Hit a million!

[FLBiker]

We will undoubtedly drop down below, but this is the first time we've hit $1 million dollars in savings and investments.  We'd been hovering around $900,000 in investments, and we just sold our house.  After putting our down payment down on the new one and covering our moving expenses, we have $120,000 in extra cash (beyond our "regular" cash).  Our FIRE number is somewhere around 1.2 million, I think, but we just moved from the US to Canada so I'm not sure exactly what our expenses are going to be going forward.  It's silly and arbitrary, but I have to admit I get a small charge out of hitting a million USD, before we start looking at things more in terms of CAD (where we'd already be over a million).

For reference, I'm 44, DW is 40.  I earn $80K (started at $40K ~10 years ago) and DW is currently on leave but was earning ~$40K before that.  We've only really been focusing on savings for ~10 years -- I spent my twenties living overseas.  I was frugal, but earned very little.  And DW had no savings (and ~$30K in debt) when we got married (again, ~10 years ago).  We basically just do a four fund, low cost index fund AA.

Oh, and just to give a sense of timing, here are the last several years' values:
1/1/2020 - $880,193
1/1/2019 - $667,472
1/1/2018 - $676,316
1/1/2017 - $527,811
1/1/2016 - $388,210
1/1/2015 - $353,233
1/1/2014 - $295,587
1/1/2013 - $211,118

Thanks to all you folks for the inspiration and the information!

[charis]

Congratulations!! You did it in a decade? How much did you save per year?

[FLBiker]

Congratulations!! You did it in a decade? How much did you save per year?

Good question -- I just added our investment balance since 2013 to the original post to give a sense of growth -- my records before that aren't complete.  The max (I think) would have been somewhere around $50,000 -- we have certainly maxed out our 457s before ($18K each) and also tIRAs.  We also contribute our minimums to our 403bs.  But my wife took 2.5 years leave when our daughter was born (2015) so our savings dropped significantly then.  I'm not a rigorous budgeter, so I can't be really specific as to what our annual expenses are vs income.  For me, one of the big perks of living well within our means is not having to track everything. :)

And, coming into that decade, I suspect I had somewhere around $100K in investments, some of which we used to pay off my wife's higher interest rate student loans.

[LWYRUP]

Great job!

[Metalcat]

Congrats!!!

How does it feel?

[StarBright]

congrats!

[FLBiker]

Congrats!!!

How does it feel?

Thanks!  Honestly, it feels a little arbitrary (in part because it was driven largely by the timing of when we sold our house).  I definitely ran the numbers this morning specifically to confirm the number, though (I normally just totally stuff up quarterly). :)

And not specific to this number, we definitely have been feeling free-er more recently.  For example, we'd been planning to move to Canada for a couple of years now, and coronavirus definitely complicated our plans (including by making my job less secure) but we were comfortable moving ahead regardless.  Our daughter starts kindergarten this fall, so we really didn't want to wait, and it was nice knowing that, financially, we'd be fine even if we had to cobble together part-time work for a while.

At the same time, I have to admit that I do a lousy job sometimes of NOT worrying about money.  I've been working on it, and it's getting better, but part of the reason I posted this this morning was to help myself accept the reality. :)

[rachaelandthegoose]

Congratulations! We just hit $1m too for the first time, and it looks like our incomes and goals are very similar. Very surreal for us, too, so definitely feel you, but it's also a pretty great feeling, right? I high five you across the internets!  :)

[bthewalls]

crikey thats great.....great inspiration folks

[Roots&Wings]

Congrats @FLBiker! Will you be staying in Canada long-term/becoming citizens? Or keeping US accounts too? And more importantly, how were you able to get into Canada (from Florida no less!) with the border closure? Inquiring minds! :)

[Dicey]

Congrats @FLBiker! Will you be staying in Canada long-term/becoming citizens? Or keeping US accounts too? And more importantly, how were you able to get into Canada (from Florida no less!) with the border closure? Inquiring minds! :)

All of the above, plus how to you plan to handle housing? Rent for now, then buy eventually? Rent indefinitely? How does the healthcare system work in this situation?

Whew! FL to Canada is a big climate change come wintertime.

Inquiring minds indeed and congratulations again!

[dandypandys]

Congratulations, that is so cool! We are at half a million :)

[FLBiker]

Congrats @FLBiker! Will you be staying in Canada long-term/becoming citizens? Or keeping US accounts too? And more importantly, how were you able to get into Canada (from Florida no less!) with the border closure? Inquiring minds! :)

All of the above, plus how to you plan to handle housing? Rent for now, then buy eventually? Rent indefinitely? How does the healthcare system work in this situation?

Whew! FL to Canada is a big climate change come wintertime.

Inquiring minds indeed and congratulations again!

Thanks all for the congrats!  It really is great having a community like this to both answer questions and provide inspiration.

We started the process of becoming permanent residents about 2 years ago, after spending about a year researching it.  Our plan is to stay here forever and become citizens, but we'll be dual citizens at that point so we'd be free to live in either place.  We're keeping US accounts for now, and I suspect we will indefinitely.  Some we can't move (like our 457s) and I like the idea of having stuff in a mix of USD and CAD.  So we'll plan to invest in CAD going forward, but I don't think we'll convert our existing investments.

As far as the journey itself, it was...complicated. :)  Our original plan was to fly from Tampa to Halifax, and hire movers to move our stuff.  With coronavirus, this became impossible.  Not only was the border closed, but we were both without passports as they expired in early summer and the office has been closed.  (Passports are currently being shipped to us from our inlaws).  Without passports, we couldn't fly.  Regardless, third parties (like movers) weren't allowed to bring your goods across the border.  So we did it via UHaul, hiring a friend (bus driver) to drive from Tampa to Manchester, NH.  My wife, daughter and I met him there and took the UHaul over.  Drove to the border, spent the night, crossed the border, drove to our house.  There, we had to self isolate for 14 days (staying on property) so we had utilities set up in advance (including internet so I could work) and groceries delivered.  We got out of self isolation last Tuesday.

As far as housing, we bought a house (after seeing it only via FaceTime) in a town that we visited (and loved) for 4 hours last October. :)  We are very happy with our decision (on the house, on the neighborhood, and on the down), fortunately.  We used a HELOC on our previous house to do the down payment on the new one.

And, in Nova Scotia, we have healthcare coverage immediately.  It varies by province, though.

And it's true that FL and NS are very different in the winter, but they're also very different in the summer.  It is absolutely beautiful here. :)

[Loren Ver]

Congrats!

[Roots&Wings]

And it's true that FL and NS are very different in the winter, but they're also very different in the summer.  It is absolutely beautiful here. :)

Good luck settling in and enjoy that glorious summer! :) 

(I previously worked remotely in Atlantic Canada when the border was open as a seasonal visitor, and summers there are hard to beat...come November though, it was nice to head south.)

That's great you've decided to become permanent residents and eventually dual citizens. It can create some tax complexity, but like everything, can be optimized and sorted out. Hope you continue to post updates!

[EliteZags]

just went over half million NW minutes ago with this morning's runup, obviously know it's fluid since I'm over 90% in equities(mostly total US index) but never thought I'd hit that mark this year a few months ago(figured it'd be years back in March)
Started working 2010, and took a full 16 month vacation in 2018 from a buyout/layoff that came with a great package(stock/severance etc), also dropped 20K cash on a preowned Jaguar last year, all while living steps to the sand in Newport Beach

[Dicey]

@FLBiker - Oh, wow! I spent about three weeks there in the very late '80's. Took a bucket list trip through Outward Bound. Three weeks on a bike, circumnavigating most of Nova Scotia was a dream trip. The people were so kind and the scenery incredible. Someday I'll return, but my knees can't take that much riding any more, I'll have to do some combination of driving and trekking. Something to look forward to indeed.

[FLBiker]

@FLBiker - Oh, wow! I spent about three weeks there in the very late '80's. Took a bucket list trip through Outward Bound. Three weeks on a bike, circumnavigating most of Nova Scotia was a dream trip. The people were so kind and the scenery incredible. Someday I'll return, but my knees can't take that much riding any more, I'll have to do some combination of driving and trekking. Something to look forward to indeed.

I'm absolutely planning to bike around Nova Scotia one of these summers, hopefully with my daughter when she's a bit older.  I've done some bike trekking before, and this seems like a great place for it.  I've got to get used to hills again after a decade in Florida. :)

[I'm a red panda]

Congratulations! I was pretty darn excited when we added that comma to our savings too.  It's a big milestone.  Now we have to get to 2mil so we can say we are both at a million :)

[soccerluvof4]

Congratulations ! The first Million is the hardest typically! and good Luck in the new home

[clarkfan1979]

Congratulations. Your path seems very realistic and reasonable.

I'm 41 and my wife is 37 next month. We have very similar numbers. We are currently at 800K and hope to be at one million in 2-3 years. Most of our equity is in rental real estate. However, we are starting to transition into more equities.

[SunnyDays]

That’s great financial progress!  Congratulations.

Welcome to Canada.  Glad you’re enjoying Nova Scotia.  If you think you like the summer now, just wait until you’ve experienced a winter!  At least you’re used to hurricanes.

[cooking]

congratulations! great progress in that time frame.

[elaine amj]

Congratulations!  On both your million AND your move to Canada. We absolutely love living in Canada - although we may snowbird in sunny ol' Florida someday :)

Taxation can be a bit annoying and to be safe, we use an accountant experienced with US taxes. We have far preferred keeping accounts in both countries. One thing we like to do is get US credit cards with sweet rewards and use them in Canada (paying them off with our US$ stache). Definitely more fun playing the travel hacking game with YS credit cards. Plus, our US stache is used for our rather extensive US travel and US shopping (some things are a whole lot cheaper in the US and it's nice to have more options). It's LOVELY not having to worry about the exchange rate. In my mental notes, I still often consider US$ at par with CAD$ as that was the status in the days we earned those US dollars.

Sent from my VCE-AL00 using Tapatalk