Net worth increase 2022 (i.e. the 'present' you give yourself)

[Abe]

It looks like this was a particularly good year for many of us. I personally expect to look back on this in 10 years as a bit of an outlier for growth and having been lucky enough to have been in the market at a good time rather than any smart play by me beyond just steady investing. This was also a year that really reinforced that it takes money to make money. For friends who are younger and have less to build a financial cushion, the last year was not as kind and they more or less treaded water against inflation, particularly in cost of housing which increased much faster than their income. So, even though this was a good year in the "present I give myself" category that allowed me to reach coastFI mode, it has also brought a reminder of humility.

I agree this last decade looks to be a bit outrageous as far as growth goes. Just the other day I had a friend who asked me what he should do to "be like me"*

My natural reaction is to tell him to do what I did and invest everything he has in a stock market index fund. The trouble is of course the short to medium term outlook appears to be very toppy and I honestly hesitate to provide the standard recommendation, particularly as this guy is not making much more than he needs to live and psychology being what it is.. if he invests now chances are the market will go down 20+% over the next year or so and he will probably sell somewhere near the bottom!

I am just thankful I did what I did when I did.


*... I don't think he was talking about my irresistability to the opposite sex?..:)

I agree with you both...though still early in my career I've had more financial success than my peers. A lot of that is privilege and luck, but some is self-control when spending money. I emphasize that while not discounting the other factors. There should always be emphasis on frugality / resilience and less on assuming wild gains in investments. The former are things one can control, the latter is not.

Regardless of the last decade or longer, I assume historically weak returns for career planning just for the extra security it provides. This brings up the idea of retirement not being binary - one can retire from a boring/stressful career to a less stressful job if there's resources (FU money) to support oneself when walking away. Having the professional and financial ability to switch can take time and effort in the first career, though. It comes down to delayed gratification, which the unusual returns in the last few years tricks us into ignoring.

[effigies]

Did the calculations and was surprised to find an increase of $125k this year. 

2\3 of which was from market gains (it was a great year).  Like many others have stated, happy with the results but won't expect to always have a similar output.

[firedupready2go]

It was a good year for saving and investing!

January 1, 2021
Net Worth: $263,691
Invested Assets and Liquid Savings (i.e. - removed home equity): $163,691

January 1, 2022
Net Worth: $370,898
Invested Assets and Liquid Savings (i.e. - removed home equity): $251,537

Our overall net worth increased by more than $100,000 - which was my approximate goal for the year. Hoping for greater things in 2022!

[YttriumNitrate]

So tallying up my investments and expenses for 2021, my net worth (excluding any appreciation in my primary residence) increased by 7x my annual expenses. Yay! On the downside, that 6.8% inflation eroded away more purchasing power than my entire pre-tax salary in 2021. D'oh!

[trashtalk]

So tallying up my investments and expenses for 2021, my net worth (excluding any appreciation in my primary residence) increased by 7x my annual expenses. Yay! On the downside, that 6.8% inflation eroded away more purchasing power than my entire pre-tax salary in 2021. D'oh!

This is the best and most mustachianly correct way to report this. Congrats on the first part, that’s amazing, and sorry about the inflation, heh.

[Jack0Life]

We had a huge jump of $317,486. I broke it down.
$150,000 of that I bumped up our houses value because the Florida market is insane. I have a rental.
$149,843 was investment returns with minimal returns from rental and loan.
That leaves $17,807 from savings. My wife only made $30k before she quit and I only made roughly $40k once I got hired back. I would say we lived on roughly $50k in 2021.
We filed ACA for 2022 with an estimated income of $52k minus $12k IRA contributions making our MAGI at $40k. They gave us a subsidy of $1080 with that MAGI.
Our plan going forward is $52k every year which should barely cover our expenses and not touch our stash. My wife is great at clothes alteration and hopefully she can make some side money doing that.
We are CoastFIRE and this is our plan going forward.
Our stash won't grow as fast as everyone else but we feel what we have is plenty.

[getsorted]

Mint says it's up almost $16,000, which is over a 100% increase for me at the moment. Most of that is increase in the value of my home according to Zillow-- which is probably undervaluing since I have also replaced the roof and attic insulation, AC unit, and rehabilitated several dangerously neglected trees. However, I started 2021 with $10,000 in personal debts (thanks, divorce) that have now been paid off, and added almost $5,000 to my 401(k) and $5000 to my son's college fund. Next year should be an even bigger improvement as I'm now in a position to undertake more Mustachian enterprises and am down to only $2200 in medical debt, plus my mortgage.

[Gingersnaps]

A little late but my annual net worth update. Skipped the 2s entirely! Considering I've not worked since March I'm delighted

Jan 2020: £91,386.49
Jan 2021: £188,852.81
Jan 2022: £311,227.59

[EarlyInJourney]

I don't have neat apples-to-apples EOY totals, but close enough for my purposes:

12-9-2017:  (64K)  (discovered MMM)
10-15-2018:  (46K)  (got married) (up 18K)
11-27-2019:  2K (paid off last CC debt) (up 48K)
12-30-20:  45K (had a baby) (up 43K)
1-10-2022:  169K (52K student loan forgiven) (up a whopping 124K!)

As always, it's gratifying to take a step back and see the long term progress.  Checking balances week-to-week really affects my perception of how I'm doing; it makes it seem like I'm crawling along so slowly, when I'm really doing just fine, I think - I'm up 233K in the 5 years since I found MMM and really started paying attention. 

I'm really happy that I have no debt, and have vested, reasonably solid pensions (not included in NW calculations), which should/will give me $2.7K/mo starting at age 62, or $3.5K at 65. Like others have said, I'm not taking the past decade of great market returns for granted, and am trying to psychologically prep myself for the inevitable downturn ("don't focus on your portfolio value drop - stocks are on sale!").

In any case, congrats to everyone for great progress towards your goals and dreams!

[Miss Piggy]

Up $431,000 and some change with zero effort. Jeez...that's outrageous. Wish I could tell someone IRL, but I'll stick with just sharing it here.

Congrats, everyone!

[AJDZee]

[logged back into MMM after taking a few years away]

Reading this thread from January was great, but I don't think the 'NW increase 2022' thread is going to be as joyful LOL :)

[Dicey]

[logged back into MMM after taking a few years away]

Reading this thread from January was great, but I don't think the 'NW increase 2022' thread is going to be as joyful LOL :)

I was thinking the same thing as I scanned the January posts, lol. As long as people don't panic, they'll be fine. Welcome back!

[Turtle]

[logged back into MMM after taking a few years away]

Reading this thread from January was great, but I don't think the 'NW increase 2022' thread is going to be as joyful LOL :)

I expect I'll be comparing number of shares owned as a way to keep perspective.  It's an advantage of still being in accumulation phase for investments.

[marty998]

[logged back into MMM after taking a few years away]

Reading this thread from January was great, but I don't think the 'NW increase 2022' thread is going to be as joyful LOL :)

I was thinking the same thing as I scanned the January posts, lol. As long as people don't panic, they'll be fine. Welcome back!

Ha it's been a strange sort of year... first time in a long time we've had a persistent bear market, well, one that lasts more than 30 days.

I'm actually up a fair bit. For a number of reasons:
- One lithium stock investment I sold for a 275% profit (held for 4 years, very rocky share price that one, at one stage being down 80%).
- I'd switched most of my retirement savings to cash & fixed income in September 2021 when Evergrade was teetering (and that shemozzle still hasn't resolved itself yet). I switched back to mostly Australian equities in various chucks in July and October when the Australian market hit lows, so I won the market timing game there several times, especially with Australia being one of the better performing markets this year.
- I wasn't exposed heavily, if at all to US tech stocks. I never jumped on the Nasdaq bandwagon.
- I've paid down about $100,000 of investment debt - guaranteed returns there with interest rates rising.
- I avoided crypto like the plague.

Still a month and a bit to go, but 2022 has been a good year. Not great, but I'll take up and good in a year like this.

[clarkfan1979]

Retirement investment pots only.
(Effectively FIRE'D in 2017.)

Interesting to see the huge increases from some of the other posters.

2004    $247,000    
2005    $258,583    5%
2006    $290,050    12%
2007    $389,541    34%
2008    $342,049    -12%
2009    $351,000    3%
2010    $402,000    15%
2011    $453,210    13%
2012    $499,890    10%
2013    $577,000    15%
2014    $681,150    18%
2015    $790,160    16%
2016    $809,166    2%
2017    $876,339    8%
2018    $818,475    -7%
2019    $899,859    10%
2020    $954,475    6%
2021    $1,071,840    12%

For 2021, total gains were around 450K (750K to 1200K). Real estate gains were around 380K, 43K for stocks and another 27K of savings that went into retirement accounts. For 2021, total gains were around 450K.

For 2021, I started my transition into more of a spender. However, I'm not buying stuff, it's more on travel and experiences.

1. 3 trips to Florida to see parents (Jan - March)
2. 6 week trip to Kauai (June)
3. 2 week trip to midwest to see family, which included 1 week in Ely, MN (beautiful)
4. Two snowboard passes. Epic local pass for $550 and Monarch Mountain pass for $450. Aiming for 40 to 50 days of snowboarding.
5. Season pass for golf for $525. They still charge you $11 for each 18 holes. I think I need 32 rounds to break even from the regular rate.

It took about 8 years to go from zero to 700K.

It took another 3 years to go from 700K to 1400K.

*We were both working full-time in the beginning and then my wife switched to part-time work in year 4. We had a kid in year 6.

[Money Badger]

This classic thread never gets old...   I love the smell of compounding interest in the morning... It smells like... VICTORY!

[catccc]

The present that I gave myself this year was investing nearly 90K in a down market.
The present the down market gave to me was -$250K, NW went from around $1.9M to $1.65M.

I was on the cusp of RE but nervous about the market taking a turn.  I guess I'm just grateful that the timing of everything is not too shabby.  I was considering walking away from work this summer, but I got a promotion and raise at the start of the year, which made me want to stick around longer.  This was also the first year I had to DCA our IRA contributions (every prior year, I've invested a lump sum ASAP in January).  Cash flow changed and I (fortunately) couldn't continue that tradition this year.

[Abe]

Our net worth went up about $183k, or ~20% due to a lot of savings this year despite the stock market drop of 10% this year. I actually didn't realize we saved that much until calculating it for this thread! Our goal is $2.5m (I know, I know, just like to have a big cushion). I think we can make that in 6 years with 0% return on investment, or 4 years if that goes up to 8% annually.

This year - we bought a rental, traded in a car for an electric one, and installed batteries for the house. Also blew an embarrassing amount of money on vacation (totally worth it after 2 years of pandemic).

[RWD]

We're down roughly [redacted] since January 1st. Couldn't out-save the stock market drop.

[Sugaree]

I won't have official numbers until the beginning of the year, but as of today my net worth is up $1067 despite contributions of more than $30k.  Ten years ago that would have been enough to scare me off investing forever.  Now, I'm saying "bring it on."

[charis]

Our net worth is technically up due to house appreciation and a pension vesting, but investments are still down at least 30k after saving almost 90k during the year.

[YttriumNitrate]

In terms of financial assets, it looks like I'll be down about $200k this year even with new contributions. Appreciation of non-primary residence real estate offsets roughly $20k of that loss (according to Zillow). The big winner this year was some new commercial real estate that more or less offset the losses in the other areas to make 2022 a flat year (or possibly a bit up).

[FIPurpose]

I'm also down a bit though not as much as others here. About 20k down overall

A lot of my stock investments were balanced by my energy etfs staying solid, fundrise continues to be a solid investment with around 5% returns this year, I bought a house, so withdrew a good chunk of money back in May. And I seem to do more bonds than most people here (Around 20-25%), iBonds, and other bonds have done about 5% better than stocks.

Overall, my net worth is down about 2.5%. Not bad for an down year. So looks like I probably won't be hitting the million mark next year, but one can dream.

[JAYSLOL]

I’m on track to just barely beat my savings goal that I changed from $100/day to $110/day for 2022, so I will have saved just over $40k this year, but NW is looking like up just over $30k because of the market.  Frankly I’m glad prices are down this year and hope we get a fairly extended lower market so I can pile in the money while it’s down for once.  I really haven’t paid nearly as much attention to NW as savings and savings rate, it was easier to be motivated to set personal savings records than work towards a net worth goal in a falling market.  Final numbers to come by the new year

[JAYSLOL]

I’m on track to just barely beat my savings goal that I changed from $100/day to $110/day for 2022, so I will have saved just over $40k this year, but NW is looking like up just over $30k because of the market.  Frankly I’m glad prices are down this year and hope we get a fairly extended lower market so I can pile in the money while it’s down for once.  I really haven’t paid nearly as much attention to NW as savings and savings rate, it was easier to be motivated to set personal savings records than work towards a net worth goal in a falling market.  Final numbers to come by the new year

Final numbers in and I did save exactly $110/day this year.  I’m not sure what to expect for 2023 yet, although I’m definitely hoping to level up my savings even more, I’ll set a starting goal of $125/day for 2023. 

[StarBright]

We are down about 45k from this same time last year.

We don't count real estate gains in that number though. If we counted house appreciation we'd be up about 50k.

[Midwest_Handlebar]

Up $250k for the year, but 1/2 of what I forecast on 1/1/22. The stock market sucked this year, but it would be silly to complain. Semi monthly paychecks are increasingly inconsequential.

[w@nker]

NW down about $250k on the year, despite about $400k of savings.  I am rooting for some continued weakness so that I can keep plowing away amid reasonable valuations.

[McStache]

2013 - $10k?
2014 - $49k
2015 - $101k
2016 - $180k
2017 - $288k
2018 - $318k
2019 - $442k
2020 - $575k
2021 - $775k
2022 - $697k

Added about $50k then assets are down about $130k. First year I couldn't offset (paper) losses with savings - the market definitely has more influence than me on my net worth these days.

[onecoolcat]

Excluding paid for home and spouse's assets:

1/1/2015 - ($62,000)
1/1/2016 - ($11,622.00)
1/1/2017 - $43,708.00
1/1/2018 - $113,000.00
1/1/2019 - $100,144.66 (-4.76%)
1/1/2020 - $182,677.98 (+82.68%)
1/1/2021 - $364,367.91 (+99.46)
1/1/2022 - $692,149.26  (+89.96%)
1/1/2023 - $501,248.42 (-27.58%)

Two record setting years in a row for me.  I liked the last one a bit more though. 

Bitcoin giveth and taketh away.

[soccerluvof4]

I am still down a little over 450k but being Fire'd I am living on my cash reserve for now which will run out in another 2 years about with profit taking as the market out ran itself the last few years. Plus I am adding back in on dips. Hopefully by then the market will figure its way out but who knows. Just hanging in there.

[theninthwall]

End of 2020 - $447k
End of 2021 - $627k
End of 2022 - $706k

Both my wife and I’s income increased this year, so it was a little disheartening to ‘only’ increase by $70k, but then we have to look at just how fortunate we are compared to the vast majority of people in the world. We are thankful to have our health and each other.

[Gone Fishing]

Probably down on account of market movements.  Don’t really pay much attention to it anymore…

[SotI]

I am basically down by 15k bucks on financial assets despite plunging another 50k or so in as additional savings/investments.
So, not much of an increase compared to last year ... Still, it could be worse, but I hope that the monthly investments will still build up.

Mind, the equity part wasn't quite THAT bad. My most substantial  losses are from (older) bonds that I use  as secondary backup funding but fortunately it*s less than 20% of my portfolio.

[Sandi_k]

Total Net Worth is up for 2022, but investments are down 15%, with a 70/30 portfolio.

Bummer.

[MissNancyPryor]

I lost 28% this year.  That sucks, but life is good. 

I retired in Sept 2019 and more than doubled that stache by December 2021, riding the incredible rubber band snap of the pandemic and keeping my head together as I achieved escape velocity.  I did not panic during Covid despite lectures from the "this time it's different" crowd and kept my allocation.  Looking back over some of those threads and having first hand knowledge of real-life people who freaked out, I am so grateful that my tendency is to remain calm and keep a steady hand.

Keeping my allocation and not reacting to the market or trying to shoot the moon on GME, TSLA, or crypto has been the key.  I sold stock this December like I always do and filled my rain barrel back to 2 years of cash on hand to provide my never-going-back-to-work-EVER buffer against life.  The market will recover, it always goes up (thanks JL Collins). 

I am grateful and looking forward to 2023.       

[ender]

Looking like about $0 roughly.

[Miss Piggy]

Down 18% compared to a year ago. *cry*

[waltworks]

Looks like I was down about 3% in liquid assets, and who the heck knows on my house - 25%?

I'll take it.

-W

[NotJen]

My NW decreased in 2022 by $244k - FIREd, so no real contributions this year.  But I'm still up 22% since my retirement date in 2019, so I'm good.

[SpareChange]

EOY    Networth (US$)   
2011    -50k           
2012    -41k           
2013    -10k           
2014     33,726       
2015     90,497       
2016     146,590     
2017     224,985
2018     282,015
2019     381,913...downshifted to halftime in the fall.
2020     495,309
2021     591,399
2022     585,889...started including the value of my PTO bank.

Income: 74,506.98
Spent:   21,009.22
Saved:  43,513.74

Gross savings rate: 58.4%
Net savings rate:    67.4%

2022 felt like a run on a hamster wheel....lots of time and energy expended...not much to show for it. Oh well. Happy New Year to everyone!!

[Chrissy]

2015:  $604k
2016:  $724k
2017:  $860k
2018:  $900k
2019:  $977k
2020:  $1.180M
2021:  $1.618M
2022:  $1.440M

[Rubyvroom]

* 2014 - 12%
* 2015 - 15%
* 2016 - 25% <-- found MMM
* 2017 - 42%
* 2018 - 37% <-- bought land
* 2019 - 67% <-- sold house
* 2020 - 74%
* 2021 - 102% <--- FIREd 2 weeks ago :)

* 2014 - 12%
* 2015 - 15%
* 2016 - 25% <-- found MMM
* 2017 - 42%
* 2018 - 37% <-- bought land
* 2019 - 67% <-- sold house
* 2020 - 74%
* 2021 - 102% <--- FIREd late December
* 2022 - 81% <--- back to work in September

Ooof. Our net spend was only $32K + $168K market declines. Net spend includes some income starting in September because we chickened out after seeing that our expenses were higher than anticipated and market losses were eroding our stash. I'm making more money now than I've ever made after accepting one of the hail-mary "please come back to us" propositions from a previous employer. I'm still totally ready to end it the moment we get our finances back in line.

We found out something important this year. When we have nothing but time, we like to do more things, and those things cost more money than we thought they would. So I think rather than a "get us the hell out of here Lean-FIRE" we're going to pad things a bit more for round 2. It was a learning lump, but not a horrible one, and hot damn it was a magnificent 8 months off.

[Blissful Biker]

Our drop in investments value was offset by savings and increase in property value, resulting in essentially no change to our net worth.  I'll take that as a win for this year.

[Log]

1/1/2022: -$34k
1/1/2023: -20k, +14k change.

Around 9k of savings and an approximately 5k windfall.

Some 2023 spending is already baked in (flights and lodging for some travel in January, January and February rent already paid), so I could choose to count/not count a few different things to make the number bigger, but I feel like going with the lowball count for whatever reason—maybe just to make 2023 look better? My income should just be going up from here, and I have another (unrelated) 5k windfall pending, so crossing the threshold of positive numbers seems very plausibly within reach in 2023!

[Imustacheyouaquestion]

Dec 2015: $65,356
Dec 2016: $106,701    (+ $41,345)
Dec 2017: $206,349    (+ $99,648)
Dec 2018: $255,892    (+ $49,542)
Dec 2019: $424,020    (+ $168,128)
Dec 2020: $584,000    (+ $160,000)
Dec 2021: $788,000    (+$204,000)
Dec 2022: $894,000.   (+ $106,000)

Ouch, markets hurt this year but real estate did well. Glad to be accumulating during this drawdown!

[2KidFIRE]

EOY Invested Assets
2020 - $3.20M
2021 - $3.96M (+ $760,000)
2022 - $3.14M (-  $820,000)

Ouch.  2022 was not a great year for the markets, obviously, and I've also been on leave from my job since May.  Net Worth would probably look a little better since our house value did go up this year, but still overall I'll be hoping for a better 2023!

[Apples]

December 2013:    $43,800
December 2014:    $70,200  (up $26,400)
December 2015:  $107,700  (up $37,500)
December 2016:  $153,950  (up $46,250)
December 2017:  $219,525  (up $65,575)
December 2018:  $272,446  (up $52,921)
December 2019:  $370,526  (up $98,080)
December 2020:  $392,251  (up  $21,725) lowest increase since I graduated college and we got married.  Long slog of a year.
December 2021:  $606,664  (up $214,413) 

December 2022:  $742,242  (up $135,578)

The farm got some government funds in a relief program to help with crop losses the last few years, and we were able to apply a decent chunk of them to our loans.  That plus a decent savings rate is the only reason the NW went up this past year. 

[Glenstache]

First year of coasting and still put a healthy % of income into accounts. That didn't make up for the market drops, so still in the red for the year by about 15-20%. Pretty par for the course from what I'm seeing posted above. I'm curious to see what surprises 2023 brings. My crystal ball is hazy, as per usual.

[Gatzbie]

12/31/2017 - $45k
13/31/2018 - $62k
12/31/2019 -- $126,169.78
12/31/2020 -- $214,245.98
12/31/2021 -- $334k
12/31/2022 - $340k

Roughly stayed the same. Stocks down this year. Will keep accumulating.