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Every stage of Brian and Mary Jobsons' working lives has nudged them into a beyond-their-years effort to prepare their finances for retirement.

Not that they started when they were just college kids. Brian Jobson remembers chuckling as he watched his parents — children of the Depression — pursue their money-conscious ways.

"But when I made fun of them, I probably had $13,000 in credit card debt and very little income," he recalled. "They were living very frugally, and they would nod their heads and laugh."

The Jobsons' attitudes changed, quickly, when they went to work as freelancers.

"I was completely on my own," 46-year-old Mary Jobson recalls. "When you have to write that check to the Internal Revenue Service, you think about where your money is going.

"You have an accountant who keeps reminding you about it," she continued. "And you don't have an employer paying your health insurance or your pension or anything."

"And you're afraid that every job you have is going to be the last one you ever get," added Brian Jobson, who is 47.

Not surprisingly, they started shaping up their finances earlier than many of their contemporaries. For most, a 40th birthday, or perhaps a 45th, brings the cold jolt: Will I have some gold for my golden years?

"We were in our early 30s when we started dating," she said. "That was about the time we both were thinking about buying a house and setting money aside."

Along the way, both picked up full-time jobs, Brian working for a recording engineer and Mary in marketing for a software company. But that didn't change their financial edginess. "I had a nice salary, so I started building up all this money in a checking account," Brian said. Then he started investing in stocks and mutual funds.

They bought the house they wanted in Douglasville, so the payment wouldn't crush them if one of them lost a job.

He was the one, four years ago. It turned out his company was surfing the dot.com boomers of the late 1990s. The high-tech wave collapsed, so did his company.

"It was a shock," he said, "But I learned very quickly how little money it takes to stay alive." With time on his hands — he is freelancing again — Brian has become the chief penny-pincher and investment manager.

They've developed other good financial habits, too:

• Both now put the maximum into an individual retirement account each year. Mary participates in her company's profit-sharing plan, and the couple relies on the benefits that come with it.

• Realizing that some of Brian's earlier investments were ill-advised, the couple hired a financial adviser to help guide their decisions.

• They are paying off a few remaining credit card debts, because they realize the interest charges are higher than any return they could make from investments.

In a way, Brian reflects, the Jobsons have become the frugal parents they once found so amusing. When his parents died, Brian was the one who settled their estate.

"I took on the psyche of living in the Depression," he said. "There's money there, but I have not touched one cent in the four years since they passed on. I put it to work by investing it."

• Read more "Bank on Hank" columns