in. The only reason we got the house was when it was put up for sale close friends lived across the street and told us it was for sale. Long story short we had to get a lawyer involved who charged us a whopping $50 & a realtor rep because the realtor selling it was beyond dysfunctional who refused to work with our realtor. At closing they realized the person (she died) had grandfathered in around 24k of property tax bills due to road paving and creek clearing. They wanted us to pay the 24 otherwise they were backing out. The gal representing the realtor firm slapped her folder down on the desk and said you have a signed contract we will see you in court. Next day we closed and they covered the 24k.
Samesies on luck vs blessings.
I’ve always felt lucky that my parents and my husband’s parents already were friends — well before either of us were born, not just before we knew we were interested in each other. We didn’t have any of that meet-the-parents stuff to worry about and it’s never been competitive or awkward.
I call them blessings, too.
This was definitely my guardian angel looking out for me, but we can call it luck. I was going back to school to finish my degree. I was married, with young kids, a job, a commute to school and a hectic schedule. I arrived at the college’s bus stop in time to catch the bus and make my class, but the buses were late. Time passed. I was tired and frustrated. I was there with only a young man with a backpack, also waiting for a bus to the same area of the campus that I was going to. We complained to each other, and waited some more. He finally turned to me, stuck out his hand, introduced himself, and asked if I wanted to just ride with him in his car and he would find a parking spot on campus somewhere. TOTALLY out of character for me, I accepted. He took me to my building, dropped me off, and wished me a good day. To this day, I can’t believe I took the ride. So, my “luck” was absolutely riding with me, that day.
Ten years ago I quit a job and cashed out all my accumulated leave, totaling $3000. On a lark, I bought Amazon stock with it. Besides the 50 shares of McDonalds stock my father had given me when I turned 18, in memory of all the times as a Catholic single parent that he had taken all of us to McDonalds for filet o’ fish sandwiches for Friday night dinners, I had not owned any stock. I still have the McDonalds stock but I recently sold the $3000 of Amazon stock. In 10 years, it was now worth $55,900 dollars and change. This kind of a stock windfall had zero to do with me, only luck and the fact that when living in the bush Amazon was a lifesaver in terms of getting reading materials so I figured at least the company would succeed in rural Alaska.
And, of course, the other piece of luck was meeting my husband when we both started work at the same company on the same day. We did not care for each other on sight—I thought he was spineless because he never called anyone out on bad behavior, and he thought I was an aggressive man-eater. Thirty eight years later, I am stunned that I was smart enough to finally recognize that the bad boys I was attracted to were terrible marriage material, and recognize that he was not spineless but kind.
I agree with you about “luck”, I think it’s God’s plan. But the word luck made me think of a trip to Lake Tahoe. We live just over an hour away. I had been given a trip there that included a hotel stay, dinner, and small amount of slot play. I had had our 4th child about 1 1/2 years earlier and this gift certificate was about to expire. He was barely done nursing and I am never good and leaving my kids but my mom said she would stay. It was the most beautiful snow storm up there. Well, we barely ever gamble but from that amount we won $4000! Oh my gosh. And we were pretty broke too! So we went to the car to deposit it right in the bank. It had snowed so much while we were in there we had to dig the suburban out! We did keep some money out for a fabulous dinner. We love that story. And we always end that story by saying- “we know we never need to gamble again because we used up all our luck!”
I love the saying “chance favors the well-prepared” which basically says that you make your own luck. That being said, I think my husband and I have been very blessed and I guess its the same feeling as lucky, but with a lot of hard work mixed in! Maybe it was lucky that we found each other. (: