I had a little early exposure myself. A math class in junior high had a project where we invested fake money over the semester. When my dad learned of this he opened me a brokerage account and put a little money in so I was doing it for real and took the opportunity to give me some basic education. My results were...mixed, but I learned a lot. (This was the late 80s so he actually had to get on the phone every time I wanted to trade.) So I paid more attention than my peers as soon as I got my "real" job after college, this allowed me to retire as soon as I earned a pension in my late 40s. My wife thought it was weird how much I was into it when we met in our mid 20s but she says she's very appreciative now.
Losing that 6th figure from the mortgage is huge. I remember how good that felt, congrats on the milestone!
I don't know how long you've been on Lemmy but discussing sound strategies for living in a capitalist system (which most of us have no control over) instead of screaming about how everything is designed to make us wage slaves for life and ensure we die pennyless (they may be right, but many people avoid that fate and I would like to be one of them) is always going to pick up some downvotes. God help us if someone decides it's interesting enough to post a screenshot on "the triad" and they decide to hop on their alts and come over. Comes with the territory.