The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: Tyson on September 21, 2017, 12:27:55 PM
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So, how much more are you worth today, vs when you first started doing MMM? I'll go first. I found MMM in 2015 at 43 years old, after a brutal layoff that took me 9 months to find a new job and blew threw all my liquid savings except for my 401k. Sooo here's my #'s:
2015 Net Worth - $131,000
2017 Net Worth - $338,000
Holy cow, I can hardly believe it. And it wasn't even that hard to do, mainly just a matter of getting my shit in order so I stopped wasting the truckloads of cash I'd been burning through every month for most of my life.
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I apparently joined the forum in October of 2013. According to my spreadsheet, our net worth was:
October 2013 - $200,000
September 2017 - $625,400
So a little more than tripled in that time. Good market returns + some expense reductions + increased income has made the NW rise quite rapid.
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$856,000 August 2013
$1,710,000 as of today
So approximately doubled (or increased $854,000)
Wow!
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Noting only the things that have changed here.
Start:
Car loan 6k
CC debt 2.5k
Investments 40k
Now
Car loan 0k
CC debt 0k
Investments 48k
Started about 3 months ago, 16.5k increase in nw in that time. Our savings rate have gone up each month, with what feels like close to none effort.
Amazing.
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30k to 48k~ since February.
That's including some rather insane expenses, like buying a new house, new roof, moving, lots of random new stuff to make the new house livable (working stove for example), and the ongoing repairs on said house.
If your on these forums you're pretty lucky imo :)(not that this site isn't self selected a bit of course). When I consider the fact that in 9 years of being an adult I put away about about 30k of wealth, and in 7 months post MMM we put away more than half of that. On one averageish income... with a kid... while acquiring a new house... its just maximum plaid(use your googlefu ;) ).
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We started tracking NW in summer 2014 and found MMM shortly thereafter - I think 2015 was our first year of maxing 401k contributions.
NW Aug 2014: 191,000
NW Aug 2017: 500,000
100K a year avg with a household income that just this year hit 150K isn't too shabby! (thanks, markets!) :)
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May 2015 net worth: $232K
Sep 2017 net worth: $521K
Delta: $289K
Age 32
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Sept 2014 NW = 730K
Sept 2017 NW = 1.25M
Incr = 520K
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Start: -31K around September last year.
Now: -5K
So close to zero! It's all uphill once I'm debt free (32K to go) and I can pay myself with investments and maxed out retirement accounts!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I have average a gain of $13,990 a month since I first saw MMM on 8-21-2015, twenty five months ago. For a gain of $349,771.
MMM didn't really change my habits, other than spending way to much time reading the site.
We were already frugal, maybe not MMM frugal but well above average savers. We are Fi but not RE, because I can't get my wife to retire.
I like to think, if you open up "The Millionaire Next Door" you'll see me waving at you.
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505k to 690k since I joined last summer, not counting house value change.
Savings rate doubled from maxing 401k and partial 529 contributions to maxing 529 to state deduction, maxing sousal IRA, maxing Roth IRA, and putting 24k into a taxable account.
Sold my truck. Went to 100% bike commuting. Cut out a lot of beef from the grocery bill.
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First found MMM September 2015: -350k.
Now in September 2017: -205k.
Progress (+145k) has been made...but there is still some distance to travel.
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We were somewhere between $0 and $5,000 when we started in August/September 2011, when we were 23 and 24. We're at $290,899 today, about six years later. Our combined income during that time ranged from around 35K to 80K, so it's not like we were rolling in cash.
We didn't really make a lot of changes. It was more making a few tweaks here and there and increasing our income from "shit" to "middle-class".
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Cool idea for a thread, and had never really thought about it. While I found MMM about a year ago, I will admit that we have only been making small changes here and there thus far so I think we still have a lot of room for improvement.
Jun 2016: $618k
Sep 2017: $856k
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Feb 2014 to present around 200k NW change
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October 2012: ~$275k (I don't really have concrete figures from then)
September 2017: $1,026k
Would have happened with or without MMM. I'm just here cos it's a nice place to be :)
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I started reading at the end of last year. I really don't have data from before January, so:
Jan 01 2017: -$24,413
Sept 01 2017: -$3,332
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Joined MMM Oct 2013 (and started cutting frivolous expenses right away), but didn't start tracking Net Worth until Aug. 2014. I had been investing and saving pretty solidly for about a decade prior to that, but the wife had not. Got her on board after finding MMM and it's made a huge difference (she is now regularly shocked to hear about how much debt her friends have).
Aug 2014
NW = $705,171
Invested assets = $640,573
Sept 1, 2017
NW = $1,290,242
Invested assets = $1,034,894
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I found MMM and the FIRE concept in August 2016. Our net worth has increased since that time by $123k
Aug 2016 NW: $557k
Sept 2017 NW: $680k
In August 2016 my wife was 44. She started her career when she was 24. In August 2016 I was 46. I started my career when I was 27. So it took us a combined 39 work years to reach 81% of our current NW. The other 19% came in just the two combined work years since we discovered MMM and the concept of FIRE.
We haven't had any increase in income over the last year. The NW gains over the last 12 months were due to a strong stock market, moving our investments out of life-cycle funds and into low-fee index funds, a concerted effort to pay off the mortgage on our cabin, and cutting lots of wasteful spending.
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We were somewhere between $0 and $5,000 when we started in August/September 2011, when we were 23 and 24. We're at $290,899 today, about six years later. Our combined income during that time ranged from around 35K to 80K, so it's not like we were rolling in cash.
We didn't really make a lot of changes. It was more making a few tweaks here and there and increasing our income from "shit" to "middle-class".
Congratulations, keep up the savings! I recall having $642 at 26, and that was all from wedding gifts.
You are way ahead of the game. By the end of our first year of marriage we had $6,000. That was in 1982 when the two of us grossed $18,000. :-)
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We were somewhere between $0 and $5,000 when we started in August/September 2011, when we were 23 and 24. We're at $290,899 today, about six years later. Our combined income during that time ranged from around 35K to 80K, so it's not like we were rolling in cash.
We didn't really make a lot of changes. It was more making a few tweaks here and there and increasing our income from "shit" to "middle-class".
Congratulations, keep up the savings! I recall having $642 at 26, and that was all from wedding gifts.
You are way ahead of the game. By the end of our first year of marriage we had $6,000. That was in 1982 when the two of us grossed $18,000. :-)
Thanks! I kick myself sometimes for not starting as soon as I started working full time at 18 - an extra five or six years of savings!. But we're still looking at a relatively short working career, so there's that I guess.
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When I found MMM in March 2015, my NW was around $600K.
As of September 2017, it's $1.23M, with just over $1M in cash and investments. Not too shabby!
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$269,596 is shown in my spreadsheet under "savings since finding MMM" - since June 2014.
This could be compared to saving $200,000 in retirement funds and paying off a $275k mortgage in the 18 years prior.
NW is a whole different story, as we became mortgage free January 2016 in a high grow real estate market. That had nothing to to with MMM, but the fact we still have ten year old cars and ride a bike to work does. We were so ready to put mortgage costs towards a $80,000 camper van... instead, we are happy but frustrated with our 36 year old Westphalia that barely runs.
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7/1/14: $277,177.26
9/23/17: $395,701.84
$118,524.58 in 3 years
We're plugging along, totally inspired by those of you who are blowing us out of the water. In the time from 7/14, my husband went from FT with commute to PT from home. We had a second baby. We moved within our city to a more sustainable living situation. Plus, I took a $25K pay cut to leave a stressful job I didn't enjoy. We are the happiest we've ever been.
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Not really sure, since I had a bunch of accounts that I wasn't keeping track of very well. It took me a couple months to consolidate and setup Mint. So far has gone up 65k in 9 months since I started tracking.
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I found MMM in April 2013, but my records only go back to September 2013.
9/2013: $296,114 (Cash + Investments: $263,788)
9/2017: $766,596 (Cash + Investments: $589,517)
Wowsers.
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Ours has more than tripled since 2013 but MMM had nothing to do with it. We have always been frugal and generally lucky with investments and real estate.
Before 2013 I had never considered retiring. Now I have a plan all mapped out and am ready to take any of the off ramps. I have probably wasted a lot of time on it, actually, but good to know where we stand.
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Found MMM late 2013, with a NW of ~$200,000
Made a forum account April 2015 with a NW of $288,000
Currently at $457,000
Holy wow.
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Back then (late 2013/early 2014) I wasn't tracking my net worth, but it was probably in the $200-$250k range. It hit $790k on Friday.
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Hey Sailor Sam. I’m DW To ML. I finally joined the forums.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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Hey Sailor Sam. I’m DW To ML. I finally joined the forums.
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Hey ho, Stingray! I've heard ML is a hell of a 40th birthday present. ;)
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Hey ho, Stingray! I've heard ML is a hell of a 40th birthday present. ;)
I’m still laughing. Actually, from one cradle robber to another, Yep. :-)
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Fun thread idea!
Found MMM in 2010, Age 23 - $2,000 (zero investments, just a checking account)
September 2017, Age 30 - $80,000
Will break $100k in mid 2018 and our salaries have gotten a LOT better, so we've seen our savings explode in the last few months.
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Increased $325K since I joined the forums in October 2015. Approximately $35K is due to appreciation of our rental unit, but the rest is from saving, investing, and paying down the mortgage.
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Long story short: from minus 20K € and no liquidity to minus 6K with 5K liquidity now.
My journey from debt insanity actually started before I found MMM or other good blogs on badass frugality and non-complanipantsism. After I got my el. engineering diploma, I sat in a expensive new flat without furniture (had to move since the last landlord went nuts) after a job offer had just busted. Unemployed for 3 months, and by Jan 2015 I was at minus 20k student loans and credit cards and had a nervous breakdown. I had the shit scared out of me by my own reflection at 3am in the morning.
Before the first pay from my ph.d. program arrived at the end of Jan 15, I literally had 20€ left for food.
And here we are, looking at job offers that will pay me 64K+ in 2018 as soon as I finish my ph.d., no longer screaming at the mirror. Never again.
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I read all of the MMM blog posts in mid-late 2015 and joined the forum in December 2015, although I didn't post much until this year.
Start NW in 12/2015:
953k, of which $440k was home equity, and $513k was non-home equity
Last month:
1.3M total, $550k home equity, $753k non-home equity
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Wow, some people have really big numbers. I still owe $48,000 in student loans, so that drags my numbers down a bit.
August 2015: -$76000 (Yes, that's a negative number.)
September 2017: +$25000 (including equity from my house)
I'd be further along if my wife hadn't been sick and unable to work for a year and a half and if I didn't have to pay 5.25% interest on my student loans, but overall I'm doing pretty well.
Finding MMM has made a huge difference in my life.
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Wow, some people have really big numbers. I still owe $48,000 in student loans, so that drags my numbers down a bit.
August 2015: -$76000 (Yes, that's a negative number.)
September 2017: +$25000 (including equity from my house)
I'd be further along if my wife hadn't been sick and unable to work for a year and a half and if I didn't have to pay 5.25% interest on my student loans, but overall I'm doing pretty well.
Finding MMM has made a huge difference in my life.
Basically you've turned things around by over $100,000 in a little over 2 years. Hot damn that's awesome! Working out of a hole (debt) is actually much harder than building wealth from zero.
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Joined MMM in March 2014.
March 2014: 169K
September 2017: 505K
Pretty much tripled in 3.5 years.
If I never found MMM, I think I would be around 300K to 400K with a shiny new car. Instead I bought a $2,500 used car that runs great.
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I found MMM right after graduating from grad school in August of 2013. My net worth then was negative $190k. I'm currently around positive $120k, so an increase of about $300k over 4 years.
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Household Numbers:
Found MMM Sep 2012 (age 32): US$130,000
Sep 2017 (age 37): US $615,000
5 Year Increase: US$ 485,000
Which is well over our 5 Years After-tax Income of US$340,000
Thanks bull market/real estate appreciation.
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Prior to MMM, I wallowed in the victim-mentality of hopeless negative net worth, thinking I could never climb out of the hole that was sucking me down my whole life (despite a 6 figure income for many years).
(very face punch worthy, yes)
MMM changed my entire mindset, empowered me, I dropped the hopeless victim mentality, and went full force. Quickly turned negative net worth into positive and been climbing that ladder in the 1.5 years since discovering MMM.
Thank you Pete!
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About 500k liquid. NW--about 800k. When I started getting serious in 2011, I thought could retire in 10-15 years. Once I started saving, I realized I could be done in 7.
Money grows fast!
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Not net worth but investments
1M to 1.8M
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Since we all have varying levels of income, how do these changes actually move you forward to reaching FIRE?
My dollar amounts were: Pre-MMM(2014) - $250k, today - $790k
With a FIRE amount of $1.2M, I went from 21% to 66% in those three years.
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I found MMM in 2013 and made some major changes in my life. I am just about in my 40s now.
I have been putting away insane amounts each month. I dont want to get into actual numbers, but;
My dividend income is now the same as what my salary was back in 2014.
I have actually gone over a savings rate of 100% of gross salary, because I am also re-investing dividends.
I blame Pete for this savings problem.
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Just hit $300k today! We were at $180k one year ago and probably around $50k when I started reading MMM in late 2014. Our incomes are fairly modest for a high cost of living area. Parental gifts and stock market rally are part of this success. MMM's definitely had a major influence, especially in steering us toward index fund investing. Can't say we've cut our annual budget costs too much since they were already low(ish), but our income has risen steadily, we've improved our lifestyle without spending more (i.e., travel hacking and Republic wireless instead of pre-paid dumb phones). Next goals: continue to avoid lifestyle creep when we have a baby and reach $325k by March, assuming the stock market doesn't dip.
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I have average a gain of $13,990 a month since I first saw MMM on 8-21-2015, twenty five months ago. For a gain of $349,771.
MMM didn't really change my habits, other than spending way to much time reading the site.
We were already frugal, maybe not MMM frugal but well above average savers. We are Fi but not RE, because I can't get my wife to retire.
I like to think, if you open up "The Millionaire Next Door" you'll see me waving at you.
Same - up $14,324 each month over the past 34 months ($477,000). I was frugal before "Mustachian" was the cool synonym.
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These bragging threads are fun.
Discovered MMM in November of 2014.
$75,000 - Net Worth 11/1/2014
$327,000 - Net Worth 9/26/2017
+$252,000 in just under 3 years
My income has also gone up from $49k in 2014 to ~$120k in 2017
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September 2015: $1.8M
September 2017: $2.6M
Thank you OP for starting this thread! It hadn't occurred to me to do this calculation, but I'm glad I did! Many many thanks to MMM and this community!
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Wow, some people have really big numbers. I still owe $48,000 in student loans, so that drags my numbers down a bit.
August 2015: -$76000 (Yes, that's a negative number.)
September 2017: +$25000 (including equity from my house)
I'd be further along if my wife hadn't been sick and unable to work for a year and a half and if I didn't have to pay 5.25% interest on my student loans, but overall I'm doing pretty well.
Finding MMM has made a huge difference in my life.
Basically you've turned things around by over $100,000 in a little over 2 years. Hot damn that's awesome! Working out of a hole (debt) is actually much harder than building wealth from zero.
Totally agree. You rock!
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I think I found MMM in March 2014. It took us a couple months to get tracking everything, so my earliest net worth entry is May 2017.
May 2014 - $132.7k
Sept 2017 - $417.7k
an increase of $285k in 28 months40 months. That's absurd! I never earned more than $70k/yr until I got a raise last month. Some of that was due to using outdated home values for the 2 houses we used, so mid stream I changed over so it would automatically pull the value from zillow, and that represents a good chunk of that increase, but it's still impressive to me none-the-less. We also managed to pay for IVF (my wife got a job and saved for a couple years to offset this cost). I love watching my net worth line trend upwards each month. Most of that pink debt is mortgages on two houses, one of which we just sold. My graph should change drastically in the coming months, but it's all just reshuffling and the net worth line should stay where it is, steadily creeping ever higher.
The 3 lines above it are inflation adjusted baseline spending pegged to 2014 dollars. Will be glorious day when my yellow net worth line starts crossing over those thresholds.
(https://preview.ibb.co/n7FEkb/Net_worth_trends2.jpg)
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Great thread for us to look back and see how far we’ve come!
Joined Jan 2014 with NW of $141k
Oct 2017 NW of $730k
I would never have gotten here without MMM and this forum. Sold a cash flow negative rental house for a tidy profit and keep investing into the market. Frugal is the new norm for me now,
I couldn’t imagine spending like I used to.
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$23,000 increase in our net worth since November 2015. MMM had a lot to do with this, for even this somewhat modest amount probably would not have happened if I had not discovered this blog.
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Oct 2015 - $220k
Oct 2017 - $500k
Whoa...I thought I calculated wrong and had to double check my numbers.
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November 2013 - Net Worth $525,000
October 2017 - Net Worth $975,000
Ya Baby! :) Thanks MMM!
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93% growth in NW over almost 4 years.
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Since discovering MMM in 2014, we've added ~$600K to our NW but perhaps more importantly, we've taken control of our financial health.
I found this site when researching early retirement, and it's given back so much more. 2 giant thumbs up :)
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Started July 2016 at 195,000.
Today we're at about 260,000.
There was a child born and a maternity leave in there. And now we're paying for daycare for two kids. We include our home equity in our net worth we pay extra on the principle and it would make us sad to leave that out of the equation.
So...
Vanguard index funds: $125k
Condo: Mortgage 307k; estimated value 405k
The rest is cash. We believe in a big emergency fund.
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Joined February, 2014: $109,215.19.
Current NW: $353,980.38.
224% increase in 3.5 years.
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March 2015: ~ -$70,000
October 2017: ~ $35,000
I used to try and calculate my wife's pension value in there, but it just inflated my networth too much so I took it out. I've also left house value the same as historical cost. I don't trust something like Zillow. I'll trust the number on the paperwork if I sell.
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March 2015: ~ -$70,000
October 2017: ~ $35,000
I used to try and calculate my wife's pension value in there, but it just inflated my networth too much so I took it out. I've also left house value the same as historical cost. I don't trust something like Zillow. I'll trust the number on the paperwork if I sell.
You seem to have gone backwards. Did you forget a zero in your October 2017 number?
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Love reading all of these and congrats to all. It's amazing how easy it is to get rich for anyone who truly wants to.
July 2014 NW: $320k
Today NW: $1,350k
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March 2015: ~ -$70,000
October 2017: ~ $35,000
I used to try and calculate my wife's pension value in there, but it just inflated my networth too much so I took it out. I've also left house value the same as historical cost. I don't trust something like Zillow. I'll trust the number on the paperwork if I sell.
You seem to have gone backwards. Did you forget a zero in your October 2017 number?
Nope, there's a minus sign in front of the $70,000 so it's negative. Sorry, hard to see.
March 2015: ~ ($70,000)
October 2017: ~ $35,000
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March 2015: ~ -$70,000
October 2017: ~ $35,000
I used to try and calculate my wife's pension value in there, but it just inflated my networth too much so I took it out. I've also left house value the same as historical cost. I don't trust something like Zillow. I'll trust the number on the paperwork if I sell.
You seem to have gone backwards. Did you forget a zero in your October 2017 number?
It looks as if there's a negative sign in the March 2015 number. So a change of $105K
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May 2014- Read through the blog, getting rid of cable was the first/immediate step.
Net worth ~ 40k
October 2017-
Networth- ~600k (including house, which we are selling and moving to a Lower COL!!)
Networth without house equity ~250k
Not bad for a 29 year old couple living in one of the most expensive cities in Canada!
Thanks MMM!
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hard to know for sure what i had when we started.
Found MMM at 27 in Feb 2014 had ~~125k
Today in 2017 ~ 750k networth.
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What a great thread! I started reading MMM in September 2016 right after getting a 10K raise (44K to 54K) and my net worth has gone from approximately 90K to 110K. What is more impressive is how much money MMM has saved me.
I've always been decent with money but since I had just gotten a raise, I was super close to buying a Volkswagen Tiguan to celebrate. I found MMM that weekend and when I saw he drove the same car I have (Scion XD), I felt like it was a sign. That saved me about 10K.
I got married this year and MMM strengthened my resolve to have an affordable wedding so that probably saved me 5K although that is just an estimate.
I work for a state university and after learning more about investments, I realized there is an optional retirement program which is basically like an extremely flexible Roth IRA specifically for early retirees, so I maxed out this year's 15K contribution and plan to do so as long as I work at the university.
It's been a fun journey! Although I'm still a consumer by mustachian standards, no one I work with has even considered the university's additional retirement program, so I guess I'm still in the top 5%.
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August 2015 $105k
Sept 2017 $243k
I got a 60% raise in September 2015, which helped dramatically.
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Interesting.
May 2015 = $284,000
Oct 2017 = $543,000
Almost doubled!
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for soem reason never ran this particular number. Dec 2013 to present, ~$580k to ~$1,800k. That's over 26k/mth on average! Madness!! To be fair, I am definitely overpaid, but it's largely a testament to the power of compounding, both in the equity markets and in debt paydown on leveraged real estate.
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for soem reason never ran this particular number. Dec 2013 to present, ~$580k to ~$1,800k. That's over 26k/mth on average! Madness!! To be fair, I am definitely overpaid, but it's largely a testament to the power of compounding, both in the equity markets and in debt paydown on leveraged real estate.
Wow. Bravo.
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Found MMM in May 2017. Was blindly spending $ on all sorts of stuff. Cut expenses and started cramming every extra penny into schwab since that time has brought me and DW from $1.6 to $2.7M including massive paydowns on the mortgage.
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Found MMM in May 2017. Was blindly spending $ on all sorts of stuff. Cut expenses and started cramming every extra penny into schwab since that time has brought me and DW from $1.6 to $2.7M including massive paydowns on the mortgage.
why is your name wanna be stache then you should be FI and able to RE whenever if you could go up 1.1M in 5 months.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
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I found MMM in late 2012 and started tracking things seriously in Mint soon after.
Jan 2013: ~250k
Oct 2017: ~720k
This is just me, not including my wife's numbers as she has separate accounts.
Crazy to think about: I was 47, had been working in a well paid engineering job for over 20 years, had owned a house for over 20 years, and my NW was about 2x my annual salary. 4.5 years later, that's tripled!
This increase happened while basically static in income, with major non-MMM expenses (hello, eating out, looking at you here). I got some of the big things right finally (housing, cars) and the market has been booming, of course.
I credit MMM with helping change my mindset to one of looking for optimization and simplicity and making me think about options for the next few years beyond "keep working until 65". There have been other blogs that inspired and informed me as well; Jeremy and Winnie at GoCurryCracker being a prime one. I really enjoyed meeting them in Malaysia a couple of years ago.
I'm trying now to influence my daughters to figure this out way earlier than I did and become FI while they're young.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
i've read the article. also the articles by Pfau, Kitces, Big ERN which generally prescribe lower SWRs. i take them all under consideration.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
i've read the article. also the articles by Pfau, Kitces, Big ERN which generally prescribe lower SWRs. i take them all under consideration.
You mentioned that you've had massive paydowns on your mortgage. Is it paid off now? If not, will it be paid off before you retire? If it WILL be paid off before retirement, are you remembering to subtract your mortgage payments from your yearly expenses? $90k per year and no mortgage is a LOT of money....
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
i've read the article. also the articles by Pfau, Kitces, Big ERN which generally prescribe lower SWRs. i take them all under consideration.
You mentioned that you've had massive paydowns on your mortgage. Is it paid off now? If not, will it be paid off before you retire? If it WILL be paid off before retirement, are you remembering to subtract your mortgage payments from your yearly expenses? $90k per year and no mortgage is a LOT of money....
we have another $120K to pay off. i think we'll pay the balance off early next year. the $90K doesn't include mortgage payments. it is based on a well-cushioned budget that is built so as to preempt any comments from DW about things foregone.
i am well aware that i could retire now. further if we cut our budget we both could retire now. but i have golden handcuffs, don't hate my job, and my wife likes her job and has bulletproof insurance which we will need due to the little one having a small health issue. so i plan to soldier on for a few years then pull the plug and enjoy life.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
i've read the article. also the articles by Pfau, Kitces, Big ERN which generally prescribe lower SWRs. i take them all under consideration.
You mentioned that you've had massive paydowns on your mortgage. Is it paid off now? If not, will it be paid off before you retire? If it WILL be paid off before retirement, are you remembering to subtract your mortgage payments from your yearly expenses? $90k per year and no mortgage is a LOT of money....
we have another $120K to pay off. i think we'll pay the balance off early next year. the $90K doesn't include mortgage payments. it is based on a well-cushioned budget that is built so as to preempt any comments from DW about things foregone.
i am well aware that i could retire now. further if we cut our budget we both could retire now. but i have golden handcuffs, don't hate my job, and my wife likes her job and has bulletproof insurance which we will need due to the little one having a small health issue. so i plan to soldier on for a few years then pull the plug and enjoy life.
golden handcuffs make it hard. its easy for me to get on a soap box and tell you to retire. but at the time i plan to retire each extra year i work will add over 15k in spending to the subsequent year and increasing - its so hard to pull the plug and thats actually the biggest risk in FIRE that i see for myself and many others with that gold handcuff. i mean 3 extra years and i can spend another 50k a year why not.
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Oct-15 $567,015.22
Oct-16 $688,319.91 +21.4%
Oct-17 $912,993.18 +32.6%
October of 2015 we got serious about getting our finances under control, found a better job and made the decision to eliminate our consumer debt across the board, all $65,400 of it, cars, travel trailer, credit cards, we had the whole mess going on. Fortunately we had been contributing to our 401ks and not mooching off the home equity.
It took 18 months to eliminate all the debt, we also refi'd the house into a 15-year fixed at 3%, we've been making double principal payments but we may stop that and start investing it once I get over the mental hurdle. We should be ready to FIRE once the house is paid off in ~7 years assuming the market doesn't completely crash at some point.
Along the way I discovered MMM and started lurking and learning, looks like I joined almost exactly 1 year ago, still learning!
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golden handcuffs make it hard. its easy for me to get on a soap box and tell you to retire. but at the time i plan to retire each extra year i work will add over 15k in spending to the subsequent year and increasing - its so hard to pull the plug and thats actually the biggest risk in FIRE that i see for myself and many others with that gold handcuff. i mean 3 extra years and i can spend another 50k a year why not.
[/quote]
Yep. I am involved in several investment funds as a manager. We get paid once investors get their $ back along with a hurdle, which should happen over the next 1-3 years. Walking away now would mean potentially leaving over $1M on the table, which would clearly make me FI by any measuring stick. Particularly as i enjoy what i do, it doesn't make any sense to walk away.
but i don't think anyone should tell others to retire, even if it's someone that hates their job and has 25-30 years of expenses invested appropriately.
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This is an inspiring thread. There have been some incredible gains here.
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Found MMM in July 2013, calculated my NW in August 2013 for the first time:
August 2013 - $632,500
October 2017 - $1,484,000
Wow, I'm impressed myself :-)
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Yep. I am involved in several investment funds as a manager. We get paid once investors get their $ back along with a hurdle, which should happen over the next 1-3 years. Walking away now would mean potentially leaving over $1M on the table, which would clearly make me FI by any measuring stick. Particularly as i enjoy what i do, it doesn't make any sense to walk away.
but i don't think anyone should tell others to retire, even if it's someone that hates their job and has 25-30 years of expenses invested appropriately.
Thats the forum you've walked into --- we tell people to retire here.
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Oct-15 $567,015.22
Oct-16 $688,319.91 +21.4%
Oct-17 $912,993.18 +32.6%
October of 2015 we got serious about getting our finances under control, found a better job and made the decision to eliminate our consumer debt across the board, all $65,400 of it, cars, travel trailer, credit cards, we had the whole mess going on. Fortunately we had been contributing to our 401ks and not mooching off the home equity.
It took 18 months to eliminate all the debt, we also refi'd the house into a 15-year fixed at 3%, we've been making double principal payments but we may stop that and start investing it once I get over the mental hurdle. We should be ready to FIRE once the house is paid off in ~7 years assuming the market doesn't completely crash at some point.
Along the way I discovered MMM and started lurking and learning, looks like I joined almost exactly 1 year ago, still learning!
Get over that hurdle TODAY ...
come join us - 3% is less than avg inflation let those green soldiers work for ya.
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/throw-down-the-gauntlet/dont-payoff-your-mortgage-club/
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Yep. I am involved in several investment funds as a manager. We get paid once investors get their $ back along with a hurdle, which should happen over the next 1-3 years. Walking away now would mean potentially leaving over $1M on the table, which would clearly make me FI by any measuring stick. Particularly as i enjoy what i do, it doesn't make any sense to walk away.
but i don't think anyone should tell others to retire, even if it's someone that hates their job and has 25-30 years of expenses invested appropriately.
Thats the forum you've walked into --- we tell people to retire here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c
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Yep. I am involved in several investment funds as a manager. We get paid once investors get their $ back along with a hurdle, which should happen over the next 1-3 years. Walking away now would mean potentially leaving over $1M on the table, which would clearly make me FI by any measuring stick. Particularly as i enjoy what i do, it doesn't make any sense to walk away.
but i don't think anyone should tell others to retire, even if it's someone that hates their job and has 25-30 years of expenses invested appropriately.
Thats the forum you've walked into --- we tell people to retire here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c
hardly an opinion. its litterally the basis of the forum.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
i've read the article. also the articles by Pfau, Kitces, Big ERN which generally prescribe lower SWRs. i take them all under consideration.
You mentioned that you've had massive paydowns on your mortgage. Is it paid off now? If not, will it be paid off before you retire? If it WILL be paid off before retirement, are you remembering to subtract your mortgage payments from your yearly expenses? $90k per year and no mortgage is a LOT of money....
we have another $120K to pay off. i think we'll pay the balance off early next year. the $90K doesn't include mortgage payments. it is based on a well-cushioned budget that is built so as to preempt any comments from DW about things foregone.
i am well aware that i could retire now. further if we cut our budget we both could retire now. but i have golden handcuffs, don't hate my job, and my wife likes her job and has bulletproof insurance which we will need due to the little one having a small health issue. so i plan to soldier on for a few years then pull the plug and enjoy life.
golden handcuffs make it hard. its easy for me to get on a soap box and tell you to retire. but at the time i plan to retire each extra year i work will add over 15k in spending to the subsequent year and increasing - its so hard to pull the plug and thats actually the biggest risk in FIRE that i see for myself and many others with that gold handcuff. i mean 3 extra years and i can spend another 50k a year why not.
You're saving $375k/yr?
Holy shit, I feel poor again.
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Our NW went up so quickly due to a few bonus/stock option payments that came in this summer. but had we not found MMM we'd have parked it in cash and/or increased our spending.
Just had our first kid 3 months ago.
i predict spending $90K/year to be safe and assume a 3% SWR - i am conservative...and i sense that the next few years may be different for the market than the last few. not changing my asset allocation though.
i do want to pursue non-mustachian pursuits in retirement. fish, golf, travel etc.
i assume we need ~$3M to be at FIRE. right now we have a bit less than $2M invested.
can't convince my wife yet anyways but she's getting there.
i know i am not mustachian by many folks' standards but relative to our net worth, i would say we are. i do all the cooking, even make our own bread; i do the lawncare; take the train to work which is quite rare in our city; etc.
4% is already conservative, FYI...
yes its quite conservative see this thread
http://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/investor-alley/stop-worrying-about-the-4-rule/
i've read the article. also the articles by Pfau, Kitces, Big ERN which generally prescribe lower SWRs. i take them all under consideration.
You mentioned that you've had massive paydowns on your mortgage. Is it paid off now? If not, will it be paid off before you retire? If it WILL be paid off before retirement, are you remembering to subtract your mortgage payments from your yearly expenses? $90k per year and no mortgage is a LOT of money....
we have another $120K to pay off. i think we'll pay the balance off early next year. the $90K doesn't include mortgage payments. it is based on a well-cushioned budget that is built so as to preempt any comments from DW about things foregone.
i am well aware that i could retire now. further if we cut our budget we both could retire now. but i have golden handcuffs, don't hate my job, and my wife likes her job and has bulletproof insurance which we will need due to the little one having a small health issue. so i plan to soldier on for a few years then pull the plug and enjoy life.
golden handcuffs make it hard. its easy for me to get on a soap box and tell you to retire. but at the time i plan to retire each extra year i work will add over 15k in spending to the subsequent year and increasing - its so hard to pull the plug and thats actually the biggest risk in FIRE that i see for myself and many others with that gold handcuff. i mean 3 extra years and i can spend another 50k a year why not.
You're saving $375k/yr?
Holy shit, I feel poor again.
I work for an ESOP and at the time of fire the growth of everything including outside investments will be in the ballpark of that. ESOP is sold back when you leave so golden handcuff.
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2014 1.7
2017 2.6 including hafing been fired with 4 kids for almost 3 years.
Note* about 335k is from selling our mortgage free vacation home and another 100k after updates is from downsizing from 7200 square foot home to 2700 square foot home. Probably another 50k from selling toys from vacation home the rest being the the market rise
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I only know since June 2015 when I started my journal. I think I found MMM in April when I was looking for ways to take out our credit card debt faster.
June 2015 Net Worth: $16,700 with Fed. loans, $80,700 without (I'm on PSLF)
Nov 2017 Net Worth: With Fed loans calculated: $105,506 Without: $180,723
An increase of $100,000! We also moved (downsized into a smaller home that needs reno work) and have been renovating the new house, so the true worth of our house is not reflected in our networth at the moment. We spent around $17,000 on the move (realtor, closing costs, etc...) and have put in around $30K into the house.
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Found this around mid-May as I opened a Personal Capital account on May 15. Wish I would've kept track of YoY gains like other people to see annual growth.
May 15 - $475,387
Today - $522,029
Pretty happy with what we've done considering I have an irregular income.
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Keeping track with a spreadsheet since September 2011
2011 535k (got divorced in 2012 which hurt financial picture some)
2017 1.5M (FI but still unsure of the FIRE date)
Some home equity and rental property increases but just consistent saving and dollar cost averaging.
Found MMM in 2013 but didn't create a logon for a couple years.
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Keeping track with a spreadsheet since September 2011
2011 535k (got divorced in 2012 which hurt financial picture some)
2017 1.5M (FI but still unsure of the FIRE date)
Some home equity and rental property increases but just consistent saving and dollar cost averaging.
Found MMM in 2013 but didn't create a logon for a couple years.
Damn near tripled your money right after a Divorce, I'd say your doing pretty damn good!
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Found MMM in June 2014: -$40,000
Current NW in Nov 2017: $105,000
Change in NW over 40 months: $140,000, average $3,500/month increase!
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May 2012 - $3k
November 2017 - $130k
4300% increase... but only $127k increase.
That included a Ph. D. and three moves and starting out with $60k in income. Now we're at 210k in income. : )
Hopefully, the first $100k is the hardest and it goes faster from here!
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
I admit it, I laughed. Welcome to the forums.
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
Wait a minute... that's not how net worth works. If you had $5000 in the bank and $5000 in bills, you had $0 net worth. If you used the cash to pay off the bills, you still had $0 net worth.
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I've known about MMM since 2013, but I didn't think it was feasible. Respectfully, I considered you all weirdos. Sometime last year, I realized the thought of money stressed me out. I was basically going paycheck to paycheck. Since changing my lifestyle, I feel significantly less stress.
June 2016:
Savings: $100
401K: $25,000
HSA: $300
November 2017:
Savings: $6,000
401K: $50,000
Roth IRA: $7,500
IRA: $5,000
Brokerage: $4,000
HSA: $2,500
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Found MMM in March 2017 - Networth has increased by $21K in the 7 months that followed. So glad I found you all :)
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Doubled plus paid for two kids' college and downsized to an almost paid for house in same time period.
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Nov 2016 354K
Nov 2017 528K
<Market gains and getting all our assets uploaded on Mint>
Better look:
Jun 30th 2016 499K
Now 528K
Estimation of 60K a year saved on a 110K annual income ???
Hard to figure out.
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
Wait a minute... that's not how net worth works. If you had $5000 in the bank and $5000 in bills, you had $0 net worth. If you used the cash to pay off the bills, you still had $0 net worth.
So my net worth is down $5000. The original question was asking about the CHANGE not the amount.
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
Wait a minute... that's not how net worth works. If you had $5000 in the bank and $5000 in bills, you had $0 net worth. If you used the cash to pay off the bills, you still had $0 net worth.
So my net worth is down $5000. The original question was asking about the CHANGE not the amount.
Math is hard. ;)
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
debt/bills count against your net worth anyway. So really you just shifted things around ;)
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-160kish to almost 0 in 1.5 years
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I discovered MMM about 9 months ago and this forum even more recently and I have reliable figures from mid 2015 so I'm going to use those if it's not considered cheating in the context of the OP. Our liquid assets in October 2015 were $682k. Now it's around $1,050k. There was a pretty good inheritance in there but the rest has come from saving and investing.
We crossed into 7 figure territory about 6 weeks ago and have been staggered at how quickly it has risen since then.
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I found MMM in April 2013, but my records only go back to September 2013.
9/2013: $296,114 (Cash + Investments: $263,788)
9/2017: $766,596 (Cash + Investments: $589,517)
Wowsers.
And now $803,225. So a change of more than half a million since finding MMM. :)
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in 3 days, down about $5000 (paid a bunch of bills yesterday)
debt/bills count against your net worth anyway. So really you just shifted things around ;)
This is the point I was trying to convey, the "net" part of net worth.
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Since June of 2013, my net worth has gone from -$69,000 to $319,000.
Hoping to accelerate gains going forward!
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over $500k in 3 years.
Nov 2014: $186k
Nov 2017: $750k
$564k or 300% growth in 3 years.
Nov 2014 was my first forum post, but I had been lurking for a while before then. Can't remember the exact date I started reading the blog. By the time I started posting 3 years ago, we had been on the path for a year or so.
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Very well done BBub!!
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-160kish to almost 0 in 1.5 years
As someone that was in debt myself a while back, I find this actually more impressive than the people that started in the hole and dig them selves out. Well done! It gets a lot easier from here on out!
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November 2016 $2.53M
Today $3.18M
Mostly market gains. The snowball is really rolling downhill. Would be bummed to see a correction soon.
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Found MMM in Spring 2015, but our first NW calculation was 7/1/2015.
7/1/15: 749,138
11/1/15: 1,451,314
So, 700K increase in just under two and half years.
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According to my profile I joined the forums in Jan 2016
Dec 2015: $98k (kind of a guess, I only tracked 401k previously)
Est Dec 2017: $179k
I have never liked debt and always contributed towards retirement so not a lot has changed in the last few years except my desire to get out earlier than 60. I am the only one in the family that is really working towards this at the moment so it makes progress really slow. We have taken on more very low interest rate debt recently that I am mostly okay with because it aligns with some of my core beliefs on how I want to live my life but if we had not I think my est Dec 2017 NW would be slightly closer to $200k. I am also looking to convince my husband to buy a rental soon, that will probably be a negative impact on NW (positive monthly cash flow) but only temporarily.
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Mid 2013- negative $50,000
Current - +$500,000 (without house equity +$370,000)
Roughly a $550K gain in 5 years due to cutting expenses, paying off debt, maximizing savings and appreciation on house and investments.
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Starting reading articles here Last Spring. Joined the forum in Oct 217.
Sept 2017 495k
Oct 2017 517k
Nov 2017 531K
Market gains and huge deposits of savings.
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Found MMM Jan. 2017.
NW at that point was about $40k.
Today - $127k.
Increase of $87k in 10 months!
More important, likely FIRE date went from "my own funeral" to maybe 2030.
Holy heck! :-)
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Found MMM 11/2013. Joined forum 4/2014.
Started in a big old hole :: -$197,740.59 (add balance due on primary home, student loans and dumb debt, subtract investments)
Actual starting debt w/out investments was :: -$398,146.60
Out of the hole and climbing the hill of FIRE :: +$390,969.88 (no more student loans or dumb debt. Add investments subtract balance on mortgage)
Mortgage balance is now -$193,471.82
STOKED on looking back at how far we have come since then!!! 100% sure we would not be this far ahead were it not for this community!!
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These bragging threads are fun.
Just keep in mind that there will come a month, or even a whole year, when your net worth is flat or even negative despite your ongoing contributions. It's been a wild ride the past few years but things will probably even out a little some day, and it's harder to stay enthusiastically committed to your FI plan when you don't see any progress being made.
Mentally brace yourselves for that day, and commit to riding the wave. We've all made easy money in the stock market recently, but eventually the market will easily take some of it back, too.
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These bragging threads are fun.
Just keep in mind that there will come a month, or even a whole year, when your net worth is flat or even negative despite your ongoing contributions. It's been a wild ride the past few years but things will probably even out a little some day, and it's harder to stay enthusiastically committed to your FI plan when you don't see any progress being made.
Mentally brace yourselves for that day, and commit to riding the wave. We've all made easy money in the stock market recently, but eventually the market will easily take some of it back, too.
I am hoping that when this day comes, my income will have grown more so I can put even more money in the market while it's down, vs what I am able to put in today. :P
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These bragging threads are fun.
Just keep in mind that there will come a month, or even a whole year, when your net worth is flat or even negative despite your ongoing contributions. It's been a wild ride the past few years but things will probably even out a little some day, and it's harder to stay enthusiastically committed to your FI plan when you don't see any progress being made.
Mentally brace yourselves for that day, and commit to riding the wave. We've all made easy money in the stock market recently, but eventually the market will easily take some of it back, too.
Yep - thanks for the reminder - I had just started investing in 2007/2008 and it was tough seeing myself lose money week after week. I distinctly remember asking my dad if I should keep putting money in. I'm thankful I did - but it took a while to see that it was the right move. But back then I was only playing with a few grand - these days it's a bit more.
I don't want to reveal numbers, but since I joined the forum in 4/15, I'm up $155k, representing about 60% of our income during that same time frame. It would have been a lot more if I hadn't been laid off the last 6 months. My numbers were also pretty flat between 7/15 and 2/16 also having to do with those two small corrections (Brexit?) during that time frame. In that time I also sold and bought a house, took a trip to Europe and Africa, and bought 2 cheep cars (which I don't track as assets).
Some people have done really well for themselves! Some are getting out of 6 digit debt, and some have whole digit multiples of what I'd need to FIRE! So great to see everyone doing so well!
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Fall 2014: I was too unorganized financially when I found MMM to even know what my net worth was.
Finally got organized enough to calculate it at...
April 2015: 325k
And now, November 2017: 560k
Increase of 235K over the course of 31 months.
More importantly, I am
- less stressed
- going to retire at 48 instead of my late 50's
- much happier
- more confident in the future
Thanks MMM
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I found MMM in November 2016, and since then our net worth has gone up $117,591.60, as of today.
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I don't exactly remember, but I started sometime in 2014 with a NW around $15K, I think. My savings only grew by about $2K a year at that time. Now I'm worth well over $100K and in fact, I just crossed into $100K in investments today! I'm so thankful I found this group.
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2012: Negative $10,000 (ish)
2017: Positive $180,000
I found MMM as a uni student well before joining the forums, & finally signed up in May 2012. I was happy to have about $10k in cash saved up & a few thousand in superannuation, but was negative due to my student loans.
After graduating uni (for the 3rd time) in 2013, with $25k in student debt but still with $10k in savings, I put all my MMM skills to the test with my first "real job". In those 4 years I've invested another $150k & my super has gone up to $60k.
(I still have $18k in student loan but they're indexed to inflation, so no plans on paying it off)
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These bragging threads are fun.
Just keep in mind that there will come a month, or even a whole year, when your net worth is flat or even negative despite your ongoing contributions. It's been a wild ride the past few years but things will probably even out a little some day, and it's harder to stay enthusiastically committed to your FI plan when you don't see any progress being made.
Mentally brace yourselves for that day, and commit to riding the wave. We've all made easy money in the stock market recently, but eventually the market will easily take some of it back, too.
Very true. The first half of 2016 was like that for me. It was very demoralizing to keep throwing piles of money into my 'stache and it didn't even move the needle for months hardly, but I just kept reminding myself it would pass and I was getting a good deal on things being cheap. Everything this year went gangbusters, so it was worth it. But I know it's only a matter of time before it happens again.
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Feb 2013 $128K NW
Nov 2017 $443K NW
My NW doesn't include my military pension which will provide the bulk of my spending cash in retirement in 6.5 months. Wish we'd saved more earlier, but pleased with digging out of debt and enjoying the stock market rise.
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I've been around since 2012. That year I went up by about 6k (from zero) after my analysis showed I needed a career change to have the life I want. -28k in summer fall 2017, after finishing my new program. Now I'm holding on at about -12k and continuing up.
This post actually makes me feel a hell of a lot happier about that progress.
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August 2016: $280k
November 2017: $380k
Market gains and maxing out retirement accounts
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I have followed MMM for about a year, but only got serious about 7 months ago.
NW Dec 2016: $123,900
NW Dec 2017: $308,100 (est)
For an increase of $184,200.
Over a third of that is pretax contributions to my 403(b) and 457(b) plans, half is the NPV of my pension that I can actually take with me right now if I quit (that I had no idea about), and the balance is an inheritance plus market gains. I'm guessing I won't see another increase like this ever again.
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I found some Dutch (less bad-ass versions) of MMM in my last year of high school. During college I found MMM. So I tried to graduate with as less study loans as I could. We really started going for it 18 months ago.
Our Net Worth then was:
June 2015: -8.400 euro
December 2017: 22.000 euro's
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Summer of 2015: around -$12,000 :(
Start of 2018: over $92,000
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I think I started doing this in about 2014 and had a NW around $20K. I'm now $100K richer than I was at that time!
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Love reading all of these and congrats to all. It's amazing how easy it is to get rich for anyone who truly wants to.
July 2014 NW: $320k
Today NW: $1,350k
Up to $1,537k. FIRE has gone from this distant abstract idea to something that now feels like it's within grasp. We'll see how the markets treat me this year, but it really feels like I'm on the verge of entering SWAMI status.
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My net worth has quintupled since I joined in 2012
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2014: Negative 120 K (approx)
Current: Positive 600 K
Should surpass 1 M this year.
Admittedly, my lifestyle is not as mustachian as it should be, still a work in progress. My gains have come from my business, paying off all my debt, and good investing (which I learned from the community here). I still need to work on getting my unnecessary expenses down and overcoming a bit of consumerism addiction. I'm much better than I used to be with money, but still deserve to be face punched.
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...
I'm trying now to influence my daughters to figure this out way earlier than I did and become FI while they're young.
Influence as much as possible but make sure you are taking care of your own house too (which it looks like you are).
My dad did not finish school until I was a pre-teen and still carries some of the student loans for doing that (I am mid 30s now), but as soon as he did and got a good job he would talk about (not always to me but just in general) contributing to a 401k. I am the middle child of 3, and apparently I must have just been at the right age to really take all this in. I am the only one to get a BS from college and the only one to have always contributed to a 401k (although not very much most of the time). When I was still in school I worked somewhere that allowed part-time people to contribute to a 401k, I only put 1% into it but I got in the habit of contributing. Since finishing school I have always put at least matching % into my 401k, but rarely more then that. Well my parents are now 60 and my 401k reached $100k this month (and I plan to have my SL paid off this year) so I excitedly told my dad about it, come to find out he does not have enough in his to retire (only 2-3x what I have), and even though he started putting money into a non-tax advantaged account several years ago, he pulls money out of it all the time when they want to take a trip or need to help one of my siblings. They also apparently do not contribute the max to the 401k nor have they ever opened an IRA for either him or my mom but they owe taxes every year. I now feel like I know understand how these things work better than he does and feel a little lost because I don't really want to share anymore exciting milestones with him because I don't want to make him feel worse about his situation although he would also be the only person in real life that would share my excitement.
So please encourage your kids but make sure that you are taking care of yourself at the same time.
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Currently we have $500K saved. 40/60 pre/post retirement accounts
As of yesterday, doubled. Bogleheads and here got me on the right track. Not bad for 50 months :)
Hoping for the next $1M in 144 months, 60/40AA and $24K per year in savings
(http://thetechhouse.myqnapcloud.com/~fmzip/7digits.jpg)
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2014: Negative 120 K (approx)
Current: Positive 600 K
Should surpass 1 M this year.
Admittedly, my lifestyle is not as mustachian as it should be, still a work in progress. My gains have come from my business, paying off all my debt, and good investing (which I learned from the community here). I still need to work on getting my unnecessary expenses down and overcoming a bit of consumerism addiction. I'm much better than I used to be with money, but still deserve to be face punched.
Great job! See my signature. Enjoy your life ;)
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As I read this I can only think how much easier it seems to be for one to make money in very recent times. There are difficult spots, and not to take away from anyone's accomplishments, but I can only think when I see all these large numbers it is certainly the new normal. I realize the company I'm in, but sadly to be ahead of the game you cannot be 'normal'. When there enough millionaires in this country, sadly a million won't buy much.
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As I read this I can only think how much easier it seems to be for one to make money in very recent times. There are difficult spots, and not to take away from anyone's accomplishments, but I can only think when I see all these large numbers it is certainly the new normal. I realize the company I'm in, but sadly to be ahead of the game you cannot be 'normal'. When there enough millionaires in this country, sadly a million won't buy much.
I think you're missing the bigger picture here. With MMM you reduce your cost of living so that a million dollars, does in fact, buy a lot.
Housing seems to be the only real exception to this - the cost of even modest housing around here is outrageous and only getting worse. Glad I bought mine 4.5 years ago, when it was "only" $460k. Nowadays it's $710k and rising, due to lots of scrapes and people putting in 1.1 to 1.4 million dollar homes.
Even with a 12 year old daughter, my lifestyle just has not escalated since I started doing MMM. That's the real key. When you make more, don't "reward yourself" by spending. Keep saving/investing aggressively. Then when you hit $1m (or whatever your goal is), it'll support you for a long time if you need it to.
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Feb 2014 to present around 200k NW change
Forgot about this thread. Update, since the above post, up about $75k.
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May 2014 - $132.7k
Sept 2017 - $417.7k
Feb 2019 - $476.8k
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2014 - negative 120 K approx.
Today - FI (don't like to disclose actual numbers)
Crazy to think of how scary insanely bad my financial situation was when I first found this community. Most of my turn around was due to a very successful business venture I started with my best friend, but getting my financial house in order and optimized was also a huge part of it. I'm still not as "mustachian" as most here, and I still spend more than I probably should, but I'm vastly better with my personal finance optimization compared to 5 yrs ago.
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I came across MMM (blog, then eventually the forums) many years after I was on the frugal path to FIRE. It was more of a reinforcement of my existing approach versus a change in behavior. So discovering MMM didn't result in any changes to our net worth.
But just for fun, our net worth (not including house appreciation) has gone up $330k in the 21 months since I registered on this forum.
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As an update, at this point my net worth has increased by well over $300,000 so far.
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Approx. 20k USD. I started my journey of enlightment at thesimpledollar, which is a bit more mainstream I guess but the most important take away was early on: housing and tranportation costs are the big items, cut those down and you will get ahead. MMM is about the next step of optimization towards FIRE. Also I now have almost $1.5k after taxes each month compared to the last 4 years, which will be a big booster.
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November 2014: 270k
January 2019: 734k
Mostly investment properties, a little inheritance, and lots of saving. Glad I got on board.
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Since last posted an update, my wife left me and took most of the liquid savings with her. I kept the house. Believe it or not, that was actually the smart move, here in Denver. I literally cannot afford to move. So, I got the house worth $710k (and $340k on the mortgage) and she got the $400k savings/investments.
I'm still left with about $106k in my 401k, so I'm pretty much back to where I started when I found MMM. Only this time alimony is gonna severely hamper my ability to save much in the foreseeable future.
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...
I'm trying now to influence my daughters to figure this out way earlier than I did and become FI while they're young.
Influence as much as possible but make sure you are taking care of your own house too (which it looks like you are).
My dad did not finish school until I was a pre-teen and still carries some of the student loans for doing that (I am mid 30s now), but as soon as he did and got a good job he would talk about (not always to me but just in general) contributing to a 401k. I am the middle child of 3, and apparently I must have just been at the right age to really take all this in. I am the only one to get a BS from college and the only one to have always contributed to a 401k (although not very much most of the time). When I was still in school I worked somewhere that allowed part-time people to contribute to a 401k, I only put 1% into it but I got in the habit of contributing. Since finishing school I have always put at least matching % into my 401k, but rarely more then that. Well my parents are now 60 and my 401k reached $100k this month (and I plan to have my SL paid off this year) so I excitedly told my dad about it, come to find out he does not have enough in his to retire (only 2-3x what I have), and even though he started putting money into a non-tax advantaged account several years ago, he pulls money out of it all the time when they want to take a trip or need to help one of my siblings. They also apparently do not contribute the max to the 401k nor have they ever opened an IRA for either him or my mom but they owe taxes every year. I now feel like I know understand how these things work better than he does and feel a little lost because I don't really want to share anymore exciting milestones with him because I don't want to make him feel worse about his situation although he would also be the only person in real life that would share my excitement.
So please encourage your kids but make sure that you are taking care of yourself at the same time.
Nope, you have us now. That's why we're here and we're happy to help.
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Found MMM late 2013, with a NW of ~$200,000
Made a forum account April 2015 with a NW of $288,000
Currently at $457,000
Holy wow.
Fun to see this thread again. I'm now around $580,000. Boy howdy though, ain't there been some up and down wiggle over the last 6 months. I was an adult in 2008, but I had maybe $30,000 in the markets. This is my first real market instability, and it's been nice to see that I can mentally hold the course.
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This is my first real market instability, and it's been nice to see that I can mentally hold the course.
I have found myself to be surprisingly more resilient to market swings now than I was when I first started out.
These days, my net worth can swing $100k or more and my response is "meh, I'm still rich" but when I was first starting out in 2008 I was emotionally devastated to invest $3,000 and then watch $1,000 of it disappear. I worked hard for that money, and then made painful sacrifices in order to invest it, and watching it go up in smoke was hard because I was acutely aware of the real world consequences of that loss.
The recent market gyrations, by contrast, are a hundred times larger for me in terms of dollar value, but far less significant in terms of representing real deprivation.
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I've always been pretty good at not spending more than I must- no matter what I make I live the same way. I've made some odd career decisions though, and made and lost a small fortune or two along the way. I wound up with a slightly negative net-worth in my early forties. That was painful.
My net-worth is now, a few years later, well into the six figures, and increases by about 5k every month, not counting returns on investment. But I have to admit I think that not adequate. In my glory days I was netting that in a week. I'm just accumulating capital now. At some point I'll try to make something of it.
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This is a cool thread!
Found MMM: ~Jan 2015
Personal Capital is only showing NW up to 10/1/2015: $51k
NW as of 2/12/2019: $235k
Salary went from $40k to $65k... Come summer time I will change jobs and expect a new salary of $75k-$80k.
Crazy to see an average annual $54.6k increase in NW on a not so sexy income (thanks, stock appreciation!).
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Roughly $24,000 since October after discovering this website. Honestly, I`m enjoying doing this.
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Since June 2016, our net worth has climbed from $118K to $300K. So $182K increase in 31 months, or about $5,900 per month to the good.
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Since early 2014 and my NW has gone up by almost $2m since then
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Since early 2014 and my NW has gone up by almost $2m since then
INSANE! I mean that in the most positive way possible!
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Since early 2014 and my NW has gone up by almost $2m since then
INSANE! I mean that in the most positive way possible!
londonbanker - are you still working? Or SWAMI?
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Since early 2014 and my NW has gone up by almost $2m since then
INSANE! I mean that in the most positive way possible!
londonbanker - are you still working? Or SWAMI?
Yes - both my wife and I are still working. We both enjoy our fairly low stress jobs and are making between $700-750k a year pretax, which is a lot to walk away from! We are giving ourselves another 3-4years before we pull the plug to spend more time w our young children. We might decide to go part time depending whether we still enjoy what we do.
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Discovered in 2013, net worth then approx 350K
2019 - Approx 925K
Not bad, but I also feel like not great. 2 kids in the midst of all of that though too!
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I was around 30k in 2014, we were already paying off the mortgage. This accelerated and I also started investing in an index fund. As of today I am mortgage free and my total NW is around 160k, including investments but excluding pension fund (as this is not tangible and only a.promise of future payments rather than an actual sum of money).
Verstuurd vanaf mijn Pixel 2 XL met Tapatalk
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Great to see everyone hitting new heights.
~250K when started (October of 2013)
~1M now (April 2019)
Its honestly unbelievable looking back at the starting point. Its like a whole different world, but in actuality it wasn't that long ago. Back then, hitting these numbers seemed like a fairy tale, like "There's no way I could ever get that much in NW."
Now, it just seems like an inevitability, like "Of course we're going to be worth that much, I've been plotting this on a spreadsheet for years. No big."
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Discovered MMM Dec 2011. Had more mortgage debt than savings.
Made a commitment to the way of the moustache Jan 2012
Net worth increased by 100-200k every year
Retired Oct 2018 :) :) :)
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Found MMM in 2015. Never actually calculated my net worth but would estimate around -$50K (student loans, credit card debt, and upside down on our home). Now we are up to about +$350K including retirement, taxable accounts, and a bit of home equity.
Hadn't done this math before - can't imagine where we'd be without learning discovering MMM and learning about FI. Got a late start so we probably won't get to the RE part but still feels great not to have to worry to about money anymore.
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4 years, $90k increase from basically nothing
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43% since joining MMM in December 2015.
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October 2018 = $54,000
April 13, 2019 = $100,366
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4 years, $90k increase from basically nothing
Nice- the first $100k is by far the hardest.
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A lot.
Most of it, in fact.
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I started out reading about frugalism in 2010 and discovered MMM at an early stage arounf 2012-2012. By then, I had only a bank account of some 5000 EUR (5650 USD) and a meagre salary.
Fast forward to 2019:
- 2 Rented Apartments of: 150.000 USD
- Apartment Building with three rented medium-sized apartments: 220.000 USD
- Home worth 500.000 USD
- 10 hectares of prime agriculture land: 196.000 USD
- small stock portfolio of 1500 USD
=1.067.000 USD
% Debt
= 632.000 USD
And thats in just over six years. My monthly passive income from these investments has developed from virtually zero to several hundred dollars AFTER debt.
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We joined in 2014. 105k
now we have 418k--
100k of it is from now including condo, because we paid it off.
Pretty great!
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OCT 2013: $0
APR 2019: $300,000
When I found the blog, we had about $30,000 in retirement savings, but our home was underwater by about the same. So, net worth of zero. Today, we have $230,000 in investments and about $70,000 in home equity, so we're up $300,000 in under six years. Not too shabby, especially considering that we are a single-income family with four kids.
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Today marks my 2 years of tracking my total, I had $164,900 in April 2017 and today I have $414,314 for an increase of $249,414! 60k of that was from a condo sale, but that is still an impressive 189k increase not including the appreciation of the condo and the money put into the principle. Not bad for a single person!
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Jun 29, 2017 (first posted on here) - $482,632
Today - $698,105
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About a half million since 2014, mostly from negative. So almost no investment gains, A LOT of interest paid on top of that, and negligible RE gains in that time.
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First found the blog in late 2014. At the time I had in debt to the tune of $(50,000). Currently my NW is sitting around $73,000.
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We are now up about $600k since finding MMM in late 2015. It’s mostly RE gains and savings from our salaries.
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Jan 2019 = -5300
April 2019 = +5300
Never thought I would get out of debt, so I kept spending everything I made, as I love to collect. Art, game-worn hockey jerseys, tattoos, watches etc...
Now, I collect VTI very slowly on my tiny $48k salary (Seattle).
I was motivated as I got lucky and sold about $7k in art to a guy on Craigslist. That's probably only going to happen once! Haven't been able to sell the remaining stuff - not even any interest. I was sick of being in debt and stressed all the damn time. Paid off my paypal credit balance ($6000) and realized I'd paid $1100 in interest over the past year or so (27%+) and opened a Vanguard account.
36yo Canadian. Citizenship interview in May. Got a lot of catching up to do.
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Found MMM in March 2017 - Networth has increased by $21K in the 7 months that followed. So glad I found you all :)
Update since it's been a while. NW has increased $74K in the 2 years since finding MMM
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Looked back to my first post, which was March 2014. At that time, our NW was $119k. Today we're at $479k, so increase of $360k or around $6k/mo.
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We were somewhere between $0 and $5,000 when we started in August/September 2011, when we were 23 and 24. We're at $290,899 today, about six years later. Our combined income during that time ranged from around 35K to 80K, so it's not like we were rolling in cash.
We didn't really make a lot of changes. It was more making a few tweaks here and there and increasing our income from "shit" to "middle-class".
Update: About a year and a half later and we've just recently crossed tho 400K mark. Still making in the same income range - last year was about 78K. Expenses haven't changed.
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Didn't really keep track when I started, in April of 2017. As far as I can track back, from then to now I'm worth 6x more!!
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Mine is both exciting and embarrassing. Exciting because it opened my eyes and now I realize the possibilities, embarrassing when I realize how much money I've been wasting for so long!
Discovered MMM exactly 2.5 months ago (End of January). Since then my net worth has increased about $11,000!
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Jan 2019 = -5300
April 2019 = +5300
Never thought I would get out of debt, so I kept spending everything I made, as I love to collect. Art, game-worn hockey jerseys, tattoos, watches etc...
Now, I collect VTI very slowly on my tiny $48k salary (Seattle).
I was motivated as I got lucky and sold about $7k in art to a guy on Craigslist. That's probably only going to happen once! Haven't been able to sell the remaining stuff - not even any interest. I was sick of being in debt and stressed all the damn time. Paid off my paypal credit balance ($6000) and realized I'd paid $1100 in interest over the past year or so (27%+) and opened a Vanguard account.
36yo Canadian. Citizenship interview in May. Got a lot of catching up to do.
Good for you!
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~$10-12k Summer 2017, ~$85k now. Like others have expressed, I never would have thought this possible. Turns out you get used to spending less
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Wow I can't believe I lurked around the forums for so long before creating an account. Happy to see that we have made some great progress.
September 2016- -75k
April 2019- +102k
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May 2014 - $132.7k
Sept 2017 - $417.7k
Feb 2019 - $476.8k
April 2019 - $505.5k
You're fucking killing it nacho.
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August 2013: -$2,800
April 2019: $112,500
Found MMM when I was 25. I'd probably have more had I chosen a more lucrative career path.
Couple observations:
I'm noticing that the huge increases (Ex. +$200k in only a couple years) are from folks who are a bit older and had high incomes to begin with. Was it just a matter of spending less of your already huge paychecks?
I'm also wondering how much of these dramatic increases are due to less spending vs. the economic recovery (and huge financial market gains) in the past five years.
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$-16,773 as of 4/28/2017. I believe I found MMM website around that time and started reading articles. I was already frugal in nature and had recognized my main mistake or two (leasing a car) but had every intention of buying it. Drove every mile and figured this is the type of used car I'd buy so might as well stick with it instead of finding something else that could potentially have unknown issues. My payment went down anyhow so my cash flow improved and I got to keep a car I still enjoy daily. Insert multiple facepunches here.
Shortly after the above date is when the purchase happened and technically around then my NW dropped to about -$25k with a new balance sheet asset of my car! So at the time my car was valued around 15-16k. More recently I've decided to only value the car at the value of the liability against it. This then nets to 0 affect on my NW. Currently my net worth is approaching $28,000 and should exceed $30,000 by Mid May.
With the first number of $-16,773 and today's value of $27,750 over 24 months that puts me at a change of $44,523 or $1,855 per month. The receipt of a small pension lump sum, getting a new job with a sign up bonus, renting a townhouse instead of an apartment and getting my salary over $50k has all caused changes to my savings rate over time, but ultimately at or near this pace and I'm hopeful things will keep improving!
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August 2013: -$2,800
April 2019: $112,500
Found MMM when I was 25. I'd probably have more had I chosen a more lucrative career path.
Couple observations:
I'm noticing that the huge increases (Ex. +$200k in only a couple years) are from folks who are a bit older and had high incomes to begin with. Was it just a matter of spending less of your already huge paychecks?
I'm also wondering how much of these dramatic increases are due to less spending vs. the economic recovery (and huge financial market gains) in the past five years.
I guess I'm one of these people whose NW has jumped significantly. I don't know if you would consider our incomes high -- we make high five-figures/very low six figures. For us, roughly 60% of the NW increase was from saving our paycheck; the rest was from increase in the value of our real estate and from market gains.
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I read all of the MMM blog posts in mid-late 2015 and joined the forum in December 2015, although I didn't post much until this year.
Start NW in 12/2015:
953k, of which $440k was home equity, and $513k was non-home equity
Last month:
1.3M total, $550k home equity, $753k non-home equity
Updating as of 4-1-19:
1.56M total, $617k home equity, $946k non-home equity,
Total gain since finding MMM in 2015:
607k
Non-home equity gain:
$433k
Not bad I guess for just under 3.5 years!
To answer @TheGadfly, we have certainly seen market gains and are older with higher salaries, but we also increased our savings rate considerable in that timeframe, from 17% in 2015 to 40% in 2017, which is incredible to me; that doesn't take market gains into account at all, just what we're saving either cash or retirement. We've had some raises in that timeframe but nothing dramatic, just the usual 3-4%. We made SO many lifestyle changes after finding MMM. We're only at 37% YTD savings rate this year so far, so we need to get more disciplined again.
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Found MMM Oct 2015: Total NW $567k, home equity $290k, liquid $277k
Oct 2016: Total NW $688k, home equity $300k, liquid $388k
Oct 2017: Total NW $867k, home equity $342k, liquid $539k
Oct 2018: Total NW $1.2M, home equity $454k, liquid $779k
Now: Total NW $1.3M, home equity $471k, liquid $858k
Dang, this stuff works, we've more than doubled our net worth in 3.5 years. It really accelerated when we finished paying off all but our mortgage debt. I'm also being very conservative on the house value, it's probably $50-100k higher.
We're not there yet, but starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel!
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In the 5 months since joining these forums local real estate prices have dropped about 5% which means my net worth has dropped about $75,000 from that alone. In the same 5 months I have saved about $40,000 after tax so overall my net worth has dropped $35,000.
The housing market is forecast to drop anther 10% or so this year so I think it likely that my net worth will be down at least about $75,000 this year - however, in good years obviously the net worth goes up, so I'm not too concerned yet.
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August 2013: -$2,800
April 2019: $112,500
Found MMM when I was 25. I'd probably have more had I chosen a more lucrative career path.
Couple observations:
I'm noticing that the huge increases (Ex. +$200k in only a couple years) are from folks who are a bit older and had high incomes to begin with. Was it just a matter of spending less of your already huge paychecks?
I'm also wondering how much of these dramatic increases are due to less spending vs. the economic recovery (and huge financial market gains) in the past five years.
A fair number of folks are benefiting from both.
We've saved a ton each of the last 5 years, in addition to the market growth on what we had at the start (which wasn't a whole ton). But it's the combination for us - saving 30k+ year in just retirement accounts over several years combined with the market growth over that time adds up fast.
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Hello! This is my first post ever, but believe I have been following MMM since early 2017. I told myself that I would post once I hit the $150,000 milestone, which happened today.
Here are my investments since 2017:
January 2017: $98,819
January 2018: $102,403
January 2019: $122,997
April 2019: $150,192
I am married but haven't organized my wife's numbers yet, but hopefully one day soon so I can see our combined progress. We also have four properties (including our primary residence) and we live in a market here in Canada that has taken a hit the last few years so hard to say what they're worth. We don't think we'll cash out of them anytime soon anyway, so am just showing my investments above rather than total NW.
In that time, I've also been repaying a decent-sized loan (school and house related):
January 2017: ($70,000)
January 2018: ($32,500)
January 2019: ($20,000)
So just weighing each of those against one another, I see the following progress:
January 2017: $28,819
January 2018: $69,903
January 2019: $102,997
April 2019: $130,192
Only now do I see the positive change of about $100,000 in about 28 months. Very cool! On to the next $100,000!
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August 2013: -$2,800
April 2019: $112,500
Found MMM when I was 25. I'd probably have more had I chosen a more lucrative career path.
Couple observations:
I'm noticing that the huge increases (Ex. +$200k in only a couple years) are from folks who are a bit older and had high incomes to begin with. Was it just a matter of spending less of your already huge paychecks?
I'm also wondering how much of these dramatic increases are due to less spending vs. the economic recovery (and huge financial market gains) in the past five years.
that's right at least for me.
found MMM in April 2017 at 37. Wasn't even tracking net worth at the time. we make a lot, spent a lot but didn't squander it.
at age 30 i would guess we had $400K. the first month we started tracking (April 2017) we were a little below $2M at age 37 for me, 33 for DW.
now two years later we watch things much closer and invest it all. as of 5/1/19 we are at $3.6M with the house, $2.9M without.
we would probably have 1.5 - 2x that amount had i found MMM a decade ago. biggest mistake was not putting $ into the markets when i should have.
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August 2013: -$2,800
April 2019: $112,500
Found MMM when I was 25. I'd probably have more had I chosen a more lucrative career path.
Couple observations:
I'm noticing that the huge increases (Ex. +$200k in only a couple years) are from folks who are a bit older and had high incomes to begin with. Was it just a matter of spending less of your already huge paychecks?
I'm also wondering how much of these dramatic increases are due to less spending vs. the economic recovery (and huge financial market gains) in the past five years.
that's right at least for me.
found MMM in April 2017 at 37. Wasn't even tracking net worth at the time. we make a lot, spent a lot but didn't squander it.
at age 30 i would guess we had $400K. the first month we started tracking (April 2017) we were a little below $2M at age 37 for me, 33 for DW.
now two years later we watch things much closer and invest it all. as of 5/1/19 we are at $3.6M with the house, $2.9M without.
we would probably have 1.5 - 2x that amount had i found MMM a decade ago. biggest mistake was not putting $ into the markets when i should have.
Wannabe-stash we are virtually in the carbon copy version of what you described above... freaky!!
I have to say that although I am not one for regrets, had we curbed our expenses earlier in our career, we probably would be pulling the trigger off now - in order to spend more time w our young children!
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yeah, we did do a lot of nice things in the past and we are still very well off.
still, at such a young age with a 1.5 year old son and maybe another to come, it's hard to feel like it's "enough".
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yeah, we did do a lot of nice things in the past and we are still very well off.
still, at such a young age with a 1.5 year old son and maybe another to come, it's hard to feel like it's "enough".
I understand, especially as you are in the US. We are on the other side of the pond, with free healthcare and university fees that are a fraction of what they are states side.
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May 2012 - $3k
November 2017 - $130k
4300% increase... but only $127k increase.
That included a Ph. D. and three moves and starting out with $60k in income. Now we're at 210k in income. : )
Hopefully, the first $100k is the hardest and it goes faster from here!
Update for May 2019 - $328k
200k more in 18 months... nuts. Feeling very blessed. Our savings rate will go down now that we have a baby on the way, but I'm sure we'll still make progress.
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Joined in 2014 after fully retiring. Net worth has doubled.
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May-14 $132.7
Jun-14 $139.0
Jul-14 $135.1
Aug-14 $142.7
Sep-14 $140.2
Oct-14 $166.2
Nov-14 $175.2
Dec-14 $180.5
Jan-15 $233.4
Feb-15 $254.7
Mar-15 $260.0
Apr-15 $257.1
May-15 $257.1
Jun-15 $261.5
Jul-15 $265.2
Aug-15 $263.2
Sep-15 $261.7
Oct-15 $278.8
Nov-15 $294.1
Dec-15 $293.5
Jan-16 $293.4
Feb-16 $298.6
Mar-16 $311.8
Apr-16 $325.4
May-16 $335.7
Jun-16 $337.0
Jul-16 $340.7
Aug-16 $350.3
Sep-16 $355.7
Oct-16 $336.5
Nov-16 $326.4
Dec-16 $328.6
Jan-17 $339.9
Feb-17 $353.1
Mar-17 $366.7
Apr-17 $374.7
May-17 $381.5
Jun-17 $386.6
Jul-17 $417.3
Aug-17 $414.4
Sep-17 $431.7
Oct-17 $419.3
Nov-17 $407.8
Dec-17 $418.9
Jan-18 $424.5
Feb-18 $443.8
Mar-18 $432.0
Apr-18 $431.4
May-18 $438.2
Jun-18 $449.1
Jul-18 $456.9
Aug-18 $482.3
Sep-18 $491.0
Oct-18 $491.6
Nov-18 $470.1
Dec-18 $473.2
Jan-19 $451.9
Feb-19 $476.8
Mar-19 $494.5
Apr-19 $505.5
May-19 $518.2
(https://i.ibb.co/C6SB9ys/networth-May2019.jpg)
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Frugalnacho - for our sake you might want to report your numbers quarterly lol
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Found Simple Path to Wealth / MMM summer of 2015 and a light bulb went off. I had been doing "some" things well, but other things not as well. So, my life tightened up quite a bit.
LNW: ~2 million.
Summer of 2017, got divorced.
LNW: ~1 million.
Current LNW:
~1.2 million
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We started our MMM inspired changes in December of 2012. Our net worth doubled by December 2015 from the changes we implemented and by then we were two years away from FIRE.
We inherited a bunch of money in 2016 and that effectively doubled our net worth again, so it's harder to say exactly what's MMM-related after that. We're now at 5.4 times our "starting" net worth.
I have to confess we stopped working so hard at FIRE after the inheritance. We would probably be at 7 times if we had kept working that hard at it, but we don't need it, so why bother?
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Back then (late 2013/early 2014) I wasn't tracking my net worth, but it was probably in the $200-$250k range. It hit $790k on Friday.
$1,013,000 since Friday.
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As a European (especially as a French where the top 20% salary is 36000€), I have to say that reading these numbers is quite depressing...
Anyway, here is my progress:
Discovered MMM in April 2018: 30900€
June 2019: 59000€
Almost a 100% increase!
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30k to 48k~ since February.
That's including some rather insane expenses, like buying a new house, new roof, moving, lots of random new stuff to make the new house livable (working stove for example), and the ongoing repairs on said house.
If your on these forums you're pretty lucky imo :)(not that this site isn't self selected a bit of course). When I consider the fact that in 9 years of being an adult I put away about about 30k of wealth, and in 7 months post MMM we put away more than half of that. On one averageish income... with a kid... while acquiring a new house... its just maximum plaid(use your googlefu ;) ).
Since this I've gone from 48K to 148K =]. Ridiculous.
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This is a cool thread!
Found MMM: ~Jan 2015
Personal Capital is only showing NW up to 10/1/2015: $51k
NW as of 2/12/2019: $235k
Salary went from $40k to $65k... Come summer time I will change jobs and expect a new salary of $75k-$80k.
Crazy to see an average annual $54.6k increase in NW on a not so sexy income (thanks, stock appreciation!).
2/12/19 NW: $235k
2/12/19 Total Comp = $65k (plus 5% 401k match so really $68k TC)
5/28/19 NW: $250k
5/28/19 TC = $101k
Excited about the new income. Just as boring of a job, but will hit FI sooner because of it :)
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I only found MMM in February a couple of days after buying a stupidly expensive rifle, lol. The previous year, I had paid off all of my 22k debt, and was debt free in November. I had good drive to get rid of it, but I was also spending vey freely on stupid unnecessary things. I’ve cut back tremendously and am way more cost conscious. Hopefully with overtime season coming up during the summer, I’ll be able to really up my NW.
February 2019: about 6k
May 29 2019: 14275$
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As a European (especially as a French where the top 20% salary is 36000€), I have to say that reading these numbers is quite depressing...
Anyway, here is my progress:
Discovered MMM in April 2018: 30900€
June 2019: 59000€
Almost a 100% increase!
Great work @benoitor --I'm not French but low income compared to most on this forum so, when reading these numbers, I like to remind myself of the saying that comparison is the thief of joy
(I'll be happy for these high earners but also proud of myself!)
My NW has grown from 17,000 to 50,000 and while it's not much in these circles it is still ridiculously exciting for me!
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As a European (especially as a French where the top 20% salary is 36000€), I have to say that reading these numbers is quite depressing...
Anyway, here is my progress:
Discovered MMM in April 2018: 30900€
June 2019: 59000€
Almost a 100% increase!
Great work @benoitor --I'm not French but low income compared to most on this forum so, when reading these numbers, I like to remind myself of the saying that comparison is the thief of joy
(I'll be happy for these high earners but also proud of myself!)
My NW has grown from 17,000 to 50,000 and while it's not much in these circles it is still ridiculously exciting for me!
So true. Comparison is important if used as a motivator / target setting, or it might have a fairly depressing impact regardless of how much you make.
Despite making huge sums of money in comparison to most, I still used to feel “poor” compared to ex colleagues and friends making a £1m+ a year. I since learnt to not care anymore as I know they also felt jaleous when comparing themselves to their colleagues making £5m+ a year. Never ends until you learn how to be happy with what you have, and see that you’re better off than most.
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Hell, having a positive net worth AT ALL puts you in better shape than most.
It's funny how the masses and masses of people that are worse off than us "don't count", but the tiny minority of people that are better off than us "do".
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Hell, having a positive net worth AT ALL puts you in better shape than most.
It's funny how the masses and masses of people that are worse off than us "don't count", but the tiny minority of people that are better off than us "do".
I understand where you're coming from, but having a positive net worth does not get you a higher net worth than 50% of Americans, which is what your post suggests. The median household net worth is $97,000:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-how-do-you-compare-to-others-2018-09-24
Therefore perhaps your post would be rephrased as, "Having a 6 figure net worth AT ALL puts you in better shape than most."
As for why most of us don't count the "masses and masses" of people worse off than us, it's because there are a lot of unfortunate people in this world and it's probably not a good comparator to use when financial planning - but there is some importance in being grateful that you have what you do, and practising gratitude every day is a great way to be happy (remember to write and review lists of things you're grateful for).
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Yeah, sometimes I roll my eyes at people who are like "$2m in the bank, can we retire???" I haven't even cracked the 6-figure barrier yet! (but I'm close :) )
If nothing else, sometimes these forums can be an ego-check. I probably have a much higher net worth than most of my friends, but compared to people on here? HAHAHA. But some of the stories can be very encouraging. I am a middle-salary software developer, and fortunately there is much more room for growth, but I can definitely see how it could be discouraging if you let the wrong message get to you
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Hell, having a positive net worth AT ALL puts you in better shape than most.
It's funny how the masses and masses of people that are worse off than us "don't count", but the tiny minority of people that are better off than us "do".
I understand where you're coming from, but having a positive net worth does not get you a higher net worth than 50% of Americans, which is what your post suggests. The median household net worth is $97,000:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-how-do-you-compare-to-others-2018-09-24
Therefore perhaps your post would be rephrased as, "Having a 6 figure net worth AT ALL puts you in better shape than most."
As for why most of us don't count the "masses and masses" of people worse off than us, it's because there are a lot of unfortunate people in this world and it's probably not a good comparator to use when financial planning - but there is some importance in being grateful that you have what you do, and practising gratitude every day is a great way to be happy (remember to write and review lists of things you're grateful for).
I think home values skew that number upward quite a bit. If we're talking 'money in the bank (investments)' net worth, I'm pretty confident that the median net worth in America drops substantially.
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Joined in 2014 after lurking a bit
Doubled NW and went FIRE in 2016
We work occasionally (part time) on things that we value
Stash keeps growing, but at a slower rate (there's some lifestyle creep & hobbies!)
So glad we saw the light!
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Sept 2013: 335k
June 2019: 1.1M
3.28 fold in approx 6 years - this does not include my house; pure investments only.
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So, how much more are you worth today, vs when you first started doing MMM?
I'm not doing MMM. I'm not even sure what that means. I also don't calculate my net worth since that includes assets like my home, which I don't calculate against the 4% rule. I just use my "stash" for that.
I've aways been frugal and have been investing along with a high saving rate, well before I ever heard of the MMM site.
Stash alone was up to $1.4M in early May prior to the more recent drop.
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I first posted in September 2017. Below is an update. I joined MMM in February 2014 and got a mint account in March 2014. I got my first real job out of grad school in 2011 at age 31. My wife transitioned from full-time to part-time work in May 2015, so I included our combined average hours worked per week.
I had a lot of sacrifice in 2004 to 2015, when I was in grad school. Now that it's over we are on cruise control until FI. I teach community college. I work about 40 hours/week, approximately 33 weeks/year. My wife is a substitute teacher and works 50-60 days/year. Her days are 6 hour days.
March 2014: 162K (77 hours)
March 2015: 282K (48 hours)
March 2016: 371K (32 hours)
March 2017: 457K (23 hours) (I took 12 weeks of family leave for birth of our son and wife worked less)
March 2018: 517K (31 hours)
March 2019: 622K (32 hours)
June 4th, 2019 (643K)
I'm also being conservative with estimating the value of our primary home. We are about 1-2 months away from finishing rehab repairs. Right now "as is", it's worth around 725K. However, after spending another 10K in final repairs, it should be worth 775K to 800K.
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Started reading MMM in 2017.
Net worth at the beginning of 2017- $89,000
Net worth as of June 1 2019- $406,000 (Not including house).
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
I think this is FANTASTIC. Changing lifestyle so you go from negative to positive net worth is a really major breakthrough in attitude. Going from x positive to 2x positive isn't nearly as hard.
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
I think this is FANTASTIC. Changing lifestyle so you go from negative to positive net worth is a really major breakthrough in attitude. Going from x positive to 2x positive isn't nearly as hard.
I agree: great job, DieHard.
When I found MMM, I was already a spreadsheet fiend. So, it was easy to look up the following:
Net worth when I found MMM (mid-2013): 281K from ~20 year accumulation
Net worth now: 836K
Yes, this site definitely has made a difference.
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
I'm FIRE and I never got close to maxing out my accounts, much less hit 50% savings rate. I still got there, it just took a little longer. You will, too!
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I only found MMM last summer, so it's been pretty much one full year for me.
Net worth change (w/o my house): +38,9% y-o-y (June 2019)
and still way off target: I need to at least triple my NW to retire reasonably "safely" at my current expense level.
Still, this is the first year since I 've decided to buckle up and to stop bleeding cash on whatever.
I am still fixing my expense baseline.
So, might not be that great yet, but moving in the right direction.
And I am getting good pointers here to do more.
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
I think this is FANTASTIC. Changing lifestyle so you go from negative to positive net worth is a really major breakthrough in attitude. Going from x positive to 2x positive isn't nearly as hard.
I agree: great job, DieHard.
When I found MMM, I was already a spreadsheet fiend. So, it was easy to look up the following:
Net worth when I found MMM (mid-2013): 281K from ~20 year accumulation
Net worth now: 836K
Yes, this site definitely has made a difference.
Thank you.
Great job yourself ;)
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
I'm FIRE and I never got close to maxing out my accounts, much less hit 50% savings rate. I still got there, it just took a little longer. You will, too!
Thanks @Dicey, that's very encouraging.
Congrats!
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Some GREAT journeys to read on this thread... Ours since MMM in late 2014 is:
$225k LNW increase (a bit low as we’re 50ish and had assets). But...
More importantly, savings rate increase from ~10% to now >30%!
And moved to LCOL area; reduced expenses almost $2K per month!
And paid off $243k in mortgage. (I remember every damn penny of it!)
Now we bicycle a LOT to parks, grocery and local bar & dining.
And oh yeah, we’ve had 1, then 2 kids in-state college since 2016.
18 months to the last tuition check, then FIRE in Feb-2021!
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Jun 29, 2017 (first posted on here) - $482,632
Today - $698,105
It's been 2 years - $718,043. Pretty crazy to see a $235K+ gain during that time. Can attribute it to many things I learned on here like index fund investing, HSA accounts, credit card hacking, etc.
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NW has increased immeasurably since being MMM'd in 2016. I knew I was missing something, and MMM filled in the blanks. Since then, mortgage paid off and savings up hugely. Probably + £300k. Without MMM I suspect a whole chunk of that would have been spent / wasted.
This forum has provided much inspiration and insight, for which I am immensely grateful.
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I went back to look at the oldest net worth spreadsheet I have. January 1, 2011. That is actually pre-MMM days. Also, it appears my laptop is super old! In any event, it's a pretty good starting point given that I finished law school in 2009 and bought the house in 2010, and we have been in savings mode ever since.
Total Net Worth, January 2011 = $75k
Total Net Worth, July 2019 = $731k
Increase of 874%.
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I started a journal back in Oct 2015 with a NW around $520k. I remembered my journal as a 10 yr FIRE plan with the end of 2025 as a goal.
We are a 1 income family with my wife going to school. I make roughly $120K.
I was saving really really well until we met new friends and we decided to live a little(having friends are expensive).
I stopped keeping track of everything.
Fast forward to now and our NW is around ~$890K. Not bad for little to no effort.
One thing in these last 4 yrs that I really dumb about is not putting all the extra money in the index fund.
I moved everything out right after Trump became president. That was stupid !!!! I ended putting everything back to the index funds but I still have tons of cash sitting around where it should have been in the index funds.
Had I put all my extra cash into the index funds these past 4 yrs, I would guess my NW would be around 1.2 million instead of $890k.
Anyhow, my wife just graduated and got a decent job right away so we should hit $1.5 million by 2025.
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Im up over 1million.... less than 36 days till planned FIRE
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I was at about 540k 3 years ago, now about 890k. Savings rate has been cranked up. I was saving just the 401k max with match, about 23k/year. Currently I have been saving closer to 75-80k/year. I've done a much better job of sweeping money into savings rather than letting it burn a hole in my pocket. I have about 4.5 years left.
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Looks to be over a million dollars. I'd planned to reach 2 million by age 50 and did. Decided to OMY. The money multiplier is on maximum overdrive right now. It's hard to jump off when you've sacrificed your whole life to reach this level of earning.
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Looks to be over a million dollars. I'd planned to reach 2 million by age 50 and did. Decided to OMY. The money multiplier is on maximum overdrive right now. It's hard to jump off when you've sacrificed your whole life to reach this level of earning.
We are in a similar boat, up over a million since I discovered these forums. That compound interest thing really is a thing of wonder and beauty.
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Discovered MMM about 2 yrs ago. NW up about 100k since then, and my savings rate has increased even with self-employment income decreasing.
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Net worth now finally levelling out after dropping $200k in the past 2 years due to property market decline. It had gone up $800k in the five years before that, so swings and roundabouts I suppose.
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
Thumbs up !!!!
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
Thumbs up !!!!
@DieHard_772 , you've made the most important change of all. You've changed your financial trajectory from negative to positive. You're on an awesome track that most people sadly don't follow.
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
Thumbs up !!!!
@DieHard_772 , you've made the most important change of all. You've changed your financial trajectory from negative to positive. You're on an awesome track that most people sadly don't follow.
Right on. Diehard, I was also in the red for quite a while and the HARDEST part was turning it around from red to black. Which you have now done. That's really impressive!
You'll find that from now on, it's a lot easier. You've gotten the basic patch/steps in place, and if you keep focused, you'll find that each year you get a little better. And all those little improvements add up, changing the trick to a flood.
Well done, sir!
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I started following this blog in late 2014 or so, but I started tracking my net worth in 2015. On 1/1/15, it was $55k, so I'm guessing that in 2014 when I started my journey it was somewhere in the upper $40k range.
I just crossed $200k the other day.
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Early 2013 -- ~400k
Today -- ~850k
This NW increase is all while paying off about $100k of my spouse's student loan and credit card debts, a 10-month "sabbatical" from full-time work, losing $10k "investment" in a local company, and two self-paid cross country moves. Thanks to MMM for keeping me mostly on task and helping me weather the storms.
Hope to hit $1M net worth in 12-18 months and $1M liquid assets in 2-3 years so I can leave FT work, hopefully forever.
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Wow these are some large numbers. I hope to be with you all someday!
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Wow these are some large numbers. I hope to be with you all someday!
The big numbers seem unattainable when you first start out. But from what everyone reports, the savings really do accelerate faster than you think.
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The big numbers seem unattainable when you first start out. But from what everyone reports, the savings really do accelerate faster than you think.
True, but the acceleration has a sign. And while it's fun to see your investment accounts change by N times your salary in a year, it's a little less fun when N < 0 :D
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Oct-15 $567,015.22
Oct-16 $688,319.91 +21.4%
Oct-17 $912,993.18 +32.6%
October of 2015 we got serious about getting our finances under control, found a better job and made the decision to eliminate our consumer debt across the board, all $65,400 of it, cars, travel trailer, credit cards, we had the whole mess going on. Fortunately we had been contributing to our 401ks and not mooching off the home equity.
It took 18 months to eliminate all the debt, we also refi'd the house into a 15-year fixed at 3%, we've been making double principal payments but we may stop that and start investing it once I get over the mental hurdle. We should be ready to FIRE once the house is paid off in ~7 years assuming the market doesn't completely crash at some point.
Along the way I discovered MMM and started lurking and learning, looks like I joined almost exactly 1 year ago, still learning!
Two years have gone by, wow!
Oct-15 $567,015
Oct-16 $688,319
Oct-17 $912,993
Oct-18 $1,199,161
Oct-19 $1,385,537
Still plugging away at it.
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Oct-15 $567,015.22
Oct-16 $688,319.91 +21.4%
Oct-17 $912,993.18 +32.6%
October of 2015 we got serious about getting our finances under control, found a better job and made the decision to eliminate our consumer debt across the board, all $65,400 of it, cars, travel trailer, credit cards, we had the whole mess going on. Fortunately we had been contributing to our 401ks and not mooching off the home equity.
It took 18 months to eliminate all the debt, we also refi'd the house into a 15-year fixed at 3%, we've been making double principal payments but we may stop that and start investing it once I get over the mental hurdle. We should be ready to FIRE once the house is paid off in ~7 years assuming the market doesn't completely crash at some point.
Along the way I discovered MMM and started lurking and learning, looks like I joined almost exactly 1 year ago, still learning!
Two years have gone by, wow!
Oct-15 $567,015
Oct-16 $688,319
Oct-17 $912,993
Oct-18 $1,199,161
Oct-19 $1,385,537
Still plugging away at it.
Damn dude, that's a solid NW. I could retire on that easily.
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I just looked at this. I had a NW of $88,400 This past spring (June) when I first worked it out after finding MMM.
Now I have a NW of $94,430.
Up $6,000 in 5 months! Entirely from paying down debt. Expenses actually increased over this period with the birth of our 3rd baby who is now in daycare.
This is encouraging because I was thinking I had a 1% savings rate this year, but if I consider paying debt down as part of savings rate, then it is more like 15%.
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My NW change since following MMM:
August 2018: $27k
Oct 2019: $152k
Some people's NW changes on here are insane...
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My NW change since following MMM:
August 2018: $27k
Oct 2019: $152k
Some people's NW changes on here are insane...
Dude you increased your networth $125k in just over a year. THAT'S insane!
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Dude you increased your networth $125k in just over a year. THAT'S insane!
I'm definitely not complaining! NW should grow exponentially quicker too as it builds so I feel like that first $100k should've been the hardest but we'll see.. Stay tuned til next year!
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About $102,000 more since October 2018! Crazy!
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+ $292,005 since April 2017! Currently $417,791 NW. Wild!
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August 2016: $756k
Short term goal August 2017: $900k
New kid on the way so I don't know how this will change things.
New kid is here ,and real estate taxes are expensive this year, but the market is killing it.
December 2016: $859k
Goals
August 2017: $1M
If I can stay employed
August 2018: $1.25M
March 2017: $1M
5 months earlier than expected
December 2017: $1.2M
1-Dec-2019
$1,963,829.66...shouldn't be long to join the 2M club; is that when you become a millionaire...as in plural?
I don't post much, so its fun to see this history, obviously adapting life style to MMM style has strong benefits...investing through 2018 and watching no gains hurt but has paid off well in 2019 so far...big expenses coming in 2020, house and a car while my higher paying job is coming to a close.
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Started reading the blog around February 2013. Didn’t really track my net worth at that point so I have to estimate. Numbers in parentheses include my pension cash out value. This includes 2 house flips (50% partner) a couple of windfalls totaling 25k, and a year off of work to live on the road.
February 2013: 16,000 (34,500)
December 2019: 182,650 (228,850)
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May-14 $132.7
...
Apr-19 $505.5
May-19 $518.2
Dec-19 $590.3
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So, how much more are you worth today, vs when you first started doing MMM?
About $50
But my kid says I’m priceless :)
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Found MMM in 2013, net worth then approx 350K
2014 - 502,000
2015 - 555,000
2016 - 642,000
2017 - 763,000
2018 - 840,000
2019 - 1,050,000
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Back then (late 2013/early 2014) I wasn't tracking my net worth, but it was probably in the $200-$250k range. It hit $790k on Friday.
$1,013,000 since Friday.
Ending 2019 with $1,200,000.
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I registered on the forums mid 2012 but I'd already found ERE at that point.
2012 liquid net worth ~$80K
2019 liquid net worth ~$814K
so about $734,000 increase in 7 years. This just feels surreal.
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Mid-2019, I got a promotion and salary increase to $82k. My liquid NW increased $93k between 1/1/19 and 12/2/19. Thanks MMM!
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People are damn inspiring on here! So, for posterity I did my best estimate of NW since discovering MMM in 2015. The fact that I can actually go back and reliably track this information is itself a testament to the good ideas from MMM.
FWIW, I've been doing this as a recently (2014) divorced dad of two who had the kinds of expenses that no one preparing for FIRE would advise (child support, new home, less control over kids expenses, etc). DO NOT RECOMMEND!
Also note, I do not include the $500,000 we saved (in 529 funds) for college, since it's the kids money and we are now withdrawing from it for college tuition. Lastly, also note that I did get re-married and that she brought $40k (that's it...her first husband bankrupted them!).
July 2016: $247,000
July 2017: $319,000
July 2018: $356,000
July 2019: $432,000
July 2020: $477,000?
Now that divorce-based expenses end in July 2020 I hope to get to $1m by 2025, or sooner.
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May 2012 - $3k
November 2017 - $130k
4300% increase... but only $127k increase.
That included a Ph. D. and three moves and starting out with $60k in income. Now we're at 210k in income. : )
Hopefully, the first $100k is the hardest and it goes faster from here!
Update for May 2019 - $328k
200k more in 18 months... nuts. Feeling very blessed. Our savings rate will go down now that we have a baby on the way, but I'm sure we'll still make progress.
$454k in January 2020. $126k in 8 months! We are getting close to that $500k mark! We will see how long it actually takes now that we are a family of 3 and I'm changing my work situation.
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This has been such an inspiring thread to read through!
I have always been rather a saver, but never knew what to do with my money other than let it sit in a savings account.
I started reading the blog somewhere in late 2013 or early 2014, having just graduated college with $4,000 in savings. MMM was where I learned about investing with index funds, and I opened an IRA in 2014. I have contributed the max every year since.
EOY 2013 NW = $4000
EOY 2019 NW = $32200 ($69700 in investments - $37500 in student loans)
8x growth in six years isn't so bad.
In those six years I had an average income of $18k/year and took out $45k in student loans to go to grad school. I lost my way a few times and got a little spendypants with eating meals out during school, and I could have found a better-paying job but I really love where I work.
I've finally gotten a raise and am now making a living wage! I finished my masters in December and have already paid off 1/3 of the loans, and reading these forums has inspired me to really optimize my savings and debt payoff plans so that I now hope to finish paying off my loans AND reach $100k NW by the end of 2021.
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Found MMM in May 2013... started implementing in summer 2013 and tracking beginning 2014:
Jan 2014: $152,412
Mar 2020: $572,189 (note: down from peak in Jan 2020 at $648,241)
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People are damn inspiring on here! So, for posterity I did my best estimate of NW since discovering MMM in 2015. The fact that I can actually go back and reliably track this information is itself a testament to the good ideas from MMM.
FWIW, I've been doing this as a recently (2014) divorced dad of two who had the kinds of expenses that no one preparing for FIRE would advise (child support, new home, less control over kids expenses, etc). DO NOT RECOMMEND!
Also note, I do not include the $500,000 we saved (in 529 funds) for college, since it's the kids money and we are now withdrawing from it for college tuition. Lastly, also note that I did get re-married and that she brought $40k (that's it...her first husband bankrupted them!).
July 2016: $247,000
July 2017: $319,000
July 2018: $356,000
July 2019: $432,000
July 2020: $477,000?
Now that divorce-based expenses end in July 2020 I hope to get to $1m by 2025, or sooner.
@PVD_Kev: Your kids have "$500,000" in 529s? For two kids? Is that a typo?
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Found MMM in May 2013... started implementing in summer 2013 and tracking beginning 2014:
Jan 2014: $152,412
Mar 2020: $572,189 (note: down from peak in Jan 2020 at $648,241)
That's awesome progress @tommy murph
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Was a Mustachian before I read MMM's blog (and ERE and jhcollinsnh) - grew up in a Mustachian family.
NW for wife and I:
mid-2010 ~ -$25k (bought a house - dat mortgage ting!)
Apr 2020 ~ $1.9M
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Was a Mustachian before I read MMM's blog (and ERE and jhcollinsnh) - grew up in a Mustachian family.
NW for wife and I:
mid-2010 ~ -$25k (bought a house - dat mortgage ting!)
Apr 2020 ~ $1.9M
over $2 million networth progress in ten years, that is fantastic @jinga nation
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March 2016 - £276k
June 2020 - £635k
So an increase of £359k or approximately £90k per year.
The things that contributed to this growth:
- finding and old pension of £39k
- reviewing all existing accounts and consolidating / simplifying them into single ISA / Pension with Vanguard Lifestrategy 60
- Reviewing platform fees and moving from a % based fee to fixed fee once pots were over a certain amount
- Pushing for salary increases at work
- Stopping overpaying the mortgage and instead investing in ISAs and Pensions
- Going contracting and doubling my take home pay
- Most importantly not succumbing to pressure to buy a new car / house extension etc!
The result is that we are now FI with a view to RE in next 6-12 months.
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Was a Mustachian before I read MMM's blog (and ERE and jhcollinsnh) - grew up in a Mustachian family.
NW for wife and I:
mid-2010 ~ -$25k (bought a house - dat mortgage ting!)
Apr 2020 ~ $1.9M
Wow this is awesome! Fantastic!
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Looking back at my journal: (shameless plug) https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/journey-to-100k-net-worth-and-beyond/msg2636702/#msg2636702
January 2017: -$16,825
June 2020: $311,825
Total: +$328,650
Woahhhhhh!
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Our Networth was approximately -$15k when I started reading MMM four years ago.
Now it's $35k.
$50k improvement over four years is pretty amazing, considering we basically didn't
increase our income in that time.
Also, considering that my NW hadn't budged from being well in the red before that, this is pretty freaking cool.
I realize that $50k might not seem like a lot for some of the hotshots on here, but I'm tired of feeling bad because
I haven't managed to save 50%+ of my income.
Personally, we saved about 14% of our net income last year. That was better than the previous year.
We all got our own path to take, so for anyone else on here who has managed to moved from 0% savings to 10% or 15% or 20% savings, I salute you!
Let's keep moving forward the best we can!
Peace
In pursuit of our SIX-FIGURE networth, this past year I have become much better about tracking our total networth, including checking accounts and short-term savings (like for taxes). I also paid off my student loan, thus zeroing out debt.
For the purposes of this exercise, I won't count checking accounts, because the original data didn't either.
Current Savings/Investing NW: $60k
In the past 11 months, our savings and investing pile has grown by $25k... which is grand!
Total NW progress since starting reading MMM: About $75k.
Our rate of progress is increasing! Love it
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Looking back at my journal: (shameless plug) https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/journey-to-100k-net-worth-and-beyond/msg2636702/#msg2636702
January 2017: -$16,825
June 2020: $311,825
Total: +$328,650
Woahhhhhh!
Awesome job @lampstache
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I estimate about 400-500% since starting MMM.
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May-14 $132.7
...
Apr-19 $505.5
May-19 $518.2
Dec-19 $590.3
Jun-20 $634.8
My networth shot up $68k in the last month, and $125k in the last 2 months. Of course it also shit the bed and lost $100k in the previous 2 months before that, so mostly just getting that all back. Some pretty wild swings.
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Late May 2013 -($35K)
Late May (ok ealry June, lol) 2020- $240K
So up about $270K in 7 years. Slow in some respects compared to other high earners and many on these boards.
But on the bright side I spent a couple of those years as a SAHD and a couple as a part time SAHD. We've also been traveling 4-6 weeks a year during that time and did a big reno to our house.
We also started with $100K in high interest consumer debt (Credit cards mostly) and a $20K loan from our 403B. With a combination of paydown and refi (into a 2nd mortgage) that's all gone now. So the next 7 years should see drastically more growth.
Pumped :)
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I don’t remember when I started reading the blog. I remember I had student debt still, though, so might have been 2012-2013. Ballpark guessing I’d say we were (15k) or (20k). Today we’re around 225k as a couple.
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I don’t remember when I started reading the blog. I remember I had student debt still, though, so might have been 2012-2013. Ballpark guessing I’d say we were (15k) or (20k). Today we’re around 225k as a couple.
@MudPuppy Bravo!
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Late May 2013 -($35K)
Late May (ok ealry June, lol) 2020- $240K
So up about $270K in 7 years. Slow in some respects compared to other high earners and many on these boards.
But on the bright side I spent a couple of those years as a SAHD and a couple as a part time SAHD. We've also been traveling 4-6 weeks a year during that time and did a big reno to our house.
We also started with $100K in high interest consumer debt (Credit cards mostly) and a $20K loan from our 403B. With a combination of paydown and refi (into a 2nd mortgage) that's all gone now. So the next 7 years should see drastically more growth.
Pumped :)
Wow paying off $100k in credit cards is fantastic, well done!
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Late May 2013 -($35K)
Late May (ok ealry June, lol) 2020- $240K
So up about $270K in 7 years. Slow in some respects compared to other high earners and many on these boards.
But on the bright side I spent a couple of those years as a SAHD and a couple as a part time SAHD. We've also been traveling 4-6 weeks a year during that time and did a big reno to our house.
We also started with $100K in high interest consumer debt (Credit cards mostly) and a $20K loan from our 403B. With a combination of paydown and refi (into a 2nd mortgage) that's all gone now. So the next 7 years should see drastically more growth.
Pumped :)
Wow paying off $100k in credit cards is fantastic, well done!
Thanks man! Its been a journey so far.
Full disclosure the last ~$40k did get rolled into a second mortgage.
So we paid off $60k credit card and $20k loan from our retirement.
Onward and upward now though. ~$20k a year going automatically to pre tax retirement plus the mortgage principal paydown.
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I found MMM in late 2017. I happened upon a forum post when researching what to do with my 401k from a previous employer when I started a new job. From there I checked out some of the blog highlights and it hit me like a piano thrown out a 5th story balcony. I immediately started increasing my 401k/IRA/savings and things kinda took off. Not as spectacular as many here but I'm working on it.
Jan-18: $185k
Jan-19: $220k
Jan-20: $315k
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I'm only 25, but I've been reading MMM since I was about 19 maybe? After digging myself into a ~$75K student debt hole (no regrets, that's just how it is today when you gotta work your way through!), I still somehow have more than $40K in positive net worth 3 years later?! A change of +$100k, although it doesn't always feel like it
If you'd told me at 18 that I would be here today, I wouldn't have believed you. Just figured I would be scraping by for forever. It's all just in my 401K right now, but I think this year is really going to accelerate my progress since I pretty much can't do anything! (So long as I can keep my job, knock on wood).
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To me MMM means freedom even before we reach FIRE.
I second that!
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Yes i am bumping up a necro thread, so sue me. I’m posting because I happened to run across this thread while I had historical net worth statements out.
We are old and I’ve been at the game a long time.
In 1989 we had net worth of around $115,000. For a few years after that I do not have figures.Our annual net worth statements start with the year 1993. I won’t give every year but I’ll show the progression:
1993 $249,140
1998. $505,302
2003. $922,008
2008. $1,259,180
2013 $1,969,580
2018 $2,201,390
2019. $2,759,609*
I don’t know what the final number of 2020 will come be but it will be up.
* inherited around $350,000 in real property and in financial instruments
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I won’t give every year but I’ll show the progression:
1993 $249,140
1998. $505,302
2003. $922,008
2008. $1,259,180
2013 $1,969,580
2018 $2,201,390
2019. $2,759,609*
The first million is the hardest, as the saying goes.
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Especially over the last decade, when if you invested in index funds you did quite well year over year :)
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Been poking around here since 2013 but independent of that, we have been lucky with real estate and stocks and added nearly 8 figures to net worth. Time to sell some!
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I found mmm around 2015. I went from about -10k (student loans cancelled out my investments) to over $420k today. It feels shocking. I'm so glad I found this site when I was first starting out in my career before I had a chance to get too hooked on spending.
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I believe I started reading MMM in late 2014 or early 2015, but can't recall exactly. My wife and I were already pretty conservative with our money and had been saving/investing 30-50% of our income even before I found MMM.
Looking back at early 2015 our NW was ~$920,000
As of January 2021 our NW is up to ~$3,200,000
Compounding really is an amazing thing :)
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Found MMM in early 2017: NW was $42k
Current NW is about $650k, with $520k invested. Pretty hard to believe we've come this far, but also surprisingly easy to just keep increasing at a rapid clip now that our lifestyle is moderately mustachian.
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I just realized that we're well over 1M in NW increase. Neat.
ETA: almost none of that has been market gains.
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I just realized that we're well over 1M in NW increase. Neat.
I assume we started adding up our total portfolio precisely because we found MMM and bogleheads, as prior to that our goal was 10x in taxable to take a long sabbatical. Anyway, we now have more increase than we originally set our goals for. Part of that is deciding that 4% wasn't really prudent for a very early retirement and part is DH just isn't ready to walk away from work. At least, most days he isn't: he is starting to make mutterings about starting to realize he probably won't miss it.
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hard to know for sure what i had when we started.
Found MMM at 27 in Feb 2014 had ~~125k
Today in 2017 ~ 750k networth.
well this is fun to revisit 4 years later 2.1MM
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These bragging threads are fun.
Discovered MMM in November of 2014.
$75,000 - Net Worth 11/1/2014
$327,000 - Net Worth 9/26/2017
+$252,000 in just under 3 years
My income has also gone up from $49k in 2014 to ~$120k in 2017
+$440K since then.....all while working only half of those past 4 years :)
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I discovered MMM in approximately 2014 and started tracking NW in Dec. 2014 - technically we had a negative NW but I wasn't including student loans on track for forgiveness, which put us at about $63k (mostly home equity). Today we have a NW of 874k including 660k investment balance.
hard to know for sure what i had when we started.
Found MMM at 27 in Feb 2014 had ~~125k
Today in 2017 ~ 750k networth.
well this is fun to revisit 4 years later 2.1MM
I expect to hit 750k next year, that's eye popping for 4 years later.
It's interesting that many of us joined in 2014.
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I discovered MMM in approximately 2014 and started tracking NW in Dec. 2014 - technically we had a negative NW but I wasn't including student loans on track for forgiveness, which put us at about $63k (mostly home equity). Today we have a NW of 874k including 660k investment balance.
hard to know for sure what i had when we started.
Found MMM at 27 in Feb 2014 had ~~125k
Today in 2017 ~ 750k networth.
well this is fun to revisit 4 years later 2.1MM
I expect to hit 750k next year, that's eye popping for 4 years later.
It's interesting that many of us joined in 2014.
extracted alot of house value and invested that. Also pivoted my investment approach about a year to 2 years ago away from all VTSAX into almost all small cap value.
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I apparently joined the forum in October of 2013. According to my spreadsheet, our net worth was:
October 2013 - $200,000
September 2017 - $625,400
This is fun. And another 4 years later $1.25 million. Can't continue to go up this fast for much longer, can it?
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May-14 $132.7
...
Apr-19 $505.5
May-19 $518.2
Dec-19 $590.3
Jun-20 $634.8
My networth shot up $68k in the last month, and $125k in the last 2 months. Of course it also shit the bed and lost $100k in the previous 2 months before that, so mostly just getting that all back. Some pretty wild swings.
Oct-21 $862k. Was over $900k the previous couple of months, and I expect it back into the 900's when I update in 6 days. Next stop $1M!
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Was around ~$500-600k about 5 years ago when I stumbled in here, but I was rudderless without a framework as to where to put money beyond the 401k, and how to translate all that money into an early retirement. Can't say I've change my spending much, but I'm now at $1.6M and 2 years from pulling the plug.
My current job is like a pair of golden handcuffs. I'm contemplating a downshift to something I would enjoy working at for 3 years rather than slog through a job I've come to despise for 2 more years. I could lose 2/3 of my pay before it affected spending, which opens up a lot of options I could consider.
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2015 - just out of college, found MMM, household net worth with future wife was ~50k
2021 - We're married, I'm retired, wife is OMY, and we're well in excess of 1M
Probably 30% or more of that was market gains.
We took two unpaid 6 month sabbaticals in that time.
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2015 - just out of college, found MMM, household net worth with future wife was ~50k
2021 - We're married, I'm retired, wife is OMY, and we're well in excess of 1M
Probably 30% or more of that was market gains.
We took two unpaid 6 month sabbaticals in that time.
awesome fast path to FI!
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2015 - just out of college, found MMM, household net worth with future wife was ~50k
2021 - We're married, I'm retired, wife is OMY, and we're well in excess of 1M
Probably 30% or more of that was market gains.
We took two unpaid 6 month sabbaticals in that time.
Nice. I think number of hours is also relevant. Our progress could have been faster, if we worked more. I included combined weekly hours for my wife and I. I also included the number of hours that I spend self-managing our rentals.
During these 10 years, we averaged W2 income of 77K/year and rental income of 13K/year. We went from zero to over one million with 900K of income over those 10 years. Thanks MMM!
2011: zero (80 hours)
2012: 50K (79 hours)
2013: 100K (78 hours)
2014: 162K (77 hours) Found MMM
2015: 282K (48 hours) My wife transitioned from 45 hour weeks (full-time) to 10-15 hour weeks (part-time)
2016: 371K (32 hours)
2017: 457K (23 hours)
2018: 517K (31 hours)
2019: 650K (35 hours)
2020: 850K (35 hours)
2021: 1050K (35 hours)
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I like the "hours" metric! Gotta look through the records and figure that one out.
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Almost unbelievable that you and your wife together worked 30-35 hours per week over the last few years, including rental management. If I was the public at large I might have some trouble with that!
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Almost unbelievable that you and your wife together worked 30-35 hours per week over the last few years, including rental management. If I was the public at large I might have some trouble with that!
Maybe I'm not reading some post properly, but why would "the public at large" have a problem with someone working part time hours?
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Almost unbelievable that you and your wife together worked 30-35 hours per week over the last few years, including rental management. If I was the public at large I might have some trouble with that!
Maybe I'm not reading some post properly, but why would "the public at large" have a problem with someone working part time hours?
I read that to mean "Normal people wouldn't believe it along side the stated financial progress." Because investing even 10% of two full-time-plus incomes is an aspirational goal for most people.
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Almost unbelievable that you and your wife together worked 30-35 hours per week over the last few years, including rental management. If I was the public at large I might have some trouble with that!
Maybe I'm not reading some post properly, but why would "the public at large" have a problem with someone working part time hours?
my guess is the public at large cant fathom cutting hours to that level and growing an investment account like that. kinda how the public at large can't even fathom what we talk about and do in this community.
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Almost unbelievable that you and your wife together worked 30-35 hours per week over the last few years, including rental management. If I was the public at large I might have some trouble with that!
Maybe I'm not reading some post properly, but why would "the public at large" have a problem with someone working part time hours?
my guess is the public at large cant fathom cutting hours to that level and growing an investment account like that. kinda how the public at large can't even fathom what we talk about and do in this community.
I originally typed "IRP" but I didn't want to get into a discussion about whether clarkfan was retired or not. I just meant the yahoo finance, FIRE unbelieving, naysayers.
dardarc and boarder restated it for me nicely.
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One income(w-2), 40 hours/week for a family of 7, permanent WFH since 4/2020
Found MMM in 2015 at ~$331k - (88k/yr salary - 6k/yr rental cash flow)
As of 10-2021 ~$1.22M - (126k/yr salary - 24k/yr rental cash flow)
Roughly 900k increase since discovering MMM.
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I've been wanting to throw this out into the void for a while, and this thread seems like as appropriate a place as any.
I stumbled across MMM in early 2014. My wife and I had just paid off the last of our non-mortgage debt (it was about $50k total, slowly paid off over the previous 5 years). I had just gotten my first "real" job at a local software company - entry level, roughly $35k a year plus benefits. A princely sum, in my opinion. Combined with my wife's income which was a little more than my own, I knew we had a lot of money coming in, and no debt to throw it at, so I needed to educate myself on how to invest it wisely.
So in January 2014 with net worth around zero, I learned how to invest in index funds, and how to avoid lifestyle creep, how to foster a DIY attitude, etc.
Fast forward through a lot of life events, and today the investments sit around $2.5 million, and I find myself in a job that is emotionally rewarding, highly flexible, and I'm compensated something like $60k every single month I work here (salary + equity). More than twice my annual budget from a few years ago, now coming into my bank account every single month!
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the changes since I discovered this community, but I owe a big debt of gratitude to it.
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I've been wanting to throw this out into the void for a while, and this thread seems like as appropriate a place as any.
I stumbled across MMM in early 2014. My wife and I had just paid off the last of our non-mortgage debt (it was about $50k total, slowly paid off over the previous 5 years). I had just gotten my first "real" job at a local software company - entry level, roughly $35k a year plus benefits. A princely sum, in my opinion. Combined with my wife's income which was a little more than my own, I knew we had a lot of money coming in, and no debt to throw it at, so I needed to educate myself on how to invest it wisely.
So in January 2014 with net worth around zero, I learned how to invest in index funds, and how to avoid lifestyle creep, how to foster a DIY attitude, etc.
Fast forward through a lot of life events, and today the investments sit around $2.5 million, and I find myself in a job that is emotionally rewarding, highly flexible, and I'm compensated something like $60k every single month I work here (salary + equity). More than twice my annual budget from a few years ago, now coming into my bank account every single month!
I have a hard time wrapping my head around the changes since I discovered this community, but I owe a big debt of gratitude to it.
Impressive!
Man the number of 2014 finders of this forum.
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I started here in 2017, with a net worth of ~$3m. We're just over ~$6m.
We doubled our retirement investments over that time, sold our vacation & rental house, paid off our primary residence, & have had some really great property value gains. We have also been working at a company that's seem tremendous stock price growth over that time, & both receive ~50%+ of our compensation in equity.
I also took an unpaid sabbatical over that time period, and that bought me probably another year at work (renewed energy). COVID brought WFH and on international work travel, which bought me another couple of years.
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We were somewhere between $0 and $5,000 when we started in August/September 2011, when we were 23 and 24. We're at $290,899 today, about six years later. Our combined income during that time ranged from around 35K to 80K, so it's not like we were rolling in cash.
We didn't really make a lot of changes. It was more making a few tweaks here and there and increasing our income from "shit" to "middle-class".
Update: About a year and a half later and we've just recently crossed tho 400K mark. Still making in the same income range - last year was about 78K. Expenses haven't changed.
Another update - we're now about 650k, with similar income and lower expenses. Getting pretty close to FIRE given our low spending needs. We're hoping to scorch-earth our way through the last few %.
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Almost unbelievable that you and your wife together worked 30-35 hours per week over the last few years, including rental management. If I was the public at large I might have some trouble with that!
Maybe I'm not reading some post properly, but why would "the public at large" have a problem with someone working part time hours?
my guess is the public at large cant fathom cutting hours to that level and growing an investment account like that. kinda how the public at large can't even fathom what we talk about and do in this community.
I originally typed "IRP" but I didn't want to get into a discussion about whether clarkfan was retired or not. I just meant the yahoo finance, FIRE unbelieving, naysayers.
dardarc and boarder restated it for me nicely.
My job is full-time, but the hours are closer to part-time. I teach community college and my contract says 1,320 hours/year. For my first 2-3 years of teaching, I was probably close to that. However, I am now 99% done with prepping materials. I recycle the same materials and exams for everything. The applied examples are different every semester depending on current events, which keeps it fresh. I'm probably around 1,000 hours/year for my W-2. I am required to be on campus 768 hours/year. This is 32 weeks/year. I get 20 weeks of vacation.
My wife is a virtual assistant for a realtor in Denver. She works 5-10 hours/week. She does social media management for her (facebook) and also maintains her database. After every contact and transaction, the contact information goes into the database.
In a normal year, I'm probably around 100-150 hours/year to self-manage 3 properties (4 doors), including repairs. However, over the past two years, it's probably been closer to 300 hours/year. I have made the conscious decision to do some repairs when I was on break. I laid some flooring in 2020 which was 150 hours. I painted the exterior of a rental house in 2021 which was another 150 hours.
I'm planning to work until I'm 70. We will see if it actually happens.
I get value from my job. I get to "give back" knowledge to students and hang out with co-workers that have advanced degrees in all sorts of disciplines. If I want to have a meaningful discussion with someone with an advanced degree in Economics or History, I just walk down the hall.
With 20 weeks of vacation, I still get plenty of time to engage in my leisure activities and pursue passion projects.
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Just hit $150k from basically nothing after finding MMM 6 years ago
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Found MMM in Fall of 2012 when we had a NW of -1K and a fair amount of debt.
Today, 521K NW.
Family of 4 living on my husbands full time income and my side hustles.
Past:
NW Nov 2020: 347k
NW Dec 2019: 229k
NW Dec 2018: 174k
NW Dec 2017: 168,460
NW Dec 2016: 129,892
NW Dec 2015: 98,795
NW Dec 2014: 73,369
NW Feb 2014: 61,148
NW oct 2012, -1k
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Don't have an exact amount at the moment, but can say that it was after showing my wife an MMM talk that she told me, "I'm going back to work, and we might not do those home repairs we were planning this year."
Then last year I got over the hump income-wise to start putting $500/month into my Roth, $500/check into my TSP, and $400/check (adjunct prof) into my 403(b). Add in an inflated home value, and the increases are substantial.
She very correctly stated at the start of Pete's talk, "They had no kids and good incomes," and even after nailing that assertion, watched a bit more and slept on it, coming the above conclusion - spend less, make more, lock down some better options.
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I've been following MMM since 2013 or so, but didn't have good budget numbers for NW until 2018.
In Jan 2018 NW was about $500K
As of November it is $1,046,000
During that time I retired from the Navy in September of 2018, worked another full time job for one year 2020-21 (for a ridiculously small salary).
Now I'm fully retired again.
The vast majority of the increase was market gains with a little help from a small inheritance bump. We live mostly on my pension and VA disability, so we are happy to leave our nestegg alone and let it grow.
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I think I found MMM in 2015.
My wife and I saw our net worth grow by roughly 300-350% in those 6 years (2015-2021).
And I was able to retire in 2017.
Thank you to MMM and this FIRE community!
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Late May 2013 -($35K)
Late May (ok ealry June, lol) 2020- $240K
So up about $270K in 7 years. Slow in some respects compared to other high earners and many on these boards.
About $320K now.
~$80K in 17 months close to $5K per month. I'll take it!!
Also back in 2013 DW was 9 years into her pension, now 17 (of 30). I don't have the pension value included in the Net Worth but it should pay about $60K a year in 2035.
Trajectory is a lot slower then many here, but MMM has allowed me to go from "work until I die being in consumer debt the whole time" to retire pretty comfortably around 55.
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OMG, I'm a millionaire!!! I have $1,004,173 in cash and investments. I'm stunned. I know that will waiver but wow, that's a lot of money.
I found MMM Sept 2018, just over 3 yrs ago. We had about 30K in cc debt and about 350K in my TSP. Less than 10K in Roth IRAs. Now dh and I have a million dollars. It is absolutely all a direct result of finding MMM and you all on this forum. Yes also the stock market has been bonkers, but I've also been maxing out all retirement accounts and actually saving money, maximizing each buck, not blowing money on frivolous crap we don't need, and looking to get the most for each dollar. We have no revolving cc debt. We have cash in savings accts.
We made over 200K per yr combined but lived paycheck to paycheck. I can't even imagine that now. We were always broke but packages of stuff we "needed" came in the mail every single day. We paid a thousand bucks to cc's every month but the balance never went down. If we didn't have the money we'd charge it bc it was all important stuff that we needed or it was only a few dollars anyway. The stress for years was exhausting.
Thank you all so much! You have saved my family!!!
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Congratulations on your 2nd comma @DeniseNJ! With some luck and continued continued additions to savings, you might not see that "dip below" happen.
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Joined in February 2014 with a net worth of $115,248.95. Today's total is $907,247.99. Which means that our monthly average increase was 7.31%, yearly increase of 87.7%. Not as epic as many of you, but it's still hard to believe how far we've come in such a short time!
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Mine has gone from around zero (I started reading around 2013, joined forum 2014) including mortgage to around $2.14M today in 2021. Not exactly causal, but not unrelated, either.
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We reached a million dollars in net worth this year. Its been 5 years since I found MMM and we are up about $825000. Based on projections I made years ago I was to reach a million in net worth by 2024-25, growth exceeded my expectations by big margin.
Its time to project again. Its puts smile on my face to imagine growth from our million+ in assets and savings propelling us to our next million. In next five years may be??
I feel like its all on autopilot now. I find myself focusing more on other things in life, living best life.
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When I found MMM in Feb 2016 I was 36 years old with $146k to my name (which was still a big improvement from having $0 when I turned 30). I've just hit $650k, all done solo in a HCOL area with no real estate or windfalls. All just saving and investing from an income that has never broken 6 figures (although this should be the year).
At 36 I was fully resigned to another 30 years of grinding out a middling (for the area, and especially given I have a Sociology degree) salary in soul deadening jobs. I'm now on track to pull the plug in my mid to late 40's. Crazy.
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I stumbled upon MMM in 2012.
After dropping out of college in 2004 and again in 2006, I was taking a third stab at it. I was working nights and going to school during the day. I had recently read a book that had really spoken to me, and I was Googling around to see if others had been affected by it in the same way I had been. It just so happens, MMM dedicated a post to it in late 2011 (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/)).
I spent that 8-hour shift reading every single post that existed up to that point. I went home in the morning and told my girlfriend that I spent a surreal night delving into a blog whose meditations had a voice so eerily familiar that I was convinced I had somehow written the posts myself in some alternate reality for me to stumble upon in this one. I have frequented this community of the positive, supportive, likeminded ever since.
2012 Net Worth: ~$1000
2021 New Worth: >$1m
It is mind-blowing to me that with discipline (natural for me as I am boring as hell and don't crave material things and am largely a Luddite) and some luck (great advocates and people that trusted me with jobs that normally go to people related to the CEO), a normal dude from a shit town with no connections like me can go from $0 to FI in 8 years.
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We originally started with the dreaded Dave Ramsey until we completed BS2 and then promptly came to our senses. Became acutely aware of personal finance in 2010. Have been maxing 2x401k, 2xIRA and optimizing (not trimming) expenses since 2014.
We’ve been focusing far more on increasing income than we have with increasing savings.
I like the hours metric. We would come in at a cool 70+40 worked hours per week. Planning to ramp that down eventually.
Year / Household income / NW
2010 / 72,000 / -36000
2011 / 75,000 / -24000
2012 / 80,000 / -15000
2013 / 92,000 / 0
2014 / 115,000 / 10,000 (MBA)
2015 / 120,000 / 45,000 (PhD and join MMM)
2016 / 272,000 / 139,000 (move to CA)
2017 / 235,000 / 250,000
2018 / 280,000 / 423,000
2019 / 345,000 / 625,000 (buy home)
2020 / 415,000 / 900,000
2021 / 335,000/ 1.35M (join startup)
2022 / 600,000 / ?? (wife new job, ipo)
$1.305M (or 96.6% of our NW) since joining MMM - may or may not be correlated :)
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I made my account here in Dec 2015, right after I had paid off my student loans. At that time my NW was 2.5k. But I probably started reading the blog at least a year or two before that, when my net worth was negative 30k or so.
Now, just about six years later, my personal NW is around 118k. It averages out to an increase of 19k per year, which isn't impressive compared to many here, but I have only broken 50k gross this past year, and before that I only worked 4 days a week and netted about 28k.
As a household, our income is now solidly above average so I expect the increase to accelerate. Investment gains are also starting to be be more significant so I think it'll take me less than six years to hit a quarter million.
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I started lurking around some time in 2015 I think, at -21k, and made my account in 2016 at -16k.
Finished my phd in the meantime :-)
Now I am at +80k and will buy a piece of land together with my fiancee.
So, that is 100k plus in 5 years, but the party really started in late 2018 with my first real job.
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1.5 M in 10 years.
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2015: Started playing with FIRE
Debt free. Invested balance: $69k (10 years into my career)
2021:
Debt free. Invested balance: $730k
While raising three kids, our net worth increased by $9180 per month on a household income that has never exceeded $7500/month. Can hardly believe it.
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I started following MMM in late 2015. I figured out our NW in late 2015 was ~$550k and half of that was equities in our 2 houses.
2014 was the very first year I broke the $100k salary and hovered around $120k until the pandemic when I got laid off.
My wife went to school and never worked until she was done in 2019 and got a job making around $50k.
So we were a DINK couple for about 8 months.
We almost hit the $1 million NW right before the pandemic.
It was the pandemic when our NW really took off.
We are now at ~$1.45 million. About $900k gains in about 6 years.
Most of the gains are from our 2 houses. Probably close to $250k.
Not bad for just 1 income but I should have dump all of our excess money into the indexes like MMM.
I kept telling my wife we should do this during the entire time but I never did until the pandemic.
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Dec 2017: $30K
Dec 2021: $600K
Paid off my loans in Dec 2017, had some money saved up + my bonus and started investing. Have been doing the same since then + salary increases, etc. and here I am.
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My spreadsheet doesn't go back as far as my MMM forum membership but I remember we crossed the $1M mark a little after that general time period of life. Today we are at $3.6M invested, plus another ~$400k home equity. So call it an increase of $3M, give or take. Not too shabby. The markets have been very accomodating.
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ME
Aug 2014: $203k
Aug 2021: $539k
HUSBAND
Nov 2015: $405k
Nov 2021: $823k
We got married summer of 2015.
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We started our MMM inspired changes in December of 2012. Our net worth doubled by December 2015 from the changes we implemented and by then we were two years away from FIRE.
We inherited a bunch of money in 2016 and that effectively doubled our net worth again, so it's harder to say exactly what's MMM-related after that. We're now at 5.4 times our "starting" net worth.
I have to confess we stopped working so hard at FIRE after the inheritance. We would probably be at 7 times if we had kept working that hard at it, but we don't need it, so why bother?
Two years later we're at 6.2 times our starting net worth. We FIRED 3 years and 7 months ago. At this point we're not even trying to increase our net worth.
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I registered in Sept 2018.
At this time my net worth was around $800k, mostly in index funds, and I was projecting to hit $1m within 1-3 years through a combination of my savings rate and modest forecasted stock returns (4%). I was working in London and having a fabulous time exploring the city while simultaneously immersing myself in the various online FIRE communities.
Fast-forward to today and I definitely hit my goal, but would never have imagined exceeding it by as much as I did! I ended up with over $1.6M! This was through a combination of new remote work possibilities opened up by COVID, very low living expenses and surprisingly good total market performance.
I'm still ready and waiting for the market to fall at any time, but much less stressed about it, thanks to the massive cash holding I've built up, the good savings habits I've developed and the apparently persistent high demand for workers in my field.
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Joined in January 2018 and posted my first case study.
Net Worth
2017: $139k
2018: $208k
2019: $262k
2020: $298k
2021: $377k
So $238k growth in 4 years. This does not include another $37k+ I have in 529s.
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Back then (late 2013/early 2014) I wasn't tracking my net worth, but it was probably in the $200-$250k range. It hit $790k on Friday.
$1,013,000 since Friday.
Ending 2019 with $1,200,000.
2021: $1,972,000
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We are up 6.4 times our starting net worth since we found MMM.
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May-14 $132.7
...
Apr-19 $505.5
May-19 $518.2
Dec-19 $590.3
Jun-20 $634.8
My networth shot up $68k in the last month, and $125k in the last 2 months. Of course it also shit the bed and lost $100k in the previous 2 months before that, so mostly just getting that all back. Some pretty wild swings.
Oct-21 $862k. Was over $900k the previous couple of months, and I expect it back into the 900's when I update in 6 days. Next stop $1M!
Jan-22 $902k not quite at a million, but heading there.
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I went from net worth in 2016 of about $435k to about $890k today. Not bad. Could be better but I like to see the progress!
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I have been reading MMM blog posts for about two years but have only been on the forum since early 2021. I started tracking my NW in late 2019 at the age of 28; early in 2020 I added my wife's NW information (we got married June of 2019 and I didn't really have any access before this point). My assets included have become more thorough over the time so the early tracking information I have is a bit off and skewed. For example, from late 2019 through Jan of 2020 I used contributed dollars only for my pension value. I have since changed my equation to be the worth of my pension at age 55 if I were to leave my position today (age 31); that is just one example of how I have reconfigured my NW calculations to be more precise. That being said I don't have a lot of data point, not even a full year with my new calculation method.
Anyway, sorry for the long winded explanation, my yearly change from Feb 2021 - Today (1/12/2022):
Feb 2021 - ~$281k home equity included (~$214k home equity excluded)
Jan 2022 - ~$366k home equity included (~$237k home equity excluded)
My wife transitioned to be a SAHM to our first born in Jan 2021 (turning 1 next month). Transitioning to a single income meant a significant drop in salary ($60k) but I will be starting a new job in July ($73k). Hope to really get the ball rolling in 2022 / 2023!
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People are damn inspiring on here! So, for posterity I did my best estimate of NW since discovering MMM in 2015. The fact that I can actually go back and reliably track this information is itself a testament to the good ideas from MMM.
FWIW, I've been doing this as a recently (2014) divorced dad of two who had the kinds of expenses that no one preparing for FIRE would advise (child support, new home, less control over kids expenses, etc). DO NOT RECOMMEND!
Also note, I do not include the $500,000 we saved (in 529 funds) for college, since it's the kids money and we are now withdrawing from it for college tuition. Lastly, also note that I did get re-married and that she brought $40k (that's it...her first husband bankrupted them!).
July 2016: $247,000
July 2017: $319,000
July 2018: $356,000
July 2019: $432,000
July 2020: $477,000?
Now that divorce-based expenses end in July 2020 I hope to get to $1m by 2025, or sooner.
@PVD_Kev: Your kids have "$500,000" in 529s? For two kids? Is that a typo?
It is not. It is grandparent money, mostly, that appreciated like mad since we started the funds 18 years ago. I am hoping to work with the kid's mom on a split of those assets that is fair to everyone.
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We just completed our net worth statement, a snapshot we do once a year as of the last day of 2021. We are over another M threshold, so yay! We are old and the
Benjamins have been working for us for quite some time.
It is a relief, and really a cause for celebration, because we have been throwing shit tons of cash at a house renovation. Even with all of that cash “disappearing” (the house will not not have a market value anywhere near what we have in it) our asset sheet is still way up.
Way to go, Uncle Joe Biden! Keeping that Trump market going strong!
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We more than doubled our money in fewer than 6 years.
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I stumbled upon MMM in 2012.
After dropping out of college in 2004 and again in 2006, I was taking a third stab at it. I was working nights and going to school during the day. I had recently read a book that had really spoken to me, and I was Googling around to see if others had been affected by it in the same way I had been. It just so happens, MMM dedicated a post to it in late 2011 (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/)).
I spent that 8-hour shift reading every single post that existed up to that point. I went home in the morning and told my girlfriend that I spent a surreal night delving into a blog whose meditations had a voice so eerily familiar that I was convinced I had somehow written the posts myself in some alternate reality for me to stumble upon in this one. I have frequented this community of the positive, supportive, likeminded ever since.
2012 Net Worth: ~$1000
2021 New Worth: >$1m
It is mind-blowing to me that with discipline (natural for me as I am boring as hell and don't crave material things and am largely a Luddite) and some luck (great advocates and people that trusted me with jobs that normally go to people related to the CEO), a normal dude from a shit town with no connections like me can go from $0 to FI in 8 years.
I wish we could “like”posts here. I would “like” upvote this so much!
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I started in mid-2017 with a NW of (1,916). As in a negative net worth. I still owed money on my car that outweighed my meager savings.
Then I started reading MMM and other frugal/FIRE authors.
As of today, my NW is $118,526.
Paid off the car six months early.
Finally sold the house I was renting out at a loss bc of a job transfer.
Moved into an apartment with a roommate where I could walk to work and most errands.
Cancelled Netflix, home internet, and did a one-year clothing fast.
Got on medication for mental health issues.
Regular no-spend months.
Saved aggressively.
Started sinking funds for recurring or irregular expenses.
Bought a house in my current city that has increased in value almost 10% since I bought it.
Rinse, repeat, all while making a salary low enough to quality for health insurance subsidies.
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I wasn't really keeping track of our net worth until the last few years. This is the earliest net worth I have written down:
oct 2015 - 52,100 (investments) - 21,480 (debt) =$30,620
feb 2022 - 475,553 (investments) - 208,000 (debt) = $267,534
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$226k in 2014 to $1,750k today. We were much more focused on saving every dollar in the beginning than we are now. The past 3 years of net worth gains were more than what we made from our salaries before taxes. Incredible what can be accomplished in less than a decade. Close to the finish line now, trading in my w2 job for full time real estate investor.
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This website has helped me more than I could ever imagine. Found MMM in 2014. 8 years later, my net worth is 20x what it was and technically I've hit lean FIRE. Gonna keep on this gravy train a few more years before hanging it up completely.
Nothing compares to the peace of mind knowing that you have enough. It's crazy to me that more people don't follow this way of life.
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This website has helped me more than I could ever imagine. Found MMM in 2014. 8 years later, my net worth is 20x what it was and technically I've hit lean FIRE. Gonna keep on this gravy train a few more years before hanging it up completely.
Nothing compares to the peace of mind knowing that you have enough. It's crazy to me that more people don't follow this way of life.
I KNOW! When I first found MMM, all I could think was, "What? This is possible? How did I not know this before?" Now I spread the word as much as possible. We spent 20 yrs living hand to mouth. The last 5 with MMM has changed everything.
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I started following this blog in late 2014 or so, but I started tracking my net worth in 2015. On 1/1/15, it was $55k, so I'm guessing that in 2014 when I started my journey it was somewhere in the upper $40k range.
I just crossed $200k the other day.
~$450k now.
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Found MMM around 2013-2014 when I was trying to decide whether to pay off my student loans before moving out. Basic question but we all start somewhere :).
For convenience I'm going with my YNAB history:
July 2014: $2,252.50
February 2022: $472,655.52
Not as jawdropping as some of the financial transformations on here, but my Vanguard account alone holds over a decade of expenses, assuming I kept everything at my current level and didn't do the slightest bit of work.
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Found MMM around 2013-2014 when I was trying to decide whether to pay off my student loans before moving out. Basic question but we all start somewhere :).
For convenience I'm going with my YNAB history:
July 2014: $2,252.50
February 2022: $472,655.52
Not as jawdropping as some of the financial transformations on here, but my Vanguard account alone holds over a decade of expenses, assuming I kept everything at my current level and didn't do the slightest bit of work.
You're up over 200% in less than 10 years. I'd say that is jawdropping.
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Found MMM around 2013-2014 when I was trying to decide whether to pay off my student loans before moving out. Basic question but we all start somewhere :).
For convenience I'm going with my YNAB history:
July 2014: $2,252.50
February 2022: $472,655.52
Not as jawdropping as some of the financial transformations on here, but my Vanguard account alone holds over a decade of expenses, assuming I kept everything at my current level and didn't do the slightest bit of work.
You're up over 200% in less than 10 years. I'd say that is jawdropping.
Being up 200% of his original July 2014 number is only $6,757.5 total (2252.5 + (2252.5*2)). I think the jawdropping figure you were going for is 200x his original number (2252.50 * 200) which is absolutely amazing!
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Found MMM 2015.
Dec 2015 NW: $96.5K
Dec 2021 NW: $505.3K
+$408.8K or an average of +$68.3K per year
+423% or 70% per year???? Mindblowing!
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Found MMM around 2013-2014 when I was trying to decide whether to pay off my student loans before moving out. Basic question but we all start somewhere :).
For convenience I'm going with my YNAB history:
July 2014: $2,252.50
February 2022: $472,655.52
Not as jawdropping as some of the financial transformations on here, but my Vanguard account alone holds over a decade of expenses, assuming I kept everything at my current level and didn't do the slightest bit of work.
You're up over 200% in less than 10 years. I'd say that is jawdropping.
Being up 200% of his original July 2014 number is only $6,757.5 total (2252.5 + (2252.5*2)). I think the jawdropping figure you were going for is 200x his original number (2252.50 * 200) which is absolutely amazing!
Thanks for catching that. Misplaced the decimal.
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Since 2017, increased net worth by ~500%. It's amazing how much you can save once you're debt free.
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Another 2014 MMMoneylorian foundling here... $1.1M net add with very detailed records. More than doubled my net worth of beskar. '
But like Mando, it hasn't been pleasant to acquire. And I constantly wonder how I can continue to acquire it without getting my butt kicked by the bad guys all the time. ;-)
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I stumbled upon MMM in 2012.
After dropping out of college in 2004 and again in 2006, I was taking a third stab at it. I was working nights and going to school during the day. I had recently read a book that had really spoken to me, and I was Googling around to see if others had been affected by it in the same way I had been. It just so happens, MMM dedicated a post to it in late 2011 (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/ (https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/02/what-is-stoicism-and-how-can-it-turn-your-life-to-solid-gold/)).
I spent that 8-hour shift reading every single post that existed up to that point. I went home in the morning and told my girlfriend that I spent a surreal night delving into a blog whose meditations had a voice so eerily familiar that I was convinced I had somehow written the posts myself in some alternate reality for me to stumble upon in this one. I have frequented this community of the positive, supportive, likeminded ever since.
2012 Net Worth: ~$1000
2021 New Worth: >$1m
It is mind-blowing to me that with discipline (natural for me as I am boring as hell and don't crave material things and am largely a Luddite) and some luck (great advocates and people that trusted me with jobs that normally go to people related to the CEO), a normal dude from a shit town with no connections like me can go from $0 to FI in 8 years.
I wish we could “like”posts here. I would “like” upvote this so much!
+This a million!
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Found MMM when I was still in college. 2016 is when I started working and we bought our house too. I can't find my NW from 2016 (it was below 10k anyway), but I did find this post from december 2017:
"On another note. Just found out, that our net worth is 22.000 euros :) Yeay! Time to slowly climb towards that 100,000.
At this rate we'll be there in July 2024."
A lot has changed since december 2017. Bought a new house in 2018 and spend an entire year remodeling. The house market took of like crazy since we moved (so a lot of the increase in NW is thanks to that). We got a baby, so I work 1 day less every week, but we still have the added cost of day care.
But, tl;dr:
December 2017: 22.000 euros
May 2022: 139k
So, we exceeded our goal of 100k in 2024 by 2 years! If the house market wouldn't have been this crazy, it would've been 75k.
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In 2011 DH and I both landed stable corporate jobs and after years of living on lower incomes saved 50% without thinking about it. Had $500k end of 2011 when I first started to track due to some very lucky happenings. Kept going, then found MMM end of 2013. I was hooked that other people besides me didn't think living on half your income was weird. Went back and forth about retirement, finally decided on July 2020, but ended up pulling the trigger Dec 2020 at $2.3M, way over where we expected to be.
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In 2016 I was in debt by $55,550. Today I have 250K in investments.
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I registered on the forums in 2014 (longer ago than I thought).
2014: -$100k
2022: $200k
After I first registered I probably didn't come back for nearly five years. The biggest part of that NW increase happened in the past two years because of some major income increases, so I am excited for what the next ten could bring!
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In 7 years (2015-2022, which is how long my budget tracking accounts for - probably found the forum in 2013?) we've gone from -3K to $485K (inclusive of home equity).
This while living in a mid-to-high COL city, a few years of me working PT and/or at NPO levels of income, two home purchases and a home sale, and two children in daycare (a monthly budget line that, for the last three years, has been higher than our mortgage).
Our eldest starts public school this fall, so I'm excited to shift those daycare payments to maxing out my 403B. We're in our forever home (or our until-the-kids-graduate-HS home) at a sub-3% mortgage rate, and we're on track to demolish the rest of DH's student loans by December 2023 at the very latest (our only non-mortgage debt).
All that to say, in the years when life costs are often some of the absolute highest, we've still managed to grow our NW by almost half a million dollars without feeling like we're sacrificing experiences or depriving ourselves or our children of those things that make our lives meaningful. Thanks to the whole forum for guidance on both the nuts and bolts of money math and also more general advice and examples of living your best Mustachian life!
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In 7 years (2015-2022, which is how long my budget tracking accounts for - probably found the forum in 2013?) we've gone from -3K to $485K (inclusive of home equity).
This while living in a mid-to-high COL city, a few years of me working PT and/or at NPO levels of income, two home purchases and a home sale, and two children in daycare (a monthly budget line that, for the last three years, has been higher than our mortgage).
Our eldest starts public school this fall, so I'm excited to shift those daycare payments to maxing out my 403B. We're in our forever home (or our until-the-kids-graduate-HS home) at a sub-3% mortgage rate, and we're on track to demolish the rest of DH's student loans by December 2023 at the very latest (our only non-mortgage debt).
All that to say, in the years when life costs are often some of the absolute highest, we've still managed to grow our NW by almost half a million dollars without feeling like we're sacrificing experiences or depriving ourselves or our children of those things that make our lives meaningful. Thanks to the whole forum for guidance on both the nuts and bolts of money math and also more general advice and examples of living your best Mustachian life!
Congratulations. We also have sub 3% mortgage on a starter home that isn't. I feel you on the last paragraph. It's been interesting to watch my peer group trade up on houses, cars, private school during this time. They occasionally try to commiserate about money frustrations and I do nod along to avoid any weirdness because I know they assume we are poor or we wouldn't be living like this. But occasionally I want to blurt out, no I don't understand your issue because I have a 1m+ net worth and save 60% of our income. Let's talk about how you're bleeding $$ because of your super bloated lifestyle that you have blindly created for yourself.
But I would never. Mainly because I don't want this info known to anyone, but also because it's rude 😆
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Registered just over 5 years ago in mid-2017. I found an old spreadsheet where I'd been tracking debts and net worth and our net worth was about $67k. We became 100% debt free in early 2017 (thanks Dave Ramsey, prior to MMM) so I was already on my way. I probably found the blog in late 2016 or early 2017 when our net worth was closer to $50k
It's a bit harder to calculate today because we've got a lot of our net worth tied up in a business, we purchased last year, plus a bit in another side business I started back in 2017. The side business is winding down and between cash in the business bank account and remaining inventory we should be able to walk away with about $8-10k. The equity from our main business is probably $50-75k but until our tax return is filed and our CPA provides some updates on adjusting assets, goodwill, etc. I'm not 100% confident in the current equity number on our balance sheet.
2017 - $67k
2022 - $147k (excluding main business equity)
2022 - $200-225k? (Including main business equity)
Either way about 3x our net worth in 5 years for an annual increase of around 40-45%. Now that our retirement investments are over the $100k mark, the additional contributions aren't making as much difference as the growth (and those contributions have slowed while we focus on growing the business). A deployment to a combat zone in 2019-2020 definitely provided a big bump - especially since I was able to put $20-30k of tax-free combat pay into a Roth account. Tax free going in, tax free coming out in a few decades.
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2015 - Found MMM - $10k nw
2022 - current day - $170k nw
Increased by 17x since finding, although only started at $10k, but it definitely made a huge difference
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I think I first started reading in 2013, when I started tracking NW. -$74K.
Didn't get too serious about it until the end of 2016. I was 31 and exited my second disappointing career. NW $16K.
Luckily I had really stretched to buy real estate in 2011 and 2014. All that leverage wasn't Mustachian, but combined with a six-figure salary, it's helped propel my NW to $657K today.
I anticipate FIREing in 2027, which means my accumulation phase will be either 11 or 14 years, depending on where I mark the start line.
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2009: NW = -$95k. 145k mortgage.
2022: NW = $3M. No mortgage.
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2009: NW = -$95k. 145k mortgage.
2022: NW = $3M. No mortgage.
Damn homie, you FI AF =D
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These bragging threads are fun.
Discovered MMM in November of 2014.
$75,000 - Net Worth 11/1/2014
$327,000 - Net Worth 9/26/2017
+$252,000 in just under 3 years
My income has also gone up from $49k in 2014 to ~$120k in 2017
Just under 5 years later, sitting at $950k.......this shit works.
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These bragging threads are fun.
Discovered MMM in November of 2014.
$75,000 - Net Worth 11/1/2014
$327,000 - Net Worth 9/26/2017
+$252,000 in just under 3 years
My income has also gone up from $49k in 2014 to ~$120k in 2017
Just under 5 years later, sitting at $950k.......this shit works.
Fo shizzle, my FIREbro! (bolded for emphasis)
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2009: NW = -$95k. 145k mortgage.
2022: NW = $3M. No mortgage.
Damn homie, you FI AF =D
Yeah, but 55-60% is in real estate.
I would FI, but a fun ABCD job in tech with a good company provides an excellent work-life balance. Plan is FIRE when youngest finishes school in 10 years.
ABCD = Always Be Collecting Daily
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That's awesome @jinga nation, another 10 years at a job + RE doing it's thing is going to result in some insane wealth.
I need to pick your brain more about RE when we get down there in November. Hope you're still riding :)
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That's awesome @jinga nation, another 10 years at a job + RE doing it's thing is going to result in some insane wealth.
I need to pick your brain more about RE when we get down there in November. Hope you're still riding :)
Yes, hit me up. I've moved to Odessa, Starkey Ranch trails are almost rideable from home. So is Suncoast Trail.
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Just found it a little while ago - maybe a month. Made big changes, but now have unexpected major home repair. Think we will end the first month of this journey in the red.
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We started at around $50k in 2015 and now have ~$1m. (Maybe $1.3 if you count the house equity, which we don't). Almost all just from investing into index funds at 90/10 split between stocks/bonds. Nothing particularly clever, just making a lot of money now and saving most of it instead of buying fancy nonsense.
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I joined the forum in 2012. We had already done the Dave Ramsey debt snowball and we were making plans for the future.
2012: 362k
2022: 2.9m
Income is high now and we streamlined everything and it’s just been growing and growing! I’m so pleased we trusted in the math and the process - both for the Dave Ramsey debt pay down and the MMM saving.
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Started in 2016.
Our net worth has increased 16x our starting amount. Not bad for 6.5 years.
This year we plan to go from a 30% saving s rate to 50% rate which should significantly reduce the years we will have to work before getting to semi retirement.
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Discovered MMM a few months into my first full-time career related job and a month after graduating with a Master's of Accountancy degree.
2018 NW: $ 10,000
2022 NW: $280,000
Just a few months prior to finding MMM, my boss advised me to save at least 3% in my SIMPLE IRA. I thought that was a ludicrous amount of money to save. He showed me a calculator that said if I saved 3% and the company matched it - plus some other details I no longer remember - then I could retire at 65 with $1 million. That blew me away. Then I thought...what if I save a little more than 3%? I found MMM shortly thereafter.
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Found MMM 2015.
Dec 2015 NW: $96.5K
Dec 2021 NW: $505.3K
+$408.8K or an average of +$68.3K per year
+423% or 70% per year???? Mindblowing!
Updating to see how this down year changes the yearly averages.
Found MMM 2015.
Dec 2015 NW: $96.5K
Dec 2022 NW: $480.1K
+$383.6K or an average of +$54.8K per year
+398% or 57% per year
Still outstanding.
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Found MMM 2015.
Dec 2015 NW: $96.5K
Dec 2021 NW: $505.3K
+$408.8K or an average of +$68.3K per year
+423% or 70% per year???? Mindblowing!
Updating to see how this down year changes the yearly averages.
Found MMM 2015.
Dec 2015 NW: $96.5K
Dec 2022 NW: $480.1K
+$383.6K or an average of +$54.8K per year
+398% or 57% per year
Still outstanding.
Nice job!
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In July 2013 I reported my NW was about $430,000.
NW today is about $1.75M (it was slightly higher a year ago), so about 4 times the amount in a 10-year span.
Never had a six-figure job until this week. Hope stock-market returns are better in 2023 and 2024. Nice work you veteran MMMers!
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April 2012 NW: -$45,159 (yeah that was badddddddd)
Jan 2023 NW: $173,006
So my net worth is up $218k since discovering MMM. Would be higher if I didn't splurge on some things last year and the market didn't tank last year. I had a moment after losing some friends, family, almost turning 40, and realizing I don't want to buy a house with the current prices / interest rates. $280k for a 1962 starter home that needs a good $20k-$30k in work to make it nice and $19k/yr between mortgage interest and taxes (not including principal, maintenance or insurance). No thank you I'll keep my $1134/mo 1br apartment... I guess owing $17k on a car at 3.9% I've owned less than 3 mos. is better than owing $50k. Not mustachian by any stretch. Still plan to pay it off in 2023 through triple monthly payments.
Working on getting a new job / promotion but currently on a $110k/yr base salary plus potential bonus.
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I recently found some a copy of a tracking file from 2011-2012, so I can give a reasonably accurate summary.
Found ERE pretty close to when Jakob started - stash increased about 200% from then to when I found MMM through the ERE blog. ERE wasn't practical for me with young kids but I liked how he thought and it was interesting reading even if I wasn't going to be so extreme. MMM is more my speed.
Comparing my end of year numbers from 2011 to now, it's an increase of 592%, between growth and additional contributions. As other folks have said, it would be considerably more had we not had such a down year in the markets.
Different way of looking at it -- when I found ERE my LNW was almost 1x my salary. When I found MMM, my LNW was over 2x my salary with some mediocre pay increases. Found a much better job in 2013 after taking a mini sabbatical of sorts, but was way too busy to read any blogs - just kept putting money into the 401k. I'm now making 2.5x what I was making at that 2008 job but my stash has increased by a much bigger percentage, even with the latest downturn.
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2017 (age 30): $125,000
2023 (age 36): $1,264,764
10X in 6 years!
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2015 (age 23): -$35,000
2022 (age 30): $475,000
~500k in 7 years!
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I FIRED when DD was born in 2010.
We just ran our 2022 numbers. Hubby can FIRE at any time. Our goal was FIRE when DD graduated High school and he can do it with her still in middle school.
We are now planning on hubby to continue to work through high school and the day DD graduates (she will graduate at 16 if not before) he will walk away knowing that college is planned for.
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I FIRED when DD was born in 2010.
We just ran our 2022 numbers. Hubby can FIRE at any time. Our goal was FIRE when DD graduated High school and he can do it with her still in middle school.
We are now planning on hubby to continue to work through high school and the day DD graduates (she will graduate at 16 if not before) he will walk away knowing that college is planned for.
That’s awesome, congrats!
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Found MMM in 2014
NW @ 2Q2014 was £0.75m ($1.286m @ July ‘14 FX)
NW @ 4Q2022 is £3.444m
That’s a £2.7m increase or a 4.5x increase over 8 years… or 24% CAGR!
i can’t really believe that I am writing that. 2 big salaries that got bigger over the year paired with a very strong savings and investing ethics.
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Oct 2014 ~48K
Jan 2023 ~504k
Compound interest is crazy.
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840% in 12 years. No inheritance or windfalls but increases of income and asset appreciation.
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€500 to my name in 2016 when I discovered MMM vs. €30,000 invested today (not counting my cash emergency fund).
Not a huge amount, but in those years I got a Masters and most of a PhD (should be finished in the next 2-3 months!!!) on very small stipends, so I'm still proud of putting the basics into place - living frugally, have a high savings rate, etc.
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Found MMM around 2018 and, together with the lady:
NW 2018: $40,000
NW 2023: $1,500,000
Savings rate over 90% during this time; I work FT and she owns a small business that we run together. Income would have been the same without MMM, but it would have been 90% spent and 10% saved instead of the other way around.
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I spent the last year since joining MMM breaking even. My income hasn't increased and I haven't accomplished any of my next step goals. Basically the doldrums, but I'm gearing up to get my plan back in action. My assets haven't increased but I own a few more gadgets. Save save save is on my mind and avoiding debt debt debt is the ultimate motive.
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Found MMM around 2018 and, together with the lady:
NW 2018: $40,000
NW 2023: $1,500,000
Savings rate over 90% during this time; I work FT and she owns a small business that we run together. Income would have been the same without MMM, but it would have been 90% spent and 10% saved instead of the other way around.
90% savings rate! That's a wild accomplishment @sayonara :)
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It was as much as $2,000,000 in mid 2021. Found MMM in 2013
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Joined in April 2013 with NW of about $200,000.
Today we are at $1,367,000.
Lots of help from the market and an inheritance from my MIL passing, so not all our hard work.
We retired in 2018 at 49/50 respectively and are just letting the nest egg grow while living off my military pension and VA disability.
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I was FI in 2018.. I kept working, thru lockdown years... Fired in late 2021.
I had a real psychological problem in doing it... resulted in a "rage quit" phone call.
I had about 900K with annual spend of about 7K.
Then, shit happens....
An uncle left me a house worth 600K.
I have recently sold it.
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My mom sent me a link to MMM's Shockingly Simple Math post in February of 2015. It was about 8 months after I graduated college and my husband and I had a combined net worth of pretty much $0 thanks to a Mercedes car note and a boujee wedding.
Net worth increase of $1.245M
Pretty ridiculous to see the progress 8 years can make and eternally thankful that my mom steered us on a better path.
(https://i.imgur.com/Sosuj1k.png)
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My mom sent me a link to MMM's Shockingly Simple Math post in February of 2015. It was about 8 months after I graduated college and my husband and I had a combined net worth of pretty much $0 thanks to a Mercedes car note and a boujee wedding.
Net worth increase of $1.245M
Pretty ridiculous to see the progress 8 years can make and eternally thankful that my mom steered us on a better path.
That's a great mom!!! Congratulations on your awesome progress!
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Had a NW of probably $100k in 2015 when I joined. Didn't start tracking assets until 2016. Current total NW is about $1.1M (including real estate). $1M in 8 years!! I can't imagine I'd be anywhere near as close without reading the wisdom of the mustache.
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I joined in 2013 and started tracking assets in October of that year.
October 2013: $49,000
August 2023: $871,000
We have four kids and spent most of that time as a single-income home. I've never made six figures. Close, but not quite. So I figure that's pretty good for someone in my shoes.
The really lumpy trajectory in the last few years is due to real estate transactions. We sold our a home that had appreciated quite a lot, bought a smaller house, fixed it up, bought some timberland and built a custom home on it, and then moved and sold the smaller home, all over the past 2 years. So our NW has increased by quite a lot over that time frame due to real estate appreciation and sweat equity.
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Our CAGR was about 17% since 2012. Not bad. Not sure MMM had anything to do with it. We naturally save and have had stock market and real estate luck.
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I found ERE first, and MMM from there right when he started in 2011.
End of 2011 - $119,519
Now - just crossed the 1 million mark at the end of July.
That's for my individual accounts LNW, not combined TNW. Spouse was not interested in ERE at all, and I wasn't interested in ultra lean FIRE, so although we made good progress, we didn't have the acceleration we could have had if we'd been more diligent.
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I'm not sure how to value a pension.
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I'm not sure how to value a pension.
Can't remember if it was @Nords or @arebelspy who helped me with this, but there is a formula out there.
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I'm not sure how to value a pension.
I've recommended people use the Schwab Annuity Calculator to back into the value of it. This post (https://stopironingshirts.com/how-much-is-that-pension-worth/) is almost four years old, but the tool works similarly today.
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I'm not sure how to value a pension.
Can't remember if it was @Nords or @arebelspy who helped me with this, but there is a formula out there.
I’m not sure a pension is something you’d include in your net worth, not even if it’s future Social Security benefits. Most pension recipients just use that number to reduce their monthly expenses and then use the 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate on the remaining expenses.
If someone insists on calculating a pension value, there are a few options. You’d have to know roughly when you’re gonna die.
For a pension with a full cost of living adjustment, it’s straightforward math because the pension dollars are already adjusted for inflation:
Lump sum = annual pension amount * remaining life expectancy
The problem is estimating your longevity.
Another approximation would be the interest rate on long-term bonds (30 years or longer). Your annual pension is the income stream from a lump sum of those bonds. The challenge is matching the duration of the bond portfolio to your remaining life expectancy. A flaw in this estimate is that when you die your pension stops too, instead of leaving behind a lump sum of bonds still generating that income.
A third option would be pricing a single-premium immediate annuity. This is essentially what a well-run pension fund does anyway to hedge your longevity risk. One of the nation’s biggest bulk buyers of SPIAs is the federal Thrift Savings Plan, and they have their fact sheet here:
https://www.tsp.gov/publications/tspfs24.pdf
Your employer might also offer a lump-sum equivalent to your pension, and it’s typically the same calculation... maybe with additional options like a survivor benefit or an inflation adjustment.
You can also do this with annuity calculators from financial companies:
https://www.usaa.com/annuities/immediate-annuity-calculator/?akredirect=true
https://www.schwab.com/annuities/fixed-income-annuity-calculator
Finally, you can do a (very) deep dive with Grumpus Maximus’s pension series:
https://grumpusmaximus.com/category/pensions/
I’m not sure his posts would give you a straightforward present value of a future stream of payments (let alone an easy calculation), but you’d get a much more realistic approach to including pension income in your asset allocation and survivor benefits.
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Thank you everyone! @chasesfish @Dicey @Nords!
Our financial advisor said we are on track with high confidence. Retirement income = pension+SSN+investment-mortgage+insurance should be similar to our current income.
DW and I think we'll be just fine.
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I found MMM in February of 2014 with a net worth of about $3000. I'm oh so very close to $800,000. I started out on a single income of $26,000ish and lots of debt. In a couple of years, my husband and I are looking at coast FIRE.
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I started MMM April 0f 2015 with a networth of $14,000 (it might have actually been negative- I'm not sure if I counted my students loans bc of PSLF), current networth $731,000
So, it's working- I'd say were half-mustachian/mustachian lite at that...
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It's been a while but I registered here in 2013 with something like 100k mortgage. Mortgage was gone in 2018 and now we're over 70k in total (pension plan not included).
Since we're a single income family (due to reasons) and having had a 30k payout for an accident which caused my to have some permanent damage, I'm still quite proud at where we're at. And the most interesting part, for me, is that I voluntairily accepted a lower position after the accident with a 3k pre-tax income and a couple of years later I'm at the bottom of a payscale 5 levels higher that goes up to 6k pre-tax 😆
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We are up 6.4 times our starting net worth since we found MMM.
Found MMM in Oct 2015. In less than 9 years, we are now at 8.4 times our starting net worth and are solidly in FI territory, even after factoring in a couple year-long sabbaticals and downshifting to a lower-paying job. Planning to RE next year.
Compounding is amazing. Passive income streams are amazing. Geographic arbitrage is amazing. This FIRE stuff works.
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Found MMM in early 2017: NW was $42k
Current NW is about $650k, with $520k invested. Pretty hard to believe we've come this far, but also surprisingly easy to just keep increasing at a rapid clip now that our lifestyle is moderately mustachian.
NW now, after 7 years of MM, is almost exactly $1MM, with about $725k invested.
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Every time this thread pops up, I want to be able to respond. Sadly, I'm too lazy to go back and check.
Can I just say, "Beyond my wildest dreams" and call it good?
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Found MMM about 9 years ago and had a less than $10k net worth, DW and I didn’t and still don’t have high incomes, but we got in gear started saving and investing and just hit $300k in investments last week. Kind of amazing how well this shit works
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I registered MMM in 2014.
Until 2007 (age 25) I spent every penny I earned.
Then I met a frugal wife that got me saving. She wanted to raise the kids, so I bring home the bacon in our family of 5.
I first calculated our net worth in 2011 @ 112k. Now its 1.3m in 2024 (20.75% Rate of return)
All of that with a modest single income that was 75k in 2011 and has gradually rose to 150k in 2023.
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I found MMM in February of 2014 with a net worth of about $3000. I'm oh so very close to $800,000. I started out on a single income of $26,000ish and lots of debt. In a couple of years, my husband and I are looking at coast FIRE.
Here we are not even a year later and we're at about $950,000. I've given notice at work and we'll be selling the house and traveling while working remotely for a while. I never thought I'd be the person to walk away from a nearly 6 figure job, but here I am! It's just... Surreal.
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I was not tracking net worth but my investable assets are 25 times higher than when I joined this site and my house is worth ten times as much as my house I owned when I started here.
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I found MMM in November 2016, and that's when I started tracking net worth.
Total Debt Total Net Worth
11/15/16 $344,090, including $97,903 in credit card debt. $354,239
07/13/24 $177,398 (house + one car loan @ 1.9%) $1,716,257
Increase: $1,362,018
It feels good to have some money stashed away, and our savings rate is 35% of gross.
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Seeing all these success stories is cool. I have to say that MMM is a nobel prize winner in my mind. The amount of good he has done is incredible. He's just a regular guy but his info has helped a lot of people.
I'm up ~89k in the last 10 months which is awesome.
Got to say I wish I knew about this when I was 18 years old in 1998.
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Seeing all these success stories is cool. I have to say that MMM is a nobel prize winner in my mind. The amount of good he has done is incredible. He's just a regular guy but his info has helped a lot of people.
I'm up ~89k in the last 10 months which is awesome.
Got to say I wish I knew about this when I was 18 years old in 1998.
Right? If I'd known what I know now, I'd have been retired long ago!
At least it pays off for our kids. My daughter is 19, in college, and has a net worth of around $13k. She's well on her way to having good financial habits.
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TLDR: 2011: $4k 20 y/o -> 2024: $3M 34y/o
I found MMM in 2011. A coworker of mine was childhood friends with Pete and showed me his "friends new blog :D" I was 20 years old and had just started my first real job after finishing grad school. I got academic scholarships to pay for school fully and had $4k saved from my work study job. I immediately knew I found my people on MMM. Fast forward 13 years and I just hit $3M this week. Very surreal. I've had savings rates of 73-86% while working a super stressful job I hated. A year ago I switched to a chill part time job with health insurance and I actually really enjoy it. My focus now is on my health, which above wasn't kind to, but I also don't regret it either as I'm so much less stressed now that I'm financially free forever.
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TLDR: 2011: $4k 20 y/o -> 2024: $3M 34y/o
There you go... this is the success story that is possible starting out young. Just need somebody to say "hey, did you know this is possible?"
I kind of just needed someone to give me permission to save all my money and invest it and know it's possible to have more than enough with just 10 years
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Now about $1.25M, just over a million (!) invested. In tennish years!
Yeah in 10 years a lot can happen!
That mil mark is a huge milestone. Congrats!
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My daughter is 19, in college, and has a net worth of around $13k. She's well on her way to having good financial habits.
I'm sure people have different views on college... but if it were me and I could go back I'd take the money my parents paid for college and would've just invested it. Plus those are 4 years of not working... I would've worked instead and saved and still would've had all that youthful energy to go out and have fun.
A lot of the parents money spent on college could just fund a retirement with all the decades of growth.
Different paths for different people, but if I could do it all over again I would've worked first and then went to college later in life taking classes I liked.
Sounds like your daughter will do awesome having reached 13k at such a young age!
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2021 2.04M
2024 3.1 M
We retired in 2021 . so happy to be retired!
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Every time this thread pops up, I'm dying to know. Yesterday, I dug into some stuff from my old computer, hoping to find those records. I could only find as far back as 2014, and I FIRE'd in 2012. Oh, well. At least I can sit on the sidelines and cheer you guys on!
As they sing in Les Miz, "It's amazing how it grows!"