It’s been almost one year since my last update. Things are a little more tumultuous right now than we’d all like so the numbers could be a good bit higher but it’s worth it to track through the years.
At risk of sounding tone deaf in the current environment, I’ll share that I received a promotion yesterday that bumps my base salary to $112,000 and my annual bonus potential is closer to $27,000. Our spending has and will remain the same with each bump in pay. The one change to expenses has been the mortgage: we refi’d from a 15-year, 3.375% fixed rate, to a 5/1 ARM at 2.625%. Our annual expenses are now down to about $40,000 all in but with continuing to throw cash at the loan, actual net cash flow is still the same. FI expenses are about $25,000.
Net Worth
2010: ($18,000) [Student Loans]
2011: $25,000 [Married]
2012: $41,000
2013: $62,000 [DH Graduated]
2014: $108,000 [DW Graduated]
2015: $172,000
2016: $263,000 [Cross Country Move & Career Change]
2017: $353,000 [Bought House]
2018: $365,000 [Promoted at Year End]
2019: $559,000
2020: $555,000 [Current] ($625,000 at market highs)
Income*
2010: $33,000 + $2,000 = $35,000
2011: $43,000 + $5,000 = $48,000
2012: $45,000 + $8,000 = $53,000
2013: $42,000 + $15,000 = $57,000
2014: $48,000 + $29,000 = $77,000
2015: $53,000 + $55,000 = $108,000
2016: $45,000 + $52,000 = $97,000
2017: $74,000 + $45,000 = $119,000
2018: $65,000 + $30,000 = $95,000
2019: $104,000 + $23,000 = $127,000
2020: $142,000 + $20,000 = $162,000 [projected]
*DH + DW = Household
The annual bonus that I received in March is sitting in our savings account until the economy is on more stable footing. Once we feel comfortable, we’ll throw this at the mortgage, bringing it down to $210,000 or so. This means we’ll officially own half of our house. Quite the milestone mentally.
Current Assets:
$420,000 House, $309,000 Invested, $33,000 Cash, $25,000 Vehicles
Current Debts:
$232,000 Mortgage
Plan of attack is to max my 401k ASAP to get cash flow freed up and continue putting into my spouse’s 403b. Can only funnel $10,000 here since they have a contribution cap per paycheck. We’ll max my 401k and HSA annually and fill the 403b as possible. From there we’ll keep dumping on the mortgage until it’s gone in about 4 years. I was limiting our extra payments to what we could bring home within the 12% bracket but the now-higher income means we can’t avoid the 22% tax in any scenario. More will go to the debt because of this.
Part of me wants to bite the tax bullet and plow through the mortgage in 3 years. Probably won’t ignore our other goals for a few years just to shave some months off the loan though.
Once our toddler starts school (no idea the right age, it’s a ways away) my spouse will likely return to full time work. Our income would jump from $146k ($111k + $15k + $20k), using a conservative bonus figure, to $185k - $200k. I’d expect to have a paid-for house and $500k+ invested by then. Pretty great position to be in when we start making that kind of money.
We’ll be funding our kid’s college account heavily once the shorter term goals are done or if we switch priorities. Never want to box ourselves into one school of thought without analyzing that stage in our lives.
Thanks as always for following along. I love to see how far we’ve come from the college kids who started this journey. Hopefully I’ll be able to celebrate reaching the first million with you all soon.