How'd you do in 2013? A year-end review.

[ChiStache]

I was playing around with Mint, trying to assess our overall progress with debt pay-down and asset-building for the year. Here are my projected results for 2013. Posting here as a way to track progress and celebrate badassity:

Take home income: $116,169

Student debt pay-down: $45,000

Asset accumulation (investment accounts): $30,000

This is not super precise, of course, because I'm not counting mortgage paydown or adding pre-tax retirement savings back into income, but still, pretty cool metrics! I can't believe the hubs and I advanced the ball by 75K this year! This really helps clear up the confusion I've had recently about how the heck our friends are affording European vacations and new cars. If we were saving 10% of our income (according to bullshit conventional recommendations), we could do that spendy shit too. No thank you; I'll take the Benjamins instead.  WOOOOOT!

[tracipam]

Awesome! Score!! 

I'll share, although mine is just over a year; I guess more like 16 months by the time we finish out this year properly --- I started my first 'real' job last September, got a relocation bonus  in addition to my 80K base salary, and also did one side teaching gig at the community college--and I spent my new shiny salary on living expenses while I:

--Made a $10K downpayment on my house
--Paid off $8K in student loans (right as they came due)
--Maxed out my Roth IRAs for both 2012 AND 2013
--Maxed out my 401K
--Am on track to save about another 6-7K on top of that. 

And all this while going on three nice vacations including one cruise, eating out with my friends when the circumstances warranted it, and generally having a pretty crazy awesome life!  Whoohoo!!

[Charlotte]

Strictly looking out our expenses spreadsheet and including our projected December income and bills, we actually spent about $10k more than we made. But we bought a car (used) and paid off an existing debt. Our overall net worth is up, but it is all in retirement funds. Next year we want to build our cash back up and hopefully pay off our last bit of debt!

Here's to 2014!

[Zaga]

As of right now our net worth (well, net investable assets) is up by $70K.  That blows 2012's $51K out of the water, which was previously our best year by far!  All this on a take home pay of about $70K so far and a savings rate of almost 50%, the stock market has been very good to us this year.

[jrhampt]

It's been a good year.  I finished grad school, my spouse and I increased our incomes by about $40k combined, and our net worth increased by over $200k, not including home equity.  We also paid down another $30k of the mortgage this year and are on track for a paid off house in 3 years, just after we (hopefully) reach FI.  I only hope 2014 and 2015 turn out as well.

[Rural]

"Finished" the house and paid off the mortgage this year, then started dumping one salary in a 403(b). Going to switch that to a 457 hereafter and just put overflow in the 403. Also maxed out an HSA for both of us.

Next year, it should (mostly) all be savings. We still have to buy a(nother) toilet, more siding, boring things like that.

[aj_yooper]

It's been a good year.  I finished grad school, my spouse and I increased our incomes by about $40k combined, and our net worth increased by over $200k, not including home equity.  We also paid down another $30k of the mortgage this year and are on track for a paid off house in 3 years, just after we (hopefully) reach FI.  I only hope 2014 and 2015 turn out as well.

$200k  Whaaat?

[Caoineag]

Paid off the credit cards, the student loan, ramped up the retirement savings and increased networth by 99k. A very good year for us.

[HokieInPa]

Our net worth increased about $120,000 this year. We reduced our spending significantly in a number of areas, but unfortunately got hit with some large expenses that we couldn't defer any longer (new roof and new windows for a total of $20,000). So our savings rate was about $8000 behind last year. Looking forward to 2014 as we will pay off the house by November and we will both be able to contribute to an HSA for the first time. Should be a banner year for saving in 2014 !

[jrhampt]

It's been a good year.  I finished grad school, my spouse and I increased our incomes by about $40k combined, and our net worth increased by over $200k, not including home equity.  We also paid down another $30k of the mortgage this year and are on track for a paid off house in 3 years, just after we (hopefully) reach FI.  I only hope 2014 and 2015 turn out as well.

$200k  Whaaat?

I know, right??  I did a double-take when we were doing our monthly calculations recently.  The snowball is rolling downhill now and gathering momentum.

[MandyM]

By the end of December, I project my net worth will have increased by nearly $80K this year! Next year should be even better as I downsized my house this year (and mortgage and utility bills) while keeping my roommate and her rent payment. I should be FI in about 2 years.

[Cecil]

Depending on how the markets close out 2013, I project our investment accounts to be up around $100K, almost doubling this year! About 60% of that is from savings and the rest from investment growth.

[JessieImproved]

This year, we completely recovered financially from having our second child and from my surgery (my doctor and I considered it medically necessary, the insurance company tended to disagree).  We are now worth more than before all that, which I consider to be a major accomplishment.  Net worth about $50K at the moment.

[rockstache]

I actually discovered MMM this year, so there have been a lot of great changes. We have paid off about $6K of student debt that DH brought into the marriage, and thus both graduated from college with no debt whatsoever. We then increased our net worth by about $30K. When Dh started a new job (his first in a professional environment), he bought all of his new clothes (7-8 pairs of dress pants and 7-8 dress shirts) at the local thrift shop for under $100. We still have a long way to go when it comes to food, especially with groceries, but our alcohol and restaurant budgets have dropped significantly. Savings is increasing and the overall outlook is very good!

[CheckEngineLight]

It has been an expensive year, but progress was made.


In 2013:

Wedding $30k paid for in cash.
Wife's student loan of $14k paid of in cash.
Paid in $25k towards the mortgage.
Made $30k in contribution towards retirement.

Our gross income is ~$180k.  The biggest challenge was the wedding cost, very anti mustachian, but we are both from cultures that put a lot of value on weddings and thankfully they subsidize most of the cost through cash gifts (that helped).  Paying off my wife's student loan was also a relief, we are at about 50% savings rate for the last 2 months (FINALLY), but I suspect X mass will put a small dent into it.

Do you people add your paid in equity of your home in your networth calculation?

[aj_yooper]

As of right now our net worth (well, net investable assets) is up by $70K.  That blows 2012's $51K out of the water, which was previously our best year by far!  All this on a take home pay of about $70K so far and a savings rate of almost 50%, the stock market has been very good to us this year.

Wow!  Net worth up by net pay.  Cool.

[StaceStache]

-Maxed out both mine and my husband's Roth IRAs (neither one of us have retirement plans through an employer)
-Maxed out our HSA (self-funded the max 6,450 - no employer help)
-Paid off approx. 6,500 on our tract of land that we purchased in 2012 for 25K, leaving a balance of roughly 12K at year end which we plan to knock out next year!

Total Net Worth Increase = roughly 30K

[JessieImproved]

I'd also like to add, that if you factor in the (Zillow) value of our house, our net worth has TRIPLED this year.  Seriously.

[ToeInTheWater]

We're up ~30% this year, as of 10/31.  as long as the mkt holds here, this will be a bit higher at year-end

  7%   Home Eq (paydown / appr based on refi appraisal)
  4%   Ret contributions + vested match
19% 401k/IRA appreciation


2012 was about the same (12 months).  bit higher on home eq, lower on 401k appreciation

b

[MoneyCat]

I am always impressed when I see so many people on these boards who individually make more than $100k per year.  I'd really be able to put money away for FIRE with that kind of income.  I should have gotten a degree in STEM.  LOL

[2527]

Got a promotion at work, wife got a job.  Had a good time, enjoyed ourselves.  Increased net worth by about $500,000, but what the stock market giveth, the stock market can also  taketh.

[TheDude]

Man I thought we had a good years but some people in this thread really rocked it.

Family Income  about 119K  (awesome because the wife was on FMLA leave for three months and we had kid 2)
Net worth Increase about 100k (awesome awesome awesome)

The net worth does include house. Although I use the purchase price off 200K instead of the actual value of 230-250k. This is only the second year we have maxed out all the available retirement accounts. We probably saved 55-60k and the rest is the market but still a pretty cool number

[CheckEngineLight]

I am always impressed when I see so many people on these boards who individually make more than $100k per year.  I'd really be able to put money away for FIRE with that kind of income.  I should have gotten a degree in STEM.  LOL

It comes at a price, like a ridiculous cost of living.  There isn't a single detached home for sale around me within 5 miles that's less than 600k...so at the end of the day it's all relative.

[impaire]

Interesting exercise...
Since January, according to mint: Income (pre-everything, including pre-tax) $178K (what??? That's... I'm not sure I believe that), NW +$93K

Since I found MMM in June, and we started on our new path in July, I thought I'd compare [February-June] to [July-November]:
[Feb-June]: income $102K, NW +$35.5K (once-yearly income in January) - NW/income 35%
At the end of June, I invested $50 in our stock portfolio.

[July-Nov]: income $76K, NW +$57.5K (I get paid a pittance in July and August, and November not being over, some pay still to come) - NW/income 75%
At the end of October, I invested $10K in our stock portfolio.

This blows my mind, since we're still FAR from the stage at which I would solicit this community for more money-saving ideas (we still have have obvious cutting areas we're working on). Of course the stock market helped too. I don't feel like our quality of life has decreased at all, and the only thing I could truly point to as "changed" in our behavior is less eating out (not that I miss it much, but all the other changes were unnoticeable). I guess we were bleeding by a thousand paper cuts and not even noticing it...

[randymarsh]

I can't do a net worth calculation since I wasn't keeping track in the beginning of the year. But I have made progress in a few areas:

Good:

Student loans: Paid ~$5,000 (mostly interest) so far this year with plans for another payment or 2
Roth IRA: Contributed $500
Work: Quit $8.20/hr job. Got $15/hr job.
School: Received an unexpected $2,500 scholarship. 1 semester left until I can get a big boy job.

Bad:

Financed a car in December 2012. Fortunately the forum talked me out of a brand new one! But it was still beyond my means. Living with it for now. Will reevaluate when I graduate.

[cbr shadow]

Nice job everyone - these threads are always inspiring!

Wife and I both just turned 30, but only started the mustachian route about a year ago. 
1/1/13 - Networth = $70k
11/22/13 - Networth = $187k
-------------------------------------
$117k increase in just under a year! 

$30k of that comes from our home increasing.  This year the big expenses were a $11k car and a $4500 vacation to Greece.
We also maxed our 401k's and Roth IRA's this year and plan to do that plus open a taxable account this year.  Combined our income is $180k pretax, but before this year it was quite a bit lower.

[secondcor521]

All in YTD savings rate per Quicken is 60.06%.

Net worth went up by more than total income, just because I am at that point in the snowball and the market has been up.

[nora]

We were completely broke in July 2011. As in I borrowed a couple of thousand from my parents to pay the bills broke. Very humiliating. (I can remember being at the supermarket trying to work out whether we could do 21 meals for the week with $45 and then praying as I swiped my credit  ard that I had calculated the balance correctly and it would go through. Answer, yes, but we were hungry). Especially considering I had been earning increasing amounts each year between 50-100000 for the previous ten years. I never saved anything.

July 2012 saw another increase in income and a finding of MMM when I was googling what to do with a windfall or some such. Since then have paid off $70000 in student loans, put $65000 deposit on our first home, and have increased our net worth to around $130000 from -$100000 (student loans plus $30000 in credit card debt). We haven't bought anything significant. Compare this with the year before when we bought brand new whiteware, two leather lounge suites, a brand new luxury bed, etc etc.

I look forward to similar increases over the coming years with the aim of retiring in 10yrs. Woohoo!

[boy_bye]

Well, at the beginning of this year we were $15k underwater on a shitty little house in the ghetto, looking at $16k of credit card debt (husband), and $22k of student loan debt (me).

Now we've moved, paid off the gap between what we owed on the house and what we were able to sell it for, and within spitting distance of paying off my husband's credit card debt. And I paid my taxes from 2012 ($4k, I had been a contractor), and my 401k has somehow gone up $10k even though I only put $5k into it.

So that's a positive move of ~$40k. And my husband was even unemployed for about three months of the year. Wow, we did better than I thought!

At our current clip we'll be entirely out of debt by April or May. And then the Vanguarding can commence!

[Mayan]

Jan 1, 2013 net worth:  - $2,600

Jan 1, 2014 net worth (estimated):  + $47,000

Gross income for 2013 was ~ $90,000. 

2013 was a good year for me due to combination of higher-than-expected income, resolve to kill debt, and reasonable attempts at frugal living.   I started the year with $9,300 of student loans, down from $28,200 when I graduated in May 2012, and was able to kill them in February.  Then I was able to build my previously thin emergency fund, up my 401k contributions and fund 2012/2013 Roth contributions.  I discovered MMM around the time the Washington Post article was published, and it has been a nice source of ideas and support for continuing to live cheaply now that my net worth is positive. 

[Zaga]

As of right now our net worth (well, net investable assets) is up by $70K.  That blows 2012's $51K out of the water, which was previously our best year by far!  All this on a take home pay of about $70K so far and a savings rate of almost 50%, the stock market has been very good to us this year.

Wow!  Net worth up by net pay.  Cool.

I know, it still boggles my mind a bit.  :)

[Stackfault]

Oh wow, I'm glad I looked at the trend report in Mint to see just how good a year it was.  I had more than half the portfolio in cash until July (because you know, I'm omniscient and was sure the market had peaked, despite being wrong the year before as well) so I could have been much better off but I guess I need to stop kicking myself for what I missed and celebrate what I got.

Total net worth up $250K!  (About 17%)
Portfolio up $210K!
House up $40k!

Expenses? 
We finally cut off cable TV which saved $100 a month.  (I consider this funding for a trip to Venice in a few years.)  And I did reduce our auto insurance by 51% by switching companies for the first time in 20 years.  (Clearly, I should have done that ages ago.)  Our cash back rewards improved greatly with our new AMEX Blue Cash Preferred Card due to its 6% refund on groceries and our high spending on that category.

Other than that, we were less than mustachian.  We took the family on a once in a lifetime bucket list vacation, bought a car (2 years old base model), and bought a high end camera for my wife's new photography business.  If not for those, we'd have added another $30K to the above.  Nice of the market to quickly offset that for us but as was already said, the market (and life) taketh away as well.  I lost my father and gained 20 lbs this year.

In the coming year, I will stick to my new Boglehead investing principles (and stop trying to time the market), work with my wife to reduce our food expense, launch her new business, and continue planning early retirement options.

[sheepstache]

We were completely broke in July 2011. As in I borrowed a couple of thousand from my parents to pay the bills broke. Very humiliating. (I can remember being at the supermarket trying to work out whether we could do 21 meals for the week with $45 and then praying as I swiped my credit  ard that I had calculated the balance correctly and it would go through. Answer, yes, but we were hungry). Especially considering I had been earning increasing amounts each year between 50-100000 for the previous ten years. I never saved anything.

July 2012 saw another increase in income and a finding of MMM when I was googling what to do with a windfall or some such. Since then have paid off $70000 in student loans, put $65000 deposit on our first home, and have increased our net worth to around $130000 from -$100000 (student loans plus $30000 in credit card debt). We haven't bought anything significant. Compare this with the year before when we bought brand new whiteware, two leather lounge suites, a brand new luxury bed, etc etc.

I look forward to similar increases over the coming years with the aim of retiring in 10yrs. Woohoo!

Damn girl.  Way to rock a 180.  Woohoo, indeed.

I'm on track to meet my 2013 savings goal of 25,000 a month early and have had an average 53% savings rate.  My networth is up nearly $50K from 12 months ago; that's mostly the markets.

[El Gringo]

According to Mint, I started the year off with a net worth of $17,800 and I've increased it to $42,450 as of today with a base salary of $41,000 (I made a little extra by traveling abroad for work)! Up until January, I only had a 401k. In November or December, I made a goal to learn as much as I could about investing and open an IRA. In January I opened the IRA and I maxed it out for 2012. I've put in $3,800 so far for this year and plan to max it out. I went from almost zero knowledge of investing to now being, what I consider, very knowledgeable and confident in what I am doing. Over the year, I've paid off $4,600 in student loan debt, going from -$13,900 to -$9,300. I recently upped my 401k contribution from 6% to 10%. I also recently opened a taxable account to start investing money for medium-term goals. I also took a vacation and traveled around northern Ethiopia (beautiful mountains and amazing history)!

[ASquared]

Great thread. Inspiring to see everyones progress. 

Mint stats YTD:

Net Income - 124,615
Net Worth - 426,125

We just found MMM this year.  Fortunately we didn't have a "debt emergency" to deal with, but we were rather inefficient in our financial lifestyle. Around April started decreasing our outrageous expenses.  Only really over past 4 months or so have we been pretty serious.  Excited to see what we can do next year!

Spending slowly trending down:

2012 monthly spending average - 6600
2013 monthly spending average - 5119
Last 3 mo spending average - 3664 (yay!  It's working!)

Best part of this is that I don't feel a "lifestyle hit" whatsoever.  We are more thoughtful about our purchases and what we want, how we want to spend our money, time, etc.  Overall actually feel MORE satisfied!  How cool.

[acanthurus]

Net increase 150K. Now I just need to find a frugal gal and I'm set.

[Self-employed-swami]

I was just thinking about this actually. At the beginning of the year, we had ~$100,000 in various accounts (not in cash, all invested between RRSPs, TFSAs and non-taxable accounts to minimize our tax liability). DH had a $12,000 left on his student loan, and we had about $10,000 in business debt on our LOC.

As of last week, those accounts above have $146,000 in them, DH's student loan is gone, and the LOC is back at $65,000 (the amount leveraged for the taxable investments, that $10,000 is gone). We spent ~$4500 on a new furnace for the house, and made about $8000 worth of principal payments towards the house (with a balance of $60,010 as of yesterday, and only 7 years of payments left, if we never make another lump sum payment.

Not too bad, considering I only worked 1/2 the year.

[N]

This was a tough year. It was our first year of mustachianism.

For the year my husband is going to gross about 64k and our side gigs netted us approx. 4k

We paid off approximately 33K in credit card, medical debt, and car loan. Those debts are all at zero right now.

Our retirement accts are at 39K  up from approx 32K

We have a one month buffer in our checking account (about 4k) and 4K in cash earmarked for moving in the next few months.

We are in a much improved position from one year ago, but we still have a long way to go.

[Osprey]

It's great to see everyone's progress, please keep posting!

Things look bad on paper for me:
- Monthly spending went up (recurring medical expenses plus moving from cheap rural rent to expensive city rent)
- Net worth went down (voluntary joblessness and travel)
- Much money going into an unwanted provident and retirement account that was compulsory with my new employer

Oops...

Looking on the bright side, I have no debt.

[ender]

My net worth has increased by about 65% of my salary each month this year, on average (I didn't have a significant investment balance prior to this year).

I'm pretty pumped about that and it doesn't even include a large december bonus which is going straight to savings nor any potential tax refund :)

[mbk]

I cleared $60k in income for 2013 which is $32k more than last year. But my wife didn't work this year, so we have only a modest increase in our combined income.

I bought a $24k property with 0% APR CC loan and cleared $19k of that loan. Property is worth $30k as of now. $7.5k went to retirement accounts.  Total net gain in personal wealth is around $33k mark. Retirement account balance should be just shy of $20k mark by the end of year.

2014 looks promising. I got a 5% raise last month and we are shaving another 5% from our expenses starting January. Targeting for a net gain of $35k in 2014.

[anotherAlias]

With the market run up, my net worth has increased ~100K this year (all in liquid accounts).  If I could get another couple years growing at this rate, I could shave some time off my freedom date.

[dandarc]

2013 has been a good year for us!

Net worth up about 70K so far.  Paying off our mortgage next month!  Most importantly, we committed to making early retirement a high priority and cut our spending by about 4k per year since October.

We think 2014 will be even better - the goal is to cut our annual spending by 1k each month (still a long way to go on getting spending down) and max out all of our retirement accounts (2X Roth IRA, 1X457, 1XSolo401K) for the first time ever!

[Elaine]

2013 has been great! I have learned so much about personal finance (here as well as on other sites), and I've basically gotten over my math phobia. I always felt like I "couldn't" figure out investing because I was "bad" at math- hooey! I'm doing it anyway!

In one year I've gone from not even knowing what retirement plan options I had checked (literally), to monitoring all of my spending and earning. If anyone new is reading this, I actually got a personal finance dictionary, it helped me a lot. I'm now contributing as much as I can to my retirement plan (have about 17k now), and I've socked away about $8,500 in vanguard investments on top of that (my take home pay was 30k per year, so that's pretty good). I also got a salary raise of about 20k that went into effect in October, so this next year should be a HUGE savings difference. My SO got a higher paying job as well (I went from pre-tax 40k to 60k, he went from $8hr to $13hr). I have no debt. My SO got rid of his facepunchworthy car debt (3k at 10%) and is now working on the last of his credit card debt (1k).  I no longer worry about bills getting paid. Just the other week I realized my winter boots were shot and that I needed new ones- AND I COULD ACTUALLY AFFORD TO BUY THEM. I researched long lasting brands, took time to read reviews, and got a great deal from a discount store. I love operating with the knowledge that money is just an object that you can use to buy yourself time.

We both feel like we've gotten the cheat codes to life by finding the information on this site, I can't express my gratitude enough to everyone for making this such an awesome and truly helpful community. I can't wait to see where I am in another year, but I think as a one year old Mustache I've done quite well!   

[Phoebe]

Our networth increased by $254,650 (from $290,350 to $545K) though we will owe about $45K in taxes next month from the sale of company stock, so I estimate that over the entire year we will have increased by about $223K.

We have also made over $29K in investment gains, which was a significant goal of ours.  I make much more than my husband, who makes $29K annually, and we wanted a big enough stache to take the pressure off of me, and make him feel confident that he could provide for our family if I were to get sick or something.  We spend about $40K annually which includes vacations and luxuries we could cut out if needed, so we've hit our goal of making our family independent of my salary.

We also had a goal of hitting $500K this year, and when we hit that we had a nice celebration.

[tpozywio]

Only started tracking at start of July.   Since this my invested assets is up from 70k to 105k.

[aj_yooper]

2013 has been great! I have learned so much about personal finance (here as well as on other sites), and I've basically gotten over my math phobia. I always felt like I "couldn't" figure out investing because I was "bad" at math- hooey! I'm doing it anyway!

In one year I've gone from not even knowing what retirement plan options I had checked (literally), to monitoring all of my spending and earning. If anyone new is reading this, I actually got a personal finance dictionary, it helped me a lot. I'm now contributing as much as I can to my retirement plan (have about 17k now), and I've socked away about $8,500 in vanguard investments on top of that (my take home pay was 30k per year, so that's pretty good). I also got a salary raise of about 20k that went into effect in October, so this next year should be a HUGE savings difference. My SO got a higher paying job as well (I went from pre-tax 40k to 60k, he went from $8hr to $13hr). I have no debt. My SO got rid of his facepunchworthy car debt (3k at 10%) and is now working on the last of his credit card debt (1k).  I no longer worry about bills getting paid. Just the other week I realized my winter boots were shot and that I needed new ones- AND I COULD ACTUALLY AFFORD TO BUY THEM. I researched long lasting brands, took time to read reviews, and got a great deal from a discount store. I love operating with the knowledge that money is just an object that you can use to buy yourself time.

We both feel like we've gotten the cheat codes to life by finding the information on this site, I can't express my gratitude enough to everyone for making this such an awesome and truly helpful community. I can't wait to see where I am in another year, but I think as a one year old Mustache I've done quite well!

Awesome awakening and stirring!

[Self-employed-swami]

*snip*

We both feel like we've gotten the cheat codes to life by finding the information on this site, I can't express my gratitude enough to everyone for making this such an awesome and truly helpful community. I can't wait to see where I am in another year, but I think as a one year old Mustache I've done quite well!

Awesome awakening and stirring!

I agree! It is such a freeing feeling, isnt't it?

[dude]

Haven't done the calcs yet, but obviously like pretty much everyone else invested in the market, our retirement accounts have seen very nice appreciation (20.33% return for the last 12 months).  But more than anything, this year marked an awakening for me, having found the MMM site only a few months ago.  I went on a cost-cutting jihad after finding it, cutting everything from cell phone bill, insurance and entertainment costs, to dropping unnecessary land line phone and home alarm monitoring.  Stopped buying that $1.76 coffee at Starbucks every morning and started brewing up at home; stopped buying lunch 2-3 days a week and really focused on bringing lunch to work (so much healthier, too).  And now look at all potential purchases with a much more critical eye.  All these things have made a significant difference.  And all because I found this website.  Really looking forward to seeing what a full year of change will do to the bottom line.  Lots of inspiring stories in this thread!!!

Damn, so just did some looking around and figured I added close to $100K in net worth the past 11 months.  Hoping that snowball continues to roll.

[hybrid]

Depending on how the markets close out 2013, I project our investment accounts to be up around $100K, almost doubling this year! About 60% of that is from savings and the rest from investment growth.

This has been a fantastic year to be in the market.  We are having a very good year as well from the investment side, as the bulk of our 401Ks are in the market.

We paid off about 20K in mortgage debt, added 16K to our 401Ks, while all else has stayed pretty close to even.  So we were up 32K (post tax, assuming 25% on the 401Ks one of these days) before investments this year. 

Curious how folks have done after taking the bull market returns out of the equation.