Net Worth Increase per Year in Relation to Income Level and Savings Rate

[desrever]

Having used wealthfront.com for a couple months now after years of DIY ETF-ing, I have to say that I really like it's visualization of saving over time (the deposits show up on the graph, and they show you an "overall return" figure that lets you look at appreciation separate from deposits). I find myself more motivated to save, because the graph reminds me of my good decisions in a way that's rewarding.

As a result, psychologically, it's a little more fun to save into that account, so I do it more. When I was buying ETFs myself through scottrade and TD ameritrade, I would have to wait to have enough money to sweep it into my brokerage acct, then worry about the $7 commission. In reality what would happen was that I'd let the cash snowball, and a few times a year I'd collect all my cash (dividends from) into one account, like squeezing the last bit of toothpaste out of the tube, and when all the transfers cleared, figure out how many shares to buy, and do the trades.

I'm sure there are other ways to get this level of automation and convenience, but I really think there's value to the very simple interface that a service like wealthfront is offering (even after the fees): investing a spare $1000 in the checking account is just a one-click, fire-and-forget thing now, so I've been making deposits (above the weekly automated deposit) much more frequently, whenever I see a pool of unspent money stack up.

[Mike]

Only issue here is Mint doesn't assume any investment gains or losses for its estimate.

Edit: it appears that Mint does assume investment gains.

I crunched the numbers on my FI goal, and based on contributions alone, it should take ~12 years.  However, Mint has me completing it near the end of 2019.  That cannot happen without getting some decent gains along the way.

[chasesfish]

I understand what you're seeing and that this may seem frustrating.  Investment gains aren't as apparently early on, a 10% gain on a portfolio of $60,000 is still only $6,000.

You'll really start to see the savings accelerate in a few years.   My net worth doubled from age 29 to 31 because I kept contributing while the market was slogging along, then finally got a nice move over the last two years.  You'll also find that your expenses don't change much with each raise, so every raise at work is a larger incremental increase in your savings rate. 

Don't forget to enjoy life today

[Gerard]

Yeah, some of us had negative net worth until our thirties.

I had negative net worth well into my forties, because I went back to school (the dumb way, with loans), but now I'm a savings/earnings machine, compared to younger dumber me! In our money-filled society, it's amazing how well things can work simply by spending part of your life not fucking up.

[Khan]

Only issue here is Mint doesn't assume any investment gains or losses for its estimate.

Edit: it appears that Mint does assume investment gains.

I crunched the numbers on my FI goal, and based on contributions alone, it should take ~12 years.  However, Mint has me completing it near the end of 2019.  That cannot happen without getting some decent gains along the way.

When setting up goals, such as retirement, you can choose your own return estimates on Mint(such as growth - ~7%). I set up a retire by 35 one(ten years), made some numbers so by 35 I'm hopefiully getting ~14,000 a year(single male), and now I have a pretty good goal to save at least 2400$ a month towards that end(Been hitting 2600$ but I feel like I'm at deprivation mode).