Author Topic: Personal Milestone: Two Years Into Mustachianism and Now Have $100k Net Worth  (Read 2058 times)

ReadySetMillionaire

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1688
  • Location: The Buckeye State
I'm not one for bringing attention onto myself, but I wanted to share my story here to offer some encouragement for those who might be just starting their path to FI.

I got interested in personal finance shortly after graduating law school, which led me to reading books, which led to reading blogs, which then led me to this website. At that time:

-My wife was contributing about 5% to her 401k
-I was not contributing to my 401k at all
-We were more focused on saving for a house rather than being efficient and optimizing our money.

After reading this blog, I did a rough calculation of my net worth and found that it was about $15,000. In June of last year I did a full-on spreadsheet and determined that it was approximately $29,000. This was despite the fact that we were a dual income couple with no kids living in an extremely low cost of living area.

Fast forward just 16 months later, and our net worth is at $106,000, an average increase of almost $5,000 per month. To be more specific: our assets have increased from $209,000 to $278,000, while our liabilities have decreased from $177,000 to $172,000.

What's even crazier is that we would have made more progress if this weren't such a crazy year. We paid for our wedding (and honeymoon), my wife's brother got married, my wife's best friend got married, I had to pay for knee surgery (huge dent in the HSA account), and I ultimately decided to buy a new car.

But, in the past two years, we are inches away from paying off my wife's student loans, we paid off her car, we are currently maxing our 401k's, and things seem to me moving forward with a great head of steam.

I didn't really have anyone to tell about this milestone, so I figured I'd post it here. For those of you just starting, keep on going--you'll get to $10k, $50k, $100k, $500k before you know it.


Finallyunderstand

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 151
Fantastic!  Keep it up!

Cwadda

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2178
  • Age: 29
Congratulations!  I'm in a similar boat.  I started doing the whole MMM thing when I was 19.  Four years later, I'm now able to change jobs out of something I don't like, without having another job lined up. 

Quote
I didn't really have anyone to tell about this milestone,
Yes! This is why so many people anonymously post on these forums, and it is awesome having that supportive community you can tell these things about.

Lady SA

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 556
  • Age: 32
  • Location: Midwest
Congrats! Isn't it great to see your numbers climb and climb and climb?

We are in a similar boat. In Nov '15 I discovered MMM and within a few months we did a complete turnaround and actually got a handle on our finances and changed our priorities. Instead of aggressively paying off our student loans, we instead prioritized saving. The result? We have gone from -$100k nw to a $120k nw in 2 years! We still have just under $60k in debt, but are really close to $200k in assets. Its a great feeling.

In 4 years we should have enough FU money to go down to a single income while we start our family and wait for our assets to naturally compound to our FI number.

ReadySetMillionaire

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1688
  • Location: The Buckeye State
In 4 years we should have enough FU money to go down to a single income while we start our family and wait for our assets to naturally compound to our FI number.

This is essentially our plan as well. The dream scenario for us:

1. Lower expenses before we start a family by paying off auto loans and student loans
2. Invest in career and try as hard as possible to make partner, which would be a huge income boost
3. Due to above, my income alone should be able to (easily) handle all expenses
4. Wife would work part-time (25 hours per week), and her income would allow us to save for retirement/college

Glad to hear someone else has a similar strategy.