The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: Megatron on October 22, 2013, 10:18:17 AM
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Just logged into my mint account today and my net worth just hit the 100,000 mark! not counting any physical assets, just pure investments / cash.
It took me less than 2 years starting at about 8k. I am really surprised that I can do this without really living a spartan lifestyle. Just bring lunches to work and not buying things on impulse. That NOT BUYING stuff really works! Of course the 19% return on my 401k gave it a little boost but I'll take it. I had the lifestyle-inflatinitis disease until 2 years ago when I found the bogelheads forum. which eventually led me to MMM. but holy shit, 1 year and 11 months. Now on to the 2 comma club. $1,000,000
how did you guys get to your first 100k? was it harder than you thought?
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Congrats! I'm not there yet so I can't comment on how hard it was for me(it has seemed hard so far, but only because I'm impatient!). Is 1mil your ultimate goal/fi number?
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no my ultimate goal is FIRE in my 40s (currently 33) and travel from country to country with my fiancee (and future kids), maybe picking up odd jobs in different country and immersing myself with the culture. I think my FI number is somewhere between 600k - 750k. That 100k didn't include any of my fiancee's assets so we might get there sooner. I'll probably never stop working. I just wanted the freedom to work when I want without having to worry about where the next meal was coming from.
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Congrats! sounds like you are well on your way!
I'm not sure exactly when my wife and I hit it, but currently we're around 115,000. So it was probably within the past few months. This includes all of our retirement accounts, taxable investments, and cash savings. We are both 26, so we're off to a good start.
And yes, with an average year to date return around 18% for all my investments, definitely gives it a good bump.
Updated: As to how hard it was.....it didn't seem hard as its mostly been on autopilot for the past 4 years. Set my rates for 401(k), roth, taxable, and cash. The leftover is what I live on and that amount hasn't changed much for 4 years. The only significant change I have had to make was the extra expense of owning a house over renting an apartment. Which caused a slight reduction in our cash savings rate. Yes, the not buying crap is key to a high savings rate. Throughout my working career I am sitting at a 32% savings rate. With some recent optimization after finding MMM a few months ago our current savings rate is closer to 45%.
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I don't know when my husband and I hit the first 100k total in our retirement accounts, but I do remember hitting 100k in my half of them at about the end of 2012. That was after 2.5 years of working at my job.
Since then I've added a little over $30k to my half of the accounts, and our combined retirement savings made it over $200k this summer.
The next big milestone will be having more savings than debt (not counting the value of the house as an asset) - we still owe more on our house than we have saved for retirement. My conservative estimate is that we'll flip into the positive sometime around the end of 2016, which will really be worth celebrating.
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I think the first 100k is always the hardest.
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Congratulations. Thats very impressive. I am not there yet. It will take me another 3 years
at my current savings rate and debt levels.
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I have a fairly low salary (especially by Australian standards), so it took me longer than it did for you and I only got there not too long ago. The first 100k is more difficult in the sense that there isn't much compounding at the beginning, but from my personal perspective it didn't actually feel difficult, probably because I wasn't thinking about it much until it got really close. Saving has always come naturally to me, and initially I didn't pay a lot of attention to how much I had, so whenever I checked it properly I'd be like, "oh, wow, that's more than I thought I have", and then one day it just ticked over the 100k mark. I suppose someone else could reach that number in exactly the same time and with the same effort as I did, yet find it harder, if they are obsessing over the goal and being impatient about it.
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I think the first 100k is always the hardest.
By far, for me - especially if you just consider easily-convertible-to-cash things like mutual funds, not equity in houses or stuff I might sell. Counting from high school graduation, getting the first $100K took over 20 years (at least what I hope is a permanent $100K - it went up & way down again a couple of times), another 10 years for the second, maybe 5 more for the third...
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Congratulations! Just got there myself this month. I've been working on and off for 5 years, but the last 2 years have been more stable with a 401k to contribute to and a nice raise. I started the year with around 70K net worth this year. I thought I would get to 100K next year but thanks to the stock market doing really well, I'm about 3-4 months early. My stock allocation is pretty conservative compared to most people here so I'm pleasantly surprised.
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Congratulations! I am also not to the 100k club yet, but I have turned into a small net worth this year versus negative (I will probably end the year around the 4-7k area). Looking at my situation I don't think I can crank it up to 100k in two years from a similar starting point, but I hope that I will be around 50-60k net worth by the end of 2015. Some of that will depend on how well the market is, but a lot of it won't since I am focusing mostly on debt currently.
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We didn't track net worth at the time we passed 100k, so not sure...I suspect 2 years?
OP is right-the stock returns this year are making everybody look above average, but the first 100K is a big accomplishment! It gets easier...more fun too =)
Best,
Mr. PoP
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I don't know how long it took -- ages and ages -- 15 years I would guess. But now that we have our shit together and know how to do this properly, money is piling up really fast.
We are at about 130K now -- the last 30 K took less than a year to put away. Gets easier and easier all the time.
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The first 100k in liquid investments took us about 3 years. We started with $20k in 2006 but sunk most of that into a condo, and didn't start seriously investing until mid-2009 (Good Timing!)
We crossed $100k around mid-2012 (3 years later), and as of today are at $199.5k. Come on, come on!
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Seems "hard" to me. But really "hard" is just me being HIGHLY impatient. I have an issue with expecting instant results!
But I'm so early into this. Just stared a 401k this year with NO understanding of what I was doing (saving at 6% just enough to get my full match). Then I just found MMM and started making goals and improvements a couple months ago. Currently I've got about $3,400 in retirement accounts and I get excited when I see that my little employees made $11 all on their own! Overall I am in negative "net worth" because I'm WAY underwater on my house ::LAME::
I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
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I am also pretty impatient. I just started tracking in Mint in April, but since then it has been really exciting to see my accounts jump 2K in a month when I've only contributed $500 or so. That part is neat! My net worth is still very much in the negatives, and at this rate I will probably hit 100K in investments about the same time that my net worth is zeroed out (thanks student loans!).
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Congrats! That's a great milestone. :)
I honestly don't remember when I hit it. I didn't even know about the concept of net worth until recently. I come from a family of savers, but I didn't pay much attention to my 401K and other accounts other than my main savings account until recently, so it's probably been a few years (maybe 4 or 5?) at least for when I hit that level.
Of course, now I obsess over the amounts (feel compelled to check it daily and I really hope that stops soon), but I am nearing my RE goal now, and it's just so excruciatingly slow! (it isn't really, just seems like it to me since I can't stop checking it!)
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Well done!
Mine was effortless. Happened while I wasn't even paying attention, thanks to being used to not having money before I got a job and just automating as much savings a possible.
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Congratulations!
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Seems "hard" to me. But really "hard" is just me being HIGHLY impatient. I have an issue with expecting instant results!
But I'm so early into this. Just stared a 401k this year with NO understanding of what I was doing (saving at 6% just enough to get my full match). Then I just found MMM and started making goals and improvements a couple months ago. Currently I've got about $3,400 in retirement accounts and I get excited when I see that my little employees made $11 all on their own! Overall I am in negative "net worth" because I'm WAY underwater on my house ::LAME::
I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
LOL good post. I only have $2734 in my 401k and my wife has around the same. I am very impatient as well and I keep looking at my tiny 401k every day. I have most of my money on my house with a networth of 150k. Hopefully I will hit 100k in two, three years.
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My first 100K in liquid assets took about 10 yrs. it took me a while to get super focused on my finances. I graduated with 50k in student loans so I was paying down that while chucking 10% of my income into my 401k. Along the way I also saved up a down payment on a duplex.
The second 100k went a lot faster
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don't have 100k yet....but 20k after the first year of work is decent! especially considering I had veryyyyy antimustachian habits. this is quickly changing however :) working in cloud software sales certainly has it's benefits....
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So exciting - congrats! Two years is so impressive!
If I call the day I graduated from university day one, I accumulated my first $100k of liquid net worth in about 3.5 years. I got to $200k about 1.5 years later. I was incredibly fortunate to start off with a slightly positive net worth out of university and a good job market. I've also been fortunate to have family support in a lot of little ways that really add up over the years.
My husband (we haven't combined finances yet) hit his first $100k after about 5 years, but he started his journey off with student debt and no car (as in, had to save up for a car) so he actually had to dig his way out for a couple years before the assets started piling up. He makes more money than me so he's now started accelerating at a rate that will likely eclipse my net worth sooner rather than later.
It was really exciting this year when we reached a combined liquid net worth of $300k! Of course, we don't own any real estate so that's really not as impressive as it may sound. But it is fun to think that in some markets you could buy a home with our savings. Unfortunately not where we live, but we could always move if that became a priority.
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Whoops, here I am just bragging and not answering the question.
It wasn't really hard, per say. I have good strategies for savings and I actually enjoy saving. I focus on keeping my fixed expenses low and not increasing my lifestyle as my income increases and I don't really think about it much. For example, I drive a modest economy car for as long as it'll go and I live in an inexpensive rental apartment close to my office (when most of my friends drive newer luxury cars and live in beautiful condos or houses). Those two facts alone pretty much make saving a no brainer.
Honestly, I often feel guilty that I don't live a more mustachian lifestyle. My sins include driving to work every day, having a pricey gym membership, buying my lunch most days, and generally being awful at knowing my prices in the grocery store. If I was really making the effort on those items I could cut my expenses down by several hundred dollars per month.
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I didn't notice whether it was hard or easy, but that's only because I wasn't paying attention. I do know that it took way longer than it would have had I known about MMM about 10 years ago. I am now at about $315K net worth--but still have a whopper of a mortgage to destroy. I, too, am at the impatient stage!
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Short of a serious market tank, we will hit there before the end of the year. 8 since graduation, 3 since actually starting to accumulate (with debt payoff being the primary focus until the end of this year at which point we can switch to full on savings). I expect the next 100k to only take another year. So obviously, our first 100k was definitely harder thanks to focusing on debt repayment first.
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About 6 years, but that was back in the 80s and early 90s. It took me about as long to go from 0 to $100K as it did for me to go from $1M to $2M.
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It was really really hard! We were paying down our underwater mortgage and student loans at the same time. It took around 7 years. Now all our money goes into investing and it's accumulating a lot faster!
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About 6 years, but that was back in the 80s and early 90s. It took me about as long to go from 0 to $100K as it did for me to go from $1M to $2M.
Cripes. I was in the process of posting when the site told me that there had been other replies. There's hope for us poor non-millionaires yet, then, if it takes the same time from 0 to six figures as from 1 to 2 million. Good job to both of you!
I'm a recent grad and I hope to hit that in the next few years. My parents were very generous during college and I'm debt free. We'll see how things play out.
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I think getting to the first $100,000 is harder for three key reasons:
1) To compound your money, you have to have money to compound. You don't have much so it can't grow as fast. That's why the 2nd million may take the same amount of time as the first $100K.
2) You have to develop the frugality and investing muscles to both find money to invest and to invest it.
3) Most people starting off their careers don't make as much as they do 6 years later. That extra salary - assuming lifestyle inflation doesn't gobble it up - really kicks saving into high gear.
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And I was all excited about hitting 20k!
The hardest part is the waiting. Rough math tells me I've got a few years to go, mostly due to debt pay down and an average income.
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I think getting to the first $100,000 is harder for three key reasons:
1) To compound your money, you have to have money to compound. You don't have much so it can't grow as fast. That's why the 2nd million may take the same amount of time as the first $100K.
2) You have to develop the frugality and investing muscles to both find money to invest and to invest it.
3) Most people starting off their careers don't make as much as they do 6 years later. That extra salary - assuming lifestyle inflation doesn't gobble it up - really kicks saving into high gear.
You might find this thread interesting:
https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/ask-a-mustachian/at-what-dollar-level-does-the-$$-start-compounding-fast/msg151462/#msg151462
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I am sneaking up on the $100K in investments/cash milestone. I'm thinking right around mid January I'll hit it.
It took around 14 years of being a dodo and 7 years of being frugal but mostly unmustachian to get to around $60K, and then one year here plus the good stock market to make up the rest.
I will take this opportunity to thank arebelspy once again for the facepunches last fall. Around $1670 of that is gains on money invested that I would have probably paid down my mortage with if I hadn't been enthusiastically schooled back when I started here. I see the light. Totally owe you a fine beverage when you venture north again, ars. :)
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I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
A watched 401k never... boils?
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Yeah, it really depends on when you start paying attention. My first $100k was "easy" because it was on autopilot 401k deductions that I didn't really watch, because back then I was expecting to work until 67 or whatever.
Now that I'm actually watching my investments and counting down the months to FIRE, it's going extremely slowly (partially due to underperformance of investments). Even though I'm saving more than ever.
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A looooooong time. We made a bunch of dumb financial decision in our 20s and in 2000, at age 34, I probably had a joint net worth of perhaps 30K, tops, including 401K. Then the housing boom kicked in and our home value went up $1000 a month through no effort on our part for the better part of seven years. We gave back quite a bit of that when housing pulled back, but certainly not all of it. Probably went above 100K sometime in 2003. The short term goal is to go up another 120K in the next three years. It's much easier now that the kids are grown and we are making much more in our jobs than when we were younger.
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The first 100K? Now that you ask I realize I should have had a party or celebrated somehow as I had no idea when it happened. In checking the records I passed that mile stone in 2011, April I think it was, 5 years after actively working toward a secure financial future.
As for difficulty - not hard at all, in fact the 2nd 100k was harder and this next milestone of 300K is proving to be the most difficult since I want to quit and be free more every day. The numbers keep ticking up- but my motivation to go grows correspondingly. My wish is that I could find a way to double my savings or halve my spending so I could be done next year... and not in 6 years. keep up the good work !!
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Took awhile definitely... more in part because our asset allocation is mostly in our home. I hit it once when I was 27 due to a large poker tournament win... which we put down on an investment condo. Then about when I was about 32 I was back there... DW has a separate accounts and hit it far earlier than I did.
7 figures will take awhile :)
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For me it was quite easy yet it took something like 2.5-3 years. I was living on quite tight budget before I found "real" job. The best thing I didn't pick up any expensive habits and hobbies. So my lifestyle is pretty much the same as it was while I was in college.
I kind of remember the crossroad moment couple weeks after I got job-offer - I was about to buy Infiniti G35 Coupe. Luckily I stuck to my ascetic lifestyle which proven over time to be rather rewarding in terms of building wealth.
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It took 12 years from graduating college to reach 100K in my investment accounts. It happened this year, in fact. My account balances do seem to grow more quickly now.
For the first 5 years of my grown-up life I put 10% of my salary in my 401K. However, my investing ignorance meant that it went directly to a money market fund and stayed there. Between years 5 and 12 I allocated my 10% to various mutual funds, but left money in old 401K accounts when I switched jobs. Thanks to the MMM website and forum I've cleaned up the whole situation.
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It felt very difficult for me. Probably because it felt like it took forever to pay off the high-interest student loans. It didn't really take that long, but there was something just agonizing about seeing the interest on that each month (wasted money!).
I find it much easier to save now that the money is actually being paid to my own account, instead of Sallie Mae's. I just hit the 100k mark a few weeks ago. It feels great! Savor the moment.
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Congrats to all who made it and those on their way!
I got there after about four years of having a real job. Two of those years were on low autopilot savings (~15%?). Two years ago, I snapped out of the Matrix and have become much more aggressive about it. As other have mentioned, the whole "not buying stuff" works marvelously. I also drastically scaled back dining out, which happened at an utterly tragicomical rate during my first two working years.
I hit the milestone earlier this summer, and I can already tell that the second 100k is going to be a lot easier and quicker.
I was very anxious to hit the milestone, so I looked at the market and my balances way too much. I don't let it affect my strategy too much, but it does take a toll on the psyche. The monitoring has become less of a problem since hitting the milestone.
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Thanks for sharing your stories. It's very inspiring :) And congrats to those who got there and kept going and to those of us getting there! One dollar at a time!
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It took about 2 years from finishing school through a combination of investing most of our un-needed salary and hating to shop.
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Just counting liquid assets I'm not there yet... I'm finding the first 100k very painfully slow!
It took me 6 freakin' years to hit $50k!!... in that time I bought a condo, a NEW car and had not come across MMM.
But the good news is since finding MMM 4 months ago I've added $10k my to net worth, so things are finally moving along.
Now if I could just not look at my balance so often...
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I'm also in the "first $50k was hard" club. I was in grad school, in a relatively high COL area, and I'll admit, had some not-so-frugal habits (like, owning a car for a while...it died during my 4th year and in retrospect that was a pretty awesome death, financially). Once I got a job last year, getting to $100 seemed totally effortless, thanks to the enlarged paycheck and the nutty stock market returns. I'm actually hoping to hit $150k in the next few months....
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Congrats Megatron!
It is so true that the first $100,000.00 is a great accomplishment. Take a look at that amount...
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Yay!
We are at $99k right now ourselves (just cash and investments). My sitch sounds very similar to yours (I'm 32 and hope to retire in my 40s).
It's hard to say exactly how long it took. 7 years ago we had about $50k in debt and basically none in savings/retirement. Since then we paid that debt all off, put $50k down on our house, and are now up to our $99k. Most of that was front-loaded though since 2 years ago we decided for my spouse to quit his job and stay home with our daughter and I chose to take a part-time hours dream job (so our savings rate dropped from about 70% to 15%).
However, our savings rate should bump back up in a year and a half when my stepdaughter is 18 and we no longer have child support (even helping her with college will save us significantly over cs), and then bump up again in about 3 years when our daughter is in school and day and my husband plans to bring in money at a part-time job and/or side hustle. We plan to put 100% of the savings from child support ending and any money my husband brings in into savings/investments. I also have a couple side hustles in the works (it makes more sense for us now for my husband to do the full time child care and for me to be the one adding hustles to my regular job) right now to help bump up savings.
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Congrats! I was just celebrating the $200K mark, but was doing so by myself because it felt strange to tell anyone. I was glad to see your post so I could join in:)
I'm not quite sure how long it took to get to $100K, but it was definitely longer than 2 years. I was always a saver, but I was also putting money into real estate here and there, which I'm not counting in my $200K, plus I was doing a few dumb things like buying new cars and going to the spa. I'm guessing it was something like 10 years.
The good news is that the next $100K was MUCH easier and faster. And I was just looking at how fast it is picking up from here. My FI goal is fairly low - about $400K in investments, plus a rental property. I should get there in just a few more years, well before my 40th birthday. Although, I may go PT and stretch it out some. I don't hate my job, but I don't love it either. PT sounds like a good way to balance things out better.
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For me, about 5.5 years after college graduation / entering the workforce.
I was lucky enough to start with no debt, but unlucky enough to be in an extremely high cost city. I also had a really good 401(k) match and profit sharing through my first job, so I added to my retirement accounts at a crazy high rate and socked away a good chunk after-tax.
Now my own new worth has stalled after getting engaged - We have a unified view of our finances (https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/journals/stealth-saving-(lentils5eva-ioseftavi)/), so we're doing the best thing for us, not for me. We've shifted our focus from 'building assets' to 'hacking away at liabilities'.
However, now that she's out of school and working, our savings rate and overall rate of increase have skyrocketed. We're at a joint net worth of about $95k.
Based on my best guesses, we will definitely hit $100k by the end of the year. If the stock market does around 8-9% next year (a big if), and we maintain our current savings rate, then we may hit $200k in JNW by December of 2014.
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I started tracking net worth in Nov 2007, almost 5 years into my career, and it was $155K at the time. I think maybe I hit $100K around year 4.
2008: 203K (+46K, which includes a $23K boost from getting married and combining finances)
2009: 247K (+44K)
2010: 281K (+34K)
2011: 306K (+25K) lots of unpaid maternity leave.
2012: 375K (+69K)
Current: 444K (+69K and counting, goal set at beginning of year was to hit $450 by year end.)
Current salary is 89K, saving about 50%. Want to improve on that. Can't wait to hit the 1/2 million mark and keep going!
It didn't seem hard at the time, but 4 years seems like a long time to save $100K. My career started at 36K, so it's really not bad. But I also lived at home for several years, so I could have done better. But when you look at the last couple years, it seems slow!
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Had forgotten when I hit that milestone, but remember being pretty damn happy about it -- though I'm talking about $100K of 401k assets, not net worth.* I checked back and found that it was at the end of 2005, after 8 years of working (with a regularly increasing salary and concomitantly increasing 401k contributions).
Now, 8 years later, that account is over $400K. On pace, with a 5% return and present contribution+matching+future catch-up contributions, for @$800K in the next 7 years (yes, barring any major meltdowns). But of course, I'm secretly hoping for 7%, so I can break the $1M mark! Yeah, like a lot of people, I'm enthralled with the idea of having "a million in the bank," so to speak (even though I should reach FIRE at well below that).
Lord how I wish I'd stashed some money in an IRA when I was 20 and in the military (rather than, quite literally, "spending like a sailor")! As one retirement seminar instructor put it recently, "I'm increasingly convinced that the most powerful force in the financial universe is an enlightened 20 year-old." Amen to that.
* net worth between the wife and I now @ half a mil.
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I would have hit it $100,000 this month, but I took out a good sized chunk earlier this year for a 25% down payment on my first house. I'm not complaining though, that was the best decision I ever made (cheaper than renting an apartment in my area, and that's before I collect rent from renting out a room in the house!).
I have about $86,000 in invested assets, though, and it's taken me about 2.5 years. That seems about right to me, not really quick but a pretty good start, I think. I definitely have some room for improvement, though.
I need to elminate some driving and some eating out, and that would really put me on the way. I know my net worth is over $100,000, but I'm more interested in tracking invested liquidish assets, as that gives me a better indication of current income.
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I just checked Mint to see how much longer I have till that milestone.
$104,281.70 in investments alone and that is not including our HSA since Mint can't connect to HealthEquity. I knew we were getting close, didn't know we had already gotten there!
There's also some equity in the house, but only about 20k (but my interest is only 3.375%, so I'm aiming for investments that I hope yield higher than that rather than pay down the house sooner).
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Congrats Dantownehall on the house and awesome downpayment. If I could go back in time I would have been way more responisble when purchasing my first house. But alas I was young n dumb.
Congrats Wakkowarner on hitting the milestone! Awesome!
I really like reading this thread, I find it helpful, inspiring, and motivating to try to hit 100k sooner
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Well, we have not hit it quite yet. At the end of this month, the wife and I will be at a networth just shy of $71,000 which does not include physical assets like items owned within the house we live in or our vehicle. As of right now, I am 21 and she is 22. I would expect to be able to hit our 100K mark in cash/investments within the year of 2015.
Only time will tell obviously, but we are hoping for the best and trusting that the market will continue to climb. If only I would have invested our money earlier.
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If all goes according to plan, I should hit it by the end of this year after working full time for 2.5 years. It's been hard mainly cause I realized I was close to the 100k mark 2 months ago and can't help checking with every pay cheque.
I wonder if there's a nice length of time one should wait between checking accounts to make the accumulation seem effortless...
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I wouldn't say it was "hard" for us. But it is true that the first $100k was the hardest. I don't even pay attention to crossing $100k thresholds now since it happens fairly often (up or down!).
I didn't start tracking net worth until December 2004 when NW was $44,000. I began my first post college "real" full time job in May 2004. By November 2005, my wife had also graduated and commenced work. By March 31, 2006 we crossed the $100k threshold with a NW of $107,000. So about 22 months after starting full time work, we crossed the $100k mark (at age 25).
I used to only track net worth quarterly, and looking back to the last 10 quarters, we saw a net worth change of $100k+ in roughly half the quarters. One negative movement, 4 positive movements, with an average quarterly NW growth rate of $49,000.
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I just checked Mint to see how much longer I have till that milestone.
$104,281.70 in investments alone and that is not including our HSA since Mint can't connect to HealthEquity. I knew we were getting close, didn't know we had already gotten there!
There's also some equity in the house, but only about 20k (but my interest is only 3.375%, so I'm aiming for investments that I hope yield higher than that rather than pay down the house sooner).
Are you sure about Mint not being able to connect to HealthEquity? My account connects with no problems.
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Seems "hard" to me. But really "hard" is just me being HIGHLY impatient. I have an issue with expecting instant results!
But I'm so early into this. Just stared a 401k this year with NO understanding of what I was doing (saving at 6% just enough to get my full match). Then I just found MMM and started making goals and improvements a couple months ago. Currently I've got about $3,400 in retirement accounts and I get excited when I see that my little employees made $11 all on their own! Overall I am in negative "net worth" because I'm WAY underwater on my house ::LAME::
I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
lol dorkus i'm in exactly the same position as you minus the house. i check my accounts everyday and it kinda wears on me because i just keep thinking man this really isn't that fast!
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It will probably take me 10 years LOL Mine just barely broke $10k.
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Don't get hung up on net worth. Valuations change (both stocks and real estate) based on factors beyond our control. It's a bad idea to let your happiness depend on that.
Focus on:
1. Consistent passive income
2. Limiting expenses and future liabilities.
3. Planning ahead for major (expected) expenses
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds nought and six, result misery." - charles dickens
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I just checked Mint to see how much longer I have till that milestone.
$104,281.70 in investments alone and that is not including our HSA since Mint can't connect to HealthEquity. I knew we were getting close, didn't know we had already gotten there!
There's also some equity in the house, but only about 20k (but my interest is only 3.375%, so I'm aiming for investments that I hope yield higher than that rather than pay down the house sooner).
Are you sure about Mint not being able to connect to HealthEquity? My account connects with no problems.
Ok, well they used to not connect to HealthEquity. Hadn't checked in awhile, but yeah, can do so now. Thanks!
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In March of 2009 our net worth was barely negative.
Now as of October 2013 our net worth is $205,000.
with invested equities of $137,000.
Mostly our net worth was increasing about $25,000 to $35,000 per year but over the last year (and this might be a mustachian effect) but our net worth has increased over $82,000 this year alone.
We're making a bit more than last year and our spending has basically been frozen so any additional savings goes to invested assets or cash.
We do have some debt about $260,000 which is mostly our house but the highest rate we're paying is 3.25% so I'm going to leverage that and let it run...
I feel pretty good about where we are currently. Decent sized emergency fund. Investing a decent amount and our savings rate is pretty decent as well. Could we do better? yes, marital bliss gets its own line item on our budget...
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The first 100k took ages for me - over 10 years - but that's because I wasn't trying or paying attention. Once I started trying, it only took 2 years to get from a negative net worth to 100k. The second 100k only took a year.
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Congratulations! My goal is to reach 100k by the end of the year. I've been tracking my finances since December 2010. At that point I had a net worth of -$17,000. -$20,000 in student loans and $3,000 (Ay!) in cash.
This year I landed job working in personal finance, and after spending all day everyday learning about budgeting and saving, I've really changed my habits. I stick rigidly to my budget in Mint, and I've saved $65,000 this year. The big changes are not spending on unnecessary objects, picking up extra freelance work, and above all raising my freelance rates significantly. I have way more money in, but am not changing my lifestyle. Super cheap rent living with many roommates. I don't let myself go out a ton anymore, and I don't splurge on clothes. In August I paid off my student loans, woooo!
Can't wait to join you in the $100k net worth club - this is my big goal.
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What an awesome graph cash_lemur!
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We have a mortgage of about 180k right now and savings of about the same amount in Super (I'm Australian) which can't be touched until we are 55. Our home is worth about 600k.
We could therefore be considered up about 600k but all I see is the debt we owe. Once we pay that off though we will be up our savings however this isn't something that we can utilise until later in life.
So for me the first 100k will be extremely hard because it will entail paying off the mortgage and then saving 100k in accounts that we can access. I figure though from that point on we should be able to reach FI reasonably quickly.
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About 2.5 years after we'd paid of the mortgage. Interest rate on mortgage was 7.4%, so that's where all our spare money went. We also dropped to one income 3 years ago, so damn proud.
And as others mentioned, there's no feeling as though we live a spartan lifestyle.
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It took us about three or four years to accumulate our first $100k. It was hard because we had to work those frugality muscles. Now I don't even want to spend money that I need to spend. Eventually we used that $100k as a down payment on a house. [Sigh] I miss it....
Looking forward to doing it again! (Probably in another 3-4 years!)
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I am on track to have increased my net worth by $100k in 3 years (start of Jan)... however I haven't hit $100k yet as I started behind the 8 Ball (aka in debt). I suspect the next hundred k to take roughly half that time (one of the three years was in a job that paid significantly below average and I had the miracle of compound interest working against me. I also have a payrise due in Jan. The cool thing is I managed this without being particularly hardcore about saving (taking international holidays, buying tonnes of clothes, living in a cool neighborhood etc) and making average (for Australia) wages in the last two years of working. It kind of makes me wonder what a lot of my friends are doing wrong? (Disclaimer... yes I earn more than them.... they make about what I was making in the first year, however, while I managed to pay down $8k of debt, save $8k of cash and pay for an international holiday that year, they seem to be sinking deeper in debt - without living obviously luxurious lives (no holidays, no funky neighborhood, etc etc).
I guess that's why I am here though - to be inspired by people who are way more hardcore than me, so the next $100k can come fast!
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Wow, some of the <25 people are impressive. I'm a single 25 year old guy, started in the workforce at 23 and have ~30k in net worth but still wish I had found out about MMM earlier. I made $60k and save about 25-30k a year so I'm hoping to hit 100k by 2015 or 2016!
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I'm 25 and just started saving this year, I make $40k and have a monster mortgage that's underwater. Just found MMM 3-4 months ago, and I'm off to a slow start. I think it will take me quite a while to get to that 100k but I'm just so excited to keep moving forward and I know that it will snowball faster as I go.
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Congrats!
I got there mostly by inaction: maxing my 401k (with nice company match) and selecting 'aggressive' model as soon as I entered the workforce in 2001. I did not start saving anything besides the 401k till 2006
100k in 2006 - 5yrs
200k in 2010 - 4yrs even with the financial pop
300k in 2012 - 2yrs
400k in 2013 - 1yr
should hit 500k net worth (counting only 401k + savings, ignoring 60k in house, 20k in cars etc) by year end
the snowball effect is fun. Money*Time = Stash!
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It took us five years for the first 100k! We've added about five times that in the next five years.
Income is lower, small one time expenses are higher, and there's no money working for you.
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Congrats!
I got there mostly by inaction: maxing my 401k (with nice company match) and selecting 'aggressive' model as soon as I entered the workforce in 2001. I did not start saving anything besides the 401k till 2006
100k in 2006 - 5yrs
200k in 2010 - 4yrs even with the financial pop
300k in 2012 - 2yrs
400k in 2013 - 1yr
should hit 500k net worth (counting only 401k + savings, ignoring 60k in house, 20k in cars etc) by year end
the snowball effect is fun. Money*Time = Stash!
I like this illustration and how it shows time decreasing between each 100K as the money increases.
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I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
A watched 401k never... boils?
This is my favorite quote in MMM history.
First $100k was 4 years after finishing grad school. I started from $0 with no student debt, but average pay, high COL, and not trying/investing was slow going. After combining incomes and living expenses with DW, savings rate went up. After finding MMM, savings and investment rates really went up. Second $100k took 7 months. At $220k now and not looking back...
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I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
A watched 401k never... boils?
This is my favorite quote in MMM history.
First $100k was 4 years after finishing grad school. I started from $0 with no student debt, but average pay, high COL, and not trying/investing was slow going. After combining incomes and living expenses with DW, savings rate went up. After finding MMM, savings and investment rates really went up. Second $100k took 7 months. At $220k now and not looking back...
Seven months? I am impressed. Have any tips to share?
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I probably need to control myself and stop checking the damn accounts every day.
A watched 401k never... boils?
This is my favorite quote in MMM history.
First $100k was 4 years after finishing grad school. I started from $0 with no student debt, but average pay, high COL, and not trying/investing was slow going. After combining incomes and living expenses with DW, savings rate went up. After finding MMM, savings and investment rates really went up. Second $100k took 7 months. At $220k now and not looking back...
Seven months? I am impressed. Have any tips to share?
Don't do what I did? I put 5% of net worth in TSLA for fun and it quadrupled. I then shifted to 5% net worth in Vestas which tripled. I recognize this was mostly dumb luck, and is not the proper way to invest for long term growth. Still, you have to be invested in the first place to earn returns.
Other than that, going down to 1 car, maxing every retirement account, and a 60% savings rate on two high incomes really does work its magic.
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Looking just at investments and debts, our net worth took 5 years to go from negative $114K to $0.
After that it was 1.5 years to positive $100K.
That last milestone was a few months ago, and the goal going forward is to increase net worth (really net investable assets) at least as much each year as the year before. Or, if that's not possible due to stock market fluctuations, at least keep our savings rate the same or better each year.
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Not hard, just a lot of time. First 100k took about 8 years. When I first started working, there was a 403b representative that took the newbies out to lunch to sell us on the advantages of investing with him. I had no idea about anything that he told us, but I noticed that my friend signed up to have $150 per month deducted from his paycheck. I didn't want him to end up wealthier than me in the long run, so I signed up for $200 per month. My paychecks ended up being $1400 per month at the time.
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I married mine. :) DH had a net worth in investments (mostly real estate) of $100,000 when we got married. Mine has always been the "big" salary but it was his initial nest egg that allowed us to buy a house with cash and never, ever, pay interest on anything.
congrats!
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I married mine. :) DH had a net worth in investments (mostly real estate) of $100,000 when we got married. Mine has always been the "big" salary but it was his initial nest egg that allowed us to buy a house with cash and never, ever, pay interest on anything.
congrats!
I guess that's true for me as well! The BF probably had a net worth of $200k when I met him. Mine was -$10k ish? Not sure.
But back to the original question: I should hit $100k in January, at age 26, having worked in a "real job" full time for 5 years (almost to the month). The early years of spending too much have a lot to answer for. Those milestones will just get closer and closer now.
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Yeah, it really depends on when you start paying attention. My first $100k was "easy" because it was on autopilot 401k deductions that I didn't really watch, because back then I was expecting to work until 67 or whatever.
Now that I'm actually watching my investments and counting down the months to FIRE, it's going extremely slowly (partially due to underperformance of investments). Even though I'm saving more than ever.
Similar situation here. I do not even know when I passed the first 100.
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What an unlucky bunch... no lottery winners :)
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The first $100k was relatively easy because I kept contributing to my 401k without worrying. Even my first job out of college making $28k allowed me to save some small amount. Five years and a few jobs later I broke $100k in retirement accounts. I've since become obsessed with growing my retirement accounts so time (and compounding interest) seems much slower now.
I need a Sleepless in Seattle event to happen to me so I can wake up in 10 years and see a larger number in my 401k
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...I wonder if there's a nice length of time one should wait between checking accounts to make the accumulation seem effortless...
We do a networth snapshot once a year, each year on January 1st. That way I'm not too obsessive about it.
I am near retirement age (traditional retirement age) and only recently did I even start to look at my 401k with any kind of frequency. I've been throwing money in it and forgetting it for decades.
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Wow, it's hard for me to go a week without calculating my net worth! (Of course, it only appeared on my radar about 3 months ago.)
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I just worked it out that between my main super fund and my savings account, it'll take me 3 years from today to reach 100k in liquid assets. I am very fortunate that I have property equity from my late mother, so I'm technically already at about 160k, but somehow I don't count the equity since I can't yet use it.
I hope that between my other investments options and pay rises to get there sooner!
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My first 100k was effortless. I bought my first home unit for $72k with a 50k mortgage. Its value doubled in <12months resulting in $94k equity. I had around 8K or so in superannuation (retirement account) at that time. Those were the days, Sydney real-estate in the 1980s! Sadly never to be repeated.
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Wow, it's hard for me to go a week without calculating my net worth! (Of course, it only appeared on my radar about 3 months ago.)
I have a system in place to check on the 15th and last day of the month. I don't always follow it perfectly, but it's supposed to keep me from being too obsessive about checking my accounts. Once a month would probably be better.
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Maybe I will push myself to change from weekly to once per fortnight. Then once a month?
Thanks.
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OP, thanks for starting a good thread. I looked up my records and it took me FOURTEEEN years to get to $100K. I can't believe it took that long and I wish I had saved more early on to benefit from the 8th wonder of the world (compounding), but I can't change the past.
Here's why it took 14 years: the first five years, I was living in Washington DC (high cost of living area) and making very little money. I started at $18,000 salary (in the early 1990's) and ended at around $30,000. Even so, I had around $23K saved in my retirement account after those five years. Then, in years 6 and 7, I was in graduate school and hardly making anything, and I was actually going into debt (student loans). Then, in the late 1990's I finally started making some money---but then got hit with the dot.com crash in the early 2000's. I stuck with it and finally hit the $100K mark in the mid 2000's.
The good thing is, that base, coupled with much more savings and increased income, has now grown to more than $300K. Here are the years it took me to reach each milestone:
$100K - 14 years
$200K - 4 more years
$300K - 2 more years.
Granted, going from $200K to $300K was not all my contributions, it was earnings from the stock market coming back after the Great Recession. But I hope this trend will continue...
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We should hit $100k within the next 2 months... Which means it will have taken us just under 10yrs since college (!). However, we are now on pace to hit $200k in less than 4 yrs.
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The first $100k was relatively easy because I kept contributing to my 401k without worrying. Even my first job out of college making $28k allowed me to save some small amount. Five years and a few jobs later I broke $100k in retirement accounts. I've since become obsessed with growing my retirement accounts so time (and compounding interest) seems much slower now.
I need a Sleepless in Seattle event to happen to me so I can wake up in 10 years and see a larger number in my 401k
You need your wife to die from cancer and to go talk on a national radio show so that you can meet your next love on top of the Empire State building? How will that help you wake up in 10 years? It's "Sleepless" in Seattle, not "Sleepy" in Seattle.
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Definitely, the first 100k was the hardest! My husband and I got to it as 26 yos living frugally in Queens while working in Manhattan on one salary (our "surprise" first baby kept me home during this time!) We really worked hard and sacrificed to pay off all our student debt and save that money. I worked side jobs whenever I could and my husband worked tons of well-paid overtime. I sort-of lost track of our net worth for awhile after that, continuing to save. Ten years later and two moves we are at 575K of investments and ~400K of real estate equity. I should feel secure but I don't. Still feel like that newlywed scrimping and hustling. Not sure if that is a healthy thing or not.
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About 1/3 of the way there including my 401k and stocks. If I could sell my old house that would free up a lot of cash every month but the market around here really sucks.
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You need your wife to die from cancer and to go talk on a national radio show so that you can meet your next love on top of the Empire State building? How will that help you wake up in 10 years? It's "Sleepless" in Seattle, not "Sleepy" in Seattle.
Ok I must admit that your knowledge of this movie goes far beyond what I remember about it. In that case let me rephrase that I need a Sleeping Beauty moment to happen to me. That'll do the trick.
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You need your wife to die from cancer and to go talk on a national radio show so that you can meet your next love on top of the Empire State building? How will that help you wake up in 10 years? It's "Sleepless" in Seattle, not "Sleepy" in Seattle.
Ok I must admit that your knowledge of this movie goes far beyond what I remember about it. In that case let me rephrase that I need a Sleeping Beauty moment to happen to me. That'll do the trick.
Honestly I didn't remember it that well, but nothing you said reminded me of it so I looked its plot up on Wikipedia (which brought all the details back). The real thing that made me think it was wrong though was the title itself. "Sleepless" being the opposite of sleepy.
Sleeping Beauty works well though. Even better is Futurama: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Fishful_of_Dollars
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We are at $89k so not there yet, this is only retirement accounts and emergency funds, not counting our equity in any of our home or things.
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Just hit 105k. It wasn't especially hard, but it felt like it took a long time. I'm hoping the next chunk goes a lot faster
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Took me about 2 1/2 years to get back to 0 from being $100k in the hole.
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I'm not there yet. Hopefully next year or the year after. Currently I'm at about $70,000 in liquid assets. This was built up from zero in 2006 when I drained all my accounts to buy a house. So I'm increasing about $10,000 a year on an average salary. Since discovering MMM I've been working to increase my savings.
It wasn't hard to get to where I am. It was all auto-pilot in my RRSPs.
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I should not read these threads, they just make me feel bad.
The first 100k will bring us into positive net worth (combined, our student loans were $105k and we're nowhere near). This will probably take a total of 10 years.
After that I imagine it'll go much faster!
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I'm not there yet but I hope to be before I graduate college :)
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hope to get there someday too! congratulations!
would you recommend still putting towards 401k will paying off debt? or hold saving off altogether?
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It took almost 9 years for us to reach $100K in investments/savings(property excluded). We did this on a single income of less than $40K a year, with two kids, two car payments and a mortgage. We hit it during the first little rebound after the 2008 crash. We just knuckled down even further and stored up cash while most everyone else was panicking. I sold stuff and banked that money too. We didn't stop investing during the crash. We kept putting money in as before.
It's really only as hard as you make it. With a higher range income one could do it in 3-4 years really comfortably. Or they could do in one year with extreme difficulty.
Our shovel was pretty small so there was only so much we could put into savings in the first place. It's fairly obviously that raising a family on a small single blue-collar income is going to be challenging to stay disciplined and patient as an investor. But I am so glad we did.
I just signed up for Mint today. Since reaching our first $100K, we had our third child, moved across the country into a much bigger house(with bigger expenses of course), and bought a new family car. I was quite delighted to see that even with all that our non-property net worth has gone up $180K. We're on track to double the first $100K in 5 years.
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We cracked 100k in Dec 2011 (after 25 years of marriage and some really bad financial moves). By Dec 2012, we were at 147k. In Jan 2013, we found MMM. At this time, we are just under 300k.
It doesn't seem possible, but the numbers don't lie. We've sharply cut our expenses and changed our lifestyle, keeping the meaningful stuff and ditching the rest.
As Churchill said, "If you're going through hell, keep going!" Keep plugging, it'll all pay off someday.
We haven't arrived yet, but I have confidence, for the first time in my life, that it's all going to work out.
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Just did the math and it'll be just under a year before we are at 100k net worth (not including house and cars). The upswing is that the next 100k isn't so far away and in 12 years we will hit FIRE even with an average return of under 7%.
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Amazing! I'm impressed.
It took almost 9 years for us to reach $100K in investments/savings(property excluded). We did this on a single income of less than $40K a year, with two kids, two car payments and a mortgage. We hit it during the first little rebound after the 2008 crash. We just knuckled down even further and stored up cash while most everyone else was panicking. I sold stuff and banked that money too. We didn't stop investing during the crash. We kept putting money in as before.
It's really only as hard as you make it. With a higher range income one could do it in 3-4 years really comfortably. Or they could do in one year with extreme difficulty.
Our shovel was pretty small so there was only so much we could put into savings in the first place. It's fairly obviously that raising a family on a small single blue-collar income is going to be challenging to stay disciplined and patient as an investor. But I am so glad we did.
I just signed up for Mint today. Since reaching our first $100K, we had our third child, moved across the country into a much bigger house(with bigger expenses of course), and bought a new family car. I was quite delighted to see that even with all that our non-property net worth has gone up $180K. We're on track to double the first $100K in 5 years.
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We haven't arrived yet, but I have confidence, for the first time in my life, that it's all going to work out.
Isn't that the nicest feeling?
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Does a 401k count in this thread? I have been with the same company 15 years, 14 years eligible to contribute to 401k. I've always put enough in to get the company match here. My total today is $125k.
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Of course. :)
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I turned 30 earlier this year, and I just hit 100K within the past week. It makes me feel great to look at Mint and see the net worth graph keep moving up! To think that from years 22-24, I was living paycheck to paycheck, to have this kind of cushion really is exciting. I've made a lot of changes (dropping cable, cheaper cell phone, curbing eating out so much) and realized that I made plenty of mistakes along the way, such as not contributing enough pretax income to 401k, purchasing a new car for an eight mile commute, and maintaining unnecessary excessive expenses. I'm still looking to optimize a lot of things, but the momentum is building, and being a 'numbers-guy', seeing the dollars creep up proves I'm doing something right!
I'm shooting for less than 4 years for the next 100K! Thanks everyone for the great posts, they are really helpful!
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I turned 30 earlier this year, and I just hit 100K within the past week. It makes me feel great to look at Mint and see the net worth graph keep moving up! To think that from years 22-24, I was living paycheck to paycheck, to have this kind of cushion really is exciting. I've made a lot of changes (dropping cable, cheaper cell phone, curbing eating out so much) and realized that I made plenty of mistakes along the way, such as not contributing enough pretax income to 401k, purchasing a new car for an eight mile commute, and maintaining unnecessary excessive expenses. I'm still looking to optimize a lot of things, but the momentum is building, and being a 'numbers-guy', seeing the dollars creep up proves I'm doing something right!
I'm shooting for less than 4 years for the next 100K! Thanks everyone for the great posts, they are really helpful!
I took a similar path to you. Once I "saw the dollars creep up" as you put it and started to really focus, the trajectory changed quickly. It took a long time to get the first 100K, but only about 20 months after that to reach the $200K mark. It really starts climbing quickly once it gets going strong.
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Our current retirement savings is around 140k i'm not sure when we crossed the 100k mark. but our next mark will be 250k. and i'll track that. i think we should cross that mark in Mid 2015 if you dont count the house. counting the house we will cross it by may of this year. we are 27 and 26 and have been working 4 years for me in May and 3 years for her this past january.
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My Vanguard balance just hit $100K within the last week. Felt pretty great. 2013 was the first year that I maxed out both my 403(b) and my Roth IRA, and from now on I will do the same every year, and will probably open a taxable account on top of that.
It felt like it took a long time to get to 100K, in large part because I wasn't really saving aggressively until the last two years. And because of the poor market performance in January, my balance was stalled around 97-99K for weeks on end, even with new contributions. I was checking my balance every day, waiting for the magical sixth digit to appear so I could take a screenshot for posterity.
Onward!
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I just passed the first 100k this month as well. I'll admit, it wasn't very hard for me at all, as I live incredibly cheap overall (high pay, extremely low expense lifestyle), but I have a habit of travelling for years a time and not working that much (maybe worked a year at best in the last 4 years). I would likely be FI if actually worked during that time, but seriously I'd rather be a global nomad than anything else!
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Currently at $84k invested assets. This doesn't count pension or e-fund. Should hit $100k this year and I check my balance 2-3 times per month. Wish I could set it and forget it but I keep thinking about going pt while kiddies are young or just taking a sabbatical. I've been working full-time since 2005, but had 2 kids, paid off $23k undergrad and cash flowed grad school in hcol area, oh and paid for a cheapo wedding but sweet honeymoon.
Love the consistent responses about how much faster accumulation goes after $200k. Inspiring!
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As of yesterday, I have officially exceeded 100K in total liquid assets, although it would've been several months earlier if counting property assets. I recently turned 26 and started working in mid-2006, without any support at all after age 20 or a college degree (almost there).
Considering that just over 5 years ago I was unemployed, alone, and on the brink of homelessness (with limited job experience or skills) during the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, this milestone is a very gratifying and rewarding one for me. After all the adversity I've had to overcome and the sacrifices I've had to make in order to get to this point, I can only hope that the next 100K comes a bit easier than the first.
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide you’re not going to stay where you are.” — J.P. Morgan
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Nice job, ascZend! Congrats!
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You rock, ascZend.
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Thanks guys. I really appreciate the support and encouragement.
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are you contributing continously until earnings and capital reached 100k or did you contribute and stopped at a certain amount and watched it grow? if so how much and how long till it reached 100k?
congrats by the way!
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I wouldn't say it was particularly hard, but the journey to 100K was very memorable. I even remember some of the major market swings that affected the portfolio value. The glow of having reached that milestone lasted for almost a month...then we were focused on our next goal =).
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I am at about $105K in liquid assets (not including a $15K lump-sum pension my employer is building for me, which will grow until I leave the company); plus I am buying a cheaper house and probably selling my current home ($30K in equity - $10K down payment on new house). I came out of college 6 years ago with $45K in student loan debt and paid it off in 2 years, so my net worth has changed by $150K+ over 6 years. Looking back, I could have made it much more quickly because I didn't contribute to my 401(k) for the first 21 months while I was paying off debt. A lot of this time was after the 2008 market crash and many of my loans were variable-rate. I feared that they would increase in interest rate (they slowly dropped from about 7% to 3% over 18 months or so) so I kept paying them off as quickly as I could. This was before I knew much about investing.
I only recently bumped my 401(k) contribution even more; I've been contributing 6% (enough for employer match) until now. I also bought a home in late 2009 and kept paying extra on it for 3 years rather than investing most of my extra cash. I've always lived relatively mustachian (well, since college) but had I decided to invest earlier on I probably would have reached $100K NW at least a year ago; probably 2 years ago if I wouldn't have paid extra on the house. If all goes well I will hopefully reach $200K in liquid assets in 2 years, depending on what I do with my houses.
So in short, the first $100K probably took way longer than the next $100K will unless I leave my job. Sure, compounding will help some, but for me the difference will be mostly due to 1) higher salary, 2) learning about investing, and 3) contributing a higher percentage of pre-tax money.
I'm 29 and my fiance is 26. I didn't include her NW as it's pretty low, but steadily growing. No kids so not as impressive as some on here.
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And when I say I have been mustachian since college, I mean mostly that I don't tend to buy a lot. However, I (until recently) used to eat out a lot and I have never had a garden or anything. I also drive pretty far to work. My savings rate has mostly been over 40% without including 401(k) or home equity (now my post-tax rate is about 60% w/o home equity, thanks in large part to this blog).
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Saving now is all around easier. In the early 90s we didn't have Internet in our homes. At that time to invest you called or corresponded by mail. One of my first was the Berger 100 fund. I liked the commercials. Soon I moved to Vanguard and invested more. I maxed my 401k haven't looked back.
Still it took years to invest the first 100k. Now moving past 1M makes 100k seem so small 20 years into my investments. It's still a big number from nothing. Invest more and get there faster.
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If I don't hit it this month I may not hit it until about July or August, thanks to a planned holiday which will push me to a zero% savings rate for a few months. Hope I make it!!! It's been slower coming than originally planned because I upgraded my car (not included in my net worth)... still at 1 Jan 2011 (just over three years ago) I stood at minus $20,500 (student loan debt and credit card debt offset by a meager retirement fund) and this month I am likely to hit $99-ish grand (retirement accounts, savings etc) that's incredible progress! I hit $100k some time ago if I count my employee stocks ($12K) which are yet to vest - the only hurdle is to stay at the company (all stocks will vest within the next 1.5 years, so it's more of a 'when" than an "if" as I won't be FIRE any time in the next 1.5 years and I don't see my self leaving.) Yay for persistence!
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Huh. I just added it up and my personal retirement accounts do total just over $100k. I'm also 8.5 years into a pension plan* - I'd have to check with the wife to find out what her retirement plans add up to. I suspended 401(k) this year, as I get no matching and need to rebuild cash reserves (lots of medical expenses) - I'm hoping that I can slam it into high gear next year and lower AGI enough to qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit.
These accounts are somewhat lower than they could be, as we decided to accelerate the house payoff when we refinanced. $75K left on the mortgage, scheduled to be paid off in ~7 years. Interest rate is only 2.5%, so I don't see accelerating it further.
* Vested (@ 2.3% of pay x years) I just need to live long enough or (age + years of service) enough to start drawing. If I work another 16 years, I can start drawing.
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Wow, some of the <25 people are impressive. I'm a single 25 year old guy, started in the workforce at 23 and have ~30k in net worth but still wish I had found out about MMM earlier. I made $60k and save about 25-30k a year so I'm hoping to hit 100k by 2015 or 2016!
We're (almost) twins! I'm 26, entered workforce at 23 and have about 30k too. We also save close to the same amount each year and we make the same salary! I personally can't wait to reach 50k. For me it's easier to have smaller goals (50k, 75k, 100k, 125k, etc). It makes me feel like I'm covering more ground and keeps me motivated.
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I calculated a few weeks ago, with my automatic savings deposits, and if the market gives an average return in 2014, I will hit $100k at the end of December, (in non-home equity investments)
I found MMM in June 2013, and after working for about 5 years I had about $30k.
So I'd say that's some pretty great progress in 10 months!
One day I'm going to calculate how much more wealthy this blog has made "future me"
For now, I feel like I'm on the cusp of starting to feel the compounding effect, and I'm very much looking forward to it.
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It wasn't very hard for us, honestly--my last employer matched dollar for dollar up to 6%, and if you did 6%, they chipped in an extra percent. On top of that, we were maxing out both my and my wife's Roth IRAs, so our savings rate was probably around 30% of gross. We probably hit $100k of liquid assets by the time we were 5 years out of college. It was easier then--our PITI was only about $1000/mo and we didn't have as many kids :)
Of course, then I took a new job with a significant pay cut and we bought a bigger house (for our growing brood), so our savings rate is way down :(. But I love my job now, and the commute is at worst half as long (and at best 120 times(!) shorter), and that makes it totally worth it.
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I just logged in to Mint this AM to see where am I at. I'm still tracking towards my first 100k.
Luckily I don't have negative net worth.
I took care of that a few years ago.
Right now I have 68k in investments/savings/cash and 12.7k in student loans.
The student loans are about to get the concrete shoes over this summer. It'll take three months.
I'll drop another $12,271 in to my 401k to top me up for the year. That brings me to 80k.
Then I'll bring it home with another ~$25,000 dollars in savings/investment account contributions this year plus a $5,500 contribution to my IRA.
I should reach the 100k milestone in net worth by Jan 1st of 2015.
A quick glimpse of the 2015 is $17,500 in to the 401k, $5,500 into the IRA and then $54,000 worth of contributions to savings and investment accounts. All told a $77,000 potential haul in 2015.
That would push me close to the $200,000 net worth mark in 2015. Hopefully 2016 would put me past the quarter of a million dollar milestone.
Just around the corner, really. I gotta hold the wheel steady and keep on 'stachin.
Writing this post keeps me focused and firmly planted in the reality that I CAN DO this!
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To me, getting to $100K was not too difficult. It just took some time and automatic investing. I calculate my networth based up liquid cash/stock assets and my equity in my rental property. I had a good start after graduating with no debt from a very inexpensive university back in 2002 with good financial aid and a handful of small scholarships. I commissioned in the military that same year and began contributing 10% to my TSP (military 401K with no match) and to mutual fund accounts. I bought a rental property (100% financied) in 2005, that basically pays for itself through rent. I passed $100K in late 2007, right after my marriage to my wife. My networth dropped after paying for a marriage ceremony for her family and the 2008 market downturn. I still contributed to my automatic investment strategy, pretending the money just didn't exist. This kept the money away from my somewhat of a "spender" wife. In August of 2013, my networth was just over $198K. Unfortunately, I found out my wife was not staying faithful to me, so I divorced her in December this last year. Through the divorce I lost about $45K in networth. I then discovered MMM, and have turned my focus on financial independence. From my calculations, I've learned that I now save roughly 61% of my post-tax take-home pay. I know that I can still cut more and I anticipate putting all of my future pay raises toward financial independence. Mid last month (March 2014), my networth is back up to $178K. I anticipate being 100% retirement ready in 8.5 years.
On a separate note, it is such a pleasure to be able to discuss investing and financial independence with people!!! Most of my coworkers are afraid of even talking about money. It definitely is still a major social taboo topic with most Americans. I get so excited by the subject though, and it's been tough to not have anyone to discuss it with.
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I have a little ledger book where we have a record of our income and net worth starting in 1976 when we married. 401k was not even in existence until the late seventies, as way back then most companies still had good pensions. Luckily we invested as soon as dh's company offered them in the early eighties, since we all know what happened to pensions, although in the beginning you could only contribute a few thousand dollars. Considering our starting salaries as a nurse and engineer were just over $20,000 combined, it took almost 15 years to get to $100,000 net worth.
So keep these records. You will smile when you look back on them.
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It doesn't seem possible, but the numbers don't lie. We've sharply cut our expenses and changed our lifestyle, keeping the meaningful stuff and ditching the rest.
That's the key.
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As of yesterday, I have officially exceeded 100K in total liquid assets, although it would've been several months earlier if counting property assets. I recently turned 26 and started working in mid-2006, without any support at all after age 20 or a college degree (almost there).
Considering that just over 5 years ago I was unemployed, alone, and on the brink of homelessness (with limited job experience or skills) during the worst economic crisis since The Great Depression, this milestone is a very gratifying and rewarding one for me. After all the adversity I've had to overcome and the sacrifices I've had to make in order to get to this point, I can only hope that the next 100K comes a bit easier than the first.
This is brilliant! yay, you!
When I was 26 I had about, umm, well, maybe $2,000. (that's a long time ago so it would be more in today's dollars) but still, not a lot. But the key for me is that I never had debt except for 5 year period wher eI had a mortgage. If you don't feed The Enemy, Mr. Interest, it's easy to see the money pile up.
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If you don't feed The Enemy, Mr. Interest, it's easy to see the money pile up.
So true and I see the light now! But back in '07 I bought my first house. I was only 19 and I had no clue what I was getting into. I just had grown up with the notion ingrained in my head, 'don't throw away money by renting - buy a home and earn equity!'
Welp that does not work when you finance 100% and then the market crashed. Instead, I'm paying mountains of cash to evil Mr. Interest and his friend Mr. Mortgage Insurance. Oh and I'm at -$48k equity.
So my 100k is far off in the distance. But I keep chugging along saving what I can and I hope the market turns up and I can get some raises to propel me forward!
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First $100k was very hard for me. I had a very low wage job out of college, I got married in my 20s, put my (now ex) husband through school and paid cash for it, so every cent was going to that. I even had student loans I was paying off too. Then we divorced (thankfully!) and he took half of my retirement. So I kind of had a dent at the age of 31, but luckily it wasn't a huge amount. Things could have been worse. It was just a small blip in the grand scheme of life. I was not left in the hole after this.
Now I am remarried, 37 years old, have since acquired a Master's in Engineering (with a nicer salary), and my husband and I have more than made up for it. We will be approaching $1 million before I turn 40. Wahoo!!! After the first $100k the milestones come faster.
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Now I am remarried, 37 years old, and my husband and I have more than made up for it. We will be approaching $1 million before I turn 40. Wahoo!!! After the first $100k the milestones come faster.
Thats an impressive turnaround.
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Thats an impressive turnaround.
Thanks! :)
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I feel like the 100k mark is a million years away. It's heartening to read everyone's stories!
I started working 7 months ago, and if all goes as planned, we'll hit 100k in cash/investments within three years, four if things aren't as smooth as we hope.
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I should not read these threads, they just make me feel bad.
The first 100k will bring us into positive net worth (combined, our student loans were $105k and we're nowhere near). This will probably take a total of 10 years.
After that I imagine it'll go much faster!
Don't feel bad you'll get there! We actually just got to $0 NW in January from -$170k in May 2010. We're aiming for +$170k by the end of 2017.
Cut your spending, see if you can increase your income, make smart choices, and be a little lucky and it will go away faster than you think.
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I can't wait to join the first $100k group.
I mean the real, positive, $100k, not the 'increased net worth by $100k'.
I'll start working this year once I graduate; I'm hoping by 2017/18 I achieve that milestone!
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I think it took me around 4 years to get to 100k in my retirement accounts. I made full contributions with partial matches the first 3 years out of college, then switched jobs and the new company did full matches. I had bought my apartment when started working (in 2003) and put nearly all savings other than 401k into paying down the mortgage (I'm very debt averse). Luckily, I graduated college debt free thanks to the generosity of my parents, so I started out at 0 net worth, not negative when I graduated. The first 100k was definitely the hardest, congrats on reaching that milestone! It snowballs quickly if you don't succumb to lifestyle creep :).
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That first 100k is pretty hard. Most of my progress towards 100K came from savings from my job. If you happened to own a home and values rose a lot that would be a big help.
Now I have rental properties and even when I don't work, the net worth keeps rising. Over $270k right now. Such a great feeling. It keeps increasing at a faster and faster pace too although it still feels slow sometimes.
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I love this thread! I'm still working on my first $100k in cash and investments but hope to hit it by the end of the year. I'm glad to know that it isn't easy, that'll make it so much sweeter when I get there! (I'll still be negative net worth for another year or so after due to student loans :( )
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It took me 15 years of working to reach $100K in 401 (k) investing.
In the beginning I only invested enough to get the 3% match and I invested conservatively. About 4 years ago I switched to aggressive and eventually increased to 8% of my salary.
I think in total I may have reached $100K sooner via taxable investments, cash, Roth IRA and etc. but I was not paying attention.
Obstacles was the 5 years paying off my student loans while saving for a down payment on a house.
I always been a saver and somewhat frugal ex: take public transportation, but there is room for improvement.
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100k was about 7/6 years
200k another 4 years
300k 18 months
400k 14 month
that's net worth.. I do have more than that in gross and I'm counting the house as I paid cash for it!!
I still have some debt and am eliminating that at the moment - once that's done we should be climbing at 100K a year pretty soon - and more .. until I pull the plug on this work lark.....
as you see... its hard to start with but the people reading this and are just starting out have a huge advantage...knowledge... I got there through saving some.. you can get there faster through saving loads.... and not being as ignorant as I was
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Everyone is making me feel poor! I'm only 24, so I guess that's part of it. Only been out of school for a bit over a year. Had a job for 8 months out of school and then was unemployed for 5 months (zeroing out my e-fund). Got a better job that I've been doing for 3 months now (401k starts in a week or two). Rebuilt a lot of the e-fund and back-filled some investing into a ROTH IRA. Net Worth is now about $11k. I found MMM a month into this job; so with higher salary, the $100k should be quicker. Estimated time: 3-4 years.
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Everyone is making me feel poor! I'm only 24, so I guess that's part of it. Only been out of school for a bit over a year. Had a job for 8 months out of school and then was unemployed for 5 months (zeroing out my e-fund). Got a better job that I've been doing for 3 months now (401k starts in a week or two). Rebuilt a lot of the e-fund and back-filled some investing into a ROTH IRA. Net Worth is now about $11k. I found MMM a month into this job; so with higher salary, the $100k should be quicker. Estimated time: 3-4 years.
Don't compare yourself to others. :)
It will leave you feeling either lacking in comparison to others (just a form of keeping up w/ the Joneses), or holier/better than thou. Both are not that awesome. Much more awesome to be your own measuring stick and watch yourself progress and become more badass.
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The first 100K took me 11.5 years; I was 31. The second 100K took me 5.9 years; I was 36. It would be lovely to hit 300K by the time I'm 40, and at this pace it seems likely... we'll see.
The velocity of money is no joke!
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First 100k took about 3 years. 2nd 100k looking like 1.5 years. this is combined retirement accounts of my wife and I. total networth should hit 300k by 4.5 years as well.
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It wasn't 'easy' but we did finally reach the $100k net worth goal this May. We each still had one year of school left when DH and I got married in 2008, and each had student loans. We had close to $54k in debt in 2009 when we finished school. We paid off the debt in September 2013, and have been contributing to various retirement accounts and savings, plus replaced our old beaters for more reliable used cars. No mortgage helps. What's really cool is getting out of debt and seeing the net worth just grow like crazy since most of our savings is on auto pilot. We're at close to $120k now at the end of September, only four months after reaching $100k. Growth on investments helps a lot.
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Everyone is making me feel poor! I'm only 24, so I guess that's part of it. Only been out of school for a bit over a year. Had a job for 8 months out of school and then was unemployed for 5 months (zeroing out my e-fund). Got a better job that I've been doing for 3 months now (401k starts in a week or two). Rebuilt a lot of the e-fund and back-filled some investing into a ROTH IRA. Net Worth is now about $11k. I found MMM a month into this job; so with higher salary, the $100k should be quicker. Estimated time: 3-4 years.
Don't compare yourself to others. :)
It will leave you feeling either lacking in comparison to others (just a form of keeping up w/ the Joneses), or holier/better than thou. Both are not that awesome. Much more awesome to be your own measuring stick and watch yourself progress and become more badass.
I meant it in only a good way :). It inspires me to know others have already done it and that it is possible! A little competition never hurt anyone; and it can keep one motivated too.
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If my current holdings and savings rate stay exactly the same, no gains/losses in the investments and no pay raises or optimizations of savings, it will take me until the first paycheck of September 2015. Assuming some growth in the market, more like late spring.
Starting from age 25, when I first got a job that offered a 401k, to probably 35, so I'll say 10 years for the first $100k. It was very hard, mostly because I made very little money until I was in my late 20's. Looking back, there are definitely things I could've done differently to have gotten there by now, but only the last 3-4 years where I really had enough to save a lot more than I did. I fully expect the next $100k to be much quicker.
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I think i hit 100k around 24. I starting working when i was 16 so 8 years. It's now 4 years later and I'm about 2 months away from 250k. It was a lot harder than i thought it would be mainly because of the stock market crash right as i was getting going.
I crunched the numbers when i was 19 and expected to have 360k by 25 and ended up at 100k. I'm hoping for fi in the next 2 years (primary and rental home will be payed off (hopefully rental house will be sold)).
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On the one hand I don't remember it being "hard"; on the other hand I didn't pay attention to when it happened. I know we hit 50K in liquid assets about 4-5 years into our careers starting out with salaries of $13K and $16K annually (1981). We lived off of DH's income and saved mine. We put 1/2 down on our first home and kept 1/2 for an EF. At the same time we were both contributing the max percentage allowed in our 401ks (actually it was a taxable profit sharing program which was later converted into a 401k), but I don't remember when our liquid assets and 401k balances hit $100K.
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Age 24. Current net worth: $71K. I expect to hit $100K in a little over a year, just before I turn 26.
I've been saving and investing since I was a teenager. I now make about $60K a year and am able to invest around $20K annually.
I've always been frugal, and finding ERE then MMM has put me in an even better spot financially.
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I am 32 and still haven't hit 100K$, I am currently at 57K$, but in 2012, I still have a spreadsheet with my net worth totalling 14K$ at the time,so it went up by 43K$ in 2 years and a half, but now that I discovered this website, I am hoping I will reach 100K$ in less than 2 years. I figure the first 100K$ is the hardest, but then it becomes easier after hitting that mark (mainly due to compounding interest unless the market tanks).
Btw, this is my first month starting Money mustache, so I did ok, just before that, I expect to be better now with what I know about being Mustachian bad ass.
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I passed 100k in investments on April 1 this year after my company match for 2016 was deposited. Counting from when I started working to then was about 17.5 years. That's partially because I paid for three trips through college and didn't start seriously saving until I found MMM in 2014(?) right before I was laid off. Six weeks from now I will hit the next vesting milestone in my 401k which will add another 20% of the employer contributions to my total.
I hit 100k net worth (not counting residence) earlier this year but I'm focusing on growing the investment number. I expect the numbers should grow a lot faster with my higher savings rate. Almost half of what I have is from the last 2.5 years. Last year I just managed to cap my 401k contributions and this year is on track to repeat more comfortably. Barring major changes/downturns I think i can make 200k by the end of 2020.
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First 100k took EIGHT YEARS....feels like forever! The first 6 years we were paying off school loans and paying for a house down payment and saved only a small percent towards retirement...but the last two years we discovered MMM and got serious quick! We're anticipating going from 100K to 1 million in just 8 more years. I wish we had gotten serious earlier, but better late than never!
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Since this thread was recently revived, I went back to see my original post. This was 3.5 years ago and I had just passed $200K...I passed $500K back in Feb! Holy moly!
Congrats! I was just celebrating the $200K mark, but was doing so by myself because it felt strange to tell anyone. I was glad to see your post so I could join in:)
I'm not quite sure how long it took to get to $100K, but it was definitely longer than 2 years. I was always a saver, but I was also putting money into real estate here and there, which I'm not counting in my $200K, plus I was doing a few dumb things like buying new cars and going to the spa. I'm guessing it was something like 10 years.
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DW and I are about to hit the 100k mark (probably 31/5/2017). This will have taken us 34 months, just under 3 years, from ~0 -> 100k.
Here's me from 2.5 years ago being pretty dead on:
Everyone is making me feel poor! I'm only 24, so I guess that's part of it. Only been out of school for a bit over a year. Had a job for 8 months out of school and then was unemployed for 5 months (zeroing out my e-fund). Got a better job that I've been doing for 3 months now (401k starts in a week or two). Rebuilt a lot of the e-fund and back-filled some investing into a ROTH IRA. Net Worth is now about $11k. I found MMM a month into this job; so with higher salary, the $100k should be quicker. Estimated time: 3-4 years.
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I hadn't stopped to think about this before, but we must have hit 100k in cash and investments sometime in the last 2 years. I only discovered MMM last year, so have slowly begun developing habits to determine how to up our savings rate (e.g. monthly tracking) and have been reading up on investing so that we can start taking charge of our investments and get rid of our bank financial adviser and his funds (2.7% MER, anyone??). Before that, I had steadily been putting away 12% gross (my employer's RRSP match is in there), DH has been putting away 5% gross but has a defined-benefit pension (we do need to work on his savings rate), and now we're maxing out the kids' RESPs every year. If we assume it was 1 year ago, then it took about 10 years out of university (DH and I both had student loans to pay off for engineering school), a few not-so-mustachian purchases (economical but brand new cars), the purchase and sale of our first house, and purchase of our "forever" home (1850 sf, but big corner lot). The mortgage on the house puts us into the negatives for net worth (owing about 310k), but we're very comfortable with the payments and our interest rate.
Looking back, it wasn't hard on us to get this far because we automated everything, and we bring in decent money. However...looking at things from a MMM perspective now, I'm kicking myself that we didn't save more aggressively pre-children. I think we blew a bit of a golden opportunity there - it cost us over $12k for day care last year, and obviously we have the money for it. So why weren't we investing that money pre-children? Live and learn, right? I am 34, so I've still got time to catch up as I learn, I think :) The good news is, day care fees will drop once my son starts grade 1 in 2018, and drop again once my daughter starts in 2020... so all of that money is going straight to investments.
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I started about 50k in the hole, but making 40 up to 90k in the first 1 to 3 years of my career, I passed 100k pretty quickly.
100k was probably the easiest because I wasn't tracking at the time and frankly didn't care!
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