*
In case you are not a YNABer, this is the YNAB net worth graph report. Teal is your assets and red is your debt and the line represents your net worth.Over the last year I have really been a lurker on the MMM forums and obsessively reading every MMM post EVER. It has taken me a while but I finally did it. I have achieved a repeatable pattern of mustachianism. It's still going to be a wile to get to FIRE, but when I look at this graph it makes me feel all rosey inside.
When I got my first big kid job out of college, I was making more money than I knew what to do with. I had a measly budget, but I didn't really follow it. It didn't even mater. My net worth just kept going up up up!
Right after I got a promotion and a healthy raise I discovered mustachianism. At the exact same time I experienced extreme lifestyle inflation. I was making more money so why not get a shiny new apartment? And like the complainy pants dumb-dumb I was I signed a year long lease on an expensive new apartment. Hard wood floors. Marble bathroom. Stainless steel appliances. I was stupid.
A few months down the road I was super ANGRY at myself. Frustrated. Devastated at how little we were saving. So I started pushing me and the spouse to save more. Then came along a famous consumerist holiday and wiped out all those months of saving. If it wasn't for tracking our spending in YNAB I wouldn't have realized how much we really were spending on the holidays.
So I got mad. I paid off all remaining debt, got a new job, moved to a new apartment (the lease was up, yay!), drastically cut spending and learned how to breathe!
Over the last 6 months the spouse and I have been saving money and living a very fancy life.
