Race from $2M to $4M...and Beyond!

[farmecologist]

Years ago when I joined the forum, I would look at this thread from my spot in the 500k to 1M thread and think, I’ll never join the heavy hitters in the upper echelons. But here I am five years later. We just passed 2M today (thank you markets). I can’t quite wrap my mind around the fact that we are officially multimillionaires.

Congratulations!.. I don't think I ever really wrapped my head around it. I still behave like I'm poor, I think for the first time last week I walked into a restaurant and ordered without looking at the menu.. I've been in this thread for 5 years or so and about a year away from "Beyond" territory (market depending).

Note, I still look for the best deal or some way to lower the overall price, I think thats just good fiscal practice and a bit of an optimsation game honestly.

I went to a writer's group meeting downtown this evening.  I parked 5 blocks away because I wanted to park for free rather than pay $1/hour for an hour. 

And then I'll spend lots of money on a book or a tool or art supplies.

Face it, I'm just weird.  Inconsistent in how I'm weird, but still weird.

I think a better term for most of us here is "eccentric", and I fit into that category easily. 

[ixtap]

Just like we do a lot of frugal things, but then spend stupid money when we want to, we make a lot of environmental choices, then turn around and get on a plane several times a year. 2022 saw two trips in addition to visiting family twice, 2023 one additional trip and 2024 we are planning one additional trip together, plus I am meeting my Mom to visit her older sister.

[tooqk4u22]

@mm1970 Going to HI in April an will SCUBA dive with the Manta Rays.. Nah, nah, ne, nah, nah..:)

I bet for me Moab 23 was about $400 in gas alone driving that ridiculous hedonostic SUV. So if you did the whole thing for $1000 with hotel stays I'd say you did pretty good.

Maybe we'll get to Hawaii once the DS17 is in college so there's only 3 of us, ha!  Yeah, the hotels weren't bad.  I don't stay in super expensive places, but I'm also not going to cheap out either.

@BeanCounter  Expensive trips are...well...expensive.  I have a complicated relationship with them.  Being upper-middle class, I have a ton of friends who travel all over the place - you see the pics on FB and IG.  Europe, Australia, NZ, South Pacific, South America, Skiing in Aspen, etc etc etc.  But MAN flying is so bad for the environment.  A lot of these friends consider themselves environmentalists too, but certainly not all of them.  The thing is, many of these are the same people taking multiple expensive vacations a year. 

Anyway, that's why we do Staycations in addition to a big trip each year.  At one point years ago, it wasn't uncommon for us to fly 3 times a year.  For me now- once is enough, especially considering I'm expected to travel to Asia once/ year, and that's a LOOONG trip.

I have plenty of these same friends.   Think bc they drive an EV (shh, but don't talk about the Large ICE SUV that one of the spouses drives) they are saving the world.  Also ignore the carbon footprint that comes as a result of their 2nd homes and driving their kids to private schools (not in the EV btw) that is significantly further than the public school served by busses.  I call it Al Gore syndrome.....do as I say, not as I do!

Long flights are brutal, well maybe not as much if you are in one of those lie down cubbies seats with 5star service.....I wouldn't know.   There are a lot of places in the world that I would like to see but I don't know if I could survive the flights.....or get back on one to go home if I did.

[Dancin'Dog]

If we could “find the time “ repositioning cruises seem like a wonderful way to cross oceans. Maybe someday we’ll find the time to try it. 

[tooqk4u22]

If we could “find the time “ repositioning cruises seem like a wonderful way to cross oceans. Maybe someday we’ll find the time to try it.

I saw one of those a couple of weeks ago and thought the same thing.   Use that to leisurely get to the other side, travel around a while and then come home.

But....time...a lot of time.   When kids are out in a few years I think I would like to try that.   

[Much Fishing to Do]

yeah, except for those 30 somethings that were much quicker to FI than me, it is a tight window between being able to easily afford the big trips and when the kids are moved on/not available due to jobs and their own lives etc.....  We've had a couple huge European ones the last 2 summers but this summer already it was too hard to schedule around their schedules....though wife and I just did a 3 day weekend in the Carribean by ourselves and maybe we could get used to that...

[Taran Wanderer]

If we could “find the time “ repositioning cruises seem like a wonderful way to cross oceans. Maybe someday we’ll find the time to try it.

We have some friends that have done a ton of those, and along with other cruises, they’ve basically sailed around the world.  Their work allows them to work remotely, so as long as their cruise ship have internet access, they can work half days during their trips!

[thefisherwoman]

If we could “find the time “ repositioning cruises seem like a wonderful way to cross oceans. Maybe someday we’ll find the time to try it.

We have some friends that have done a ton of those, and along with other cruises, they’ve basically sailed around the world.  Their work allows them to work remotely, so as long as their cruise ship have internet access, they can work half days during their trips!

I don't qualify for the thread's title, but I've never heard of repositioning cruises before and wanted to ask more about this! How would I go about finding repositioning cruises?

[SwordGuy]

If we could “find the time “ repositioning cruises seem like a wonderful way to cross oceans. Maybe someday we’ll find the time to try it.

We have some friends that have done a ton of those, and along with other cruises, they’ve basically sailed around the world.  Their work allows them to work remotely, so as long as their cruise ship have internet access, they can work half days during their trips!

I don't qualify for the thread's title, but I've never heard of repositioning cruises before and wanted to ask more about this! How would I go about finding repositioning cruises?

Your question got me curious!   It looks like it's as easy as googling "repositioning cruises 2024"

[Dancin'Dog]

If we could “find the time “ repositioning cruises seem like a wonderful way to cross oceans. Maybe someday we’ll find the time to try it.

We have some friends that have done a ton of those, and along with other cruises, they’ve basically sailed around the world.  Their work allows them to work remotely, so as long as their cruise ship have internet access, they can work half days during their trips!

I don't qualify for the thread's title, but I've never heard of repositioning cruises before and wanted to ask more about this! How would I go about finding repositioning cruises?
[/quote


Vacationstogo.com is a travel site that I have used to get lists of repositioning cruises.  Just use “repositioning “ for the area filter in the search bar. I set the dates for a 12 month span to get an idea of what is for all 4 seasons.

[lhamo]

Anybody wanting to plan a trip to China might want to wait another year or so -- flights are still ridiculously expensive because they haven't restored enough of the routes that got cut during Covid, and demand is still high because so many people weren't able to get back to see their families for 2-3 years.

In other news, anybody else dirty market timing today?  I'm on the verge of signing my contract with the builder for my renovations, so decided to cash in some of my LTCGs and pad the cash coffers a bit. Hoping the market will swing up enough again to be at least close to the high I missed on Friday.

Send good vibes for my lot of FZROX please!

[ixtap]

Anybody wanting to plan a trip to China might want to wait another year or so -- flights are still ridiculously expensive because they haven't restored enough of the routes that got cut during Covid, and demand is still high because so many people weren't able to get back to see their families for 2-3 years.

In other news, anybody else dirty market timing today?  I'm on the verge of signing my contract with the builder for my renovations, so decided to cash in some of my LTCGs and pad the cash coffers a bit. Hoping the market will swing up enough again to be at least close to the high I missed on Friday.

Send good vibes for my lot of FZROX please!

RSUs vest soon, which is also our snapshot trigger. Fingers crossed we at least hang on through then.

[catccc]

Nobody:
Me:  well, our liquid NW is nearing 2.5M (2.7M with real estate) and I just told P2 today that the more work goes well for me, the less I want to leave.
My ESI millionaire interview is set to run later this month.  Pretty sure in the interview, which was completed last August, when liquid NW was 2.0M, I said we’d walk away from our jobs at 2.5M, but now in my mind I’m already aiming for 3.0M.  You know, just in case and also because you gotta strike while it’s hot and I feel like I’m killing it at work lately and because the 12 and 15 year olds are getting really close to driving and college and what will that cost?  In November I made a 24 month countdown chain, and today I realized that there’s no way I’m quitting at the end of the year because I want my bonus that gets paid in March.  I have to leave after I get paid my bonus, of course.
What does it mean if every time I’m on vacation I don’t want to go back to work, but when I’m working, I think “hey, this is cool!”?

[SwordGuy]

Nobody:
Me:  well, our liquid NW is nearing 2.5M (2.7M with real estate) and I just told P2 today that the more work goes well for me, the less I want to leave.
My ESI millionaire interview is set to run later this month.  Pretty sure in the interview, which was completed last August, when liquid NW was 2.0M, I said we’d walk away from our jobs at 2.5M, but now in my mind I’m already aiming for 3.0M.  You know, just in case and also because you gotta strike while it’s hot and I feel like I’m killing it at work lately and because the 12 and 15 year olds are getting really close to driving and college and what will that cost?  In November I made a 24 month countdown chain, and today I realized that there’s no way I’m quitting at the end of the year because I want my bonus that gets paid in March.  I have to leave after I get paid my bonus, of course.
What does it mean if every time I’m on vacation I don’t want to go back to work, but when I’m working, I think “hey, this is cool!”?

Are you still having fun at work?   Do you get excited to go to work most day and do what you do?

If yes, keep doing it.

If no, find something else to do with your time.   Could be for money, could be for something else.


As for college costs for the kids, set a budget and that's how much they get.  They want to spend more than that, it's on their shoulders.   Easy-peasy!

[EscapeVelocity2020]

...
Send good vibes for my lot of FZROX please!

If you sold at market close yesterday you probably did well, looks like the market is opening down today.  No market timing for me anymore, all DCA.

[Turtle]

Nobody:
Me:  well, our liquid NW is nearing 2.5M (2.7M with real estate) and I just told P2 today that the more work goes well for me, the less I want to leave.
My ESI millionaire interview is set to run later this month.  Pretty sure in the interview, which was completed last August, when liquid NW was 2.0M, I said we’d walk away from our jobs at 2.5M, but now in my mind I’m already aiming for 3.0M.  You know, just in case and also because you gotta strike while it’s hot and I feel like I’m killing it at work lately and because the 12 and 15 year olds are getting really close to driving and college and what will that cost?  In November I made a 24 month countdown chain, and today I realized that there’s no way I’m quitting at the end of the year because I want my bonus that gets paid in March.  I have to leave after I get paid my bonus, of course.
What does it mean if every time I’m on vacation I don’t want to go back to work, but when I’m working, I think “hey, this is cool!”?

Double check your HR small fine print for timing.  At my company, if you are employed on Dec 31st, you rate a March bonus even if you leave in Jan or Feb.  However, company 401k match on that bonus is only paid if you are still employed in March when bonuses are paid.

So I'm setting my leave date for the beginning of April, most likely.

[lhamo]

...
Send good vibes for my lot of FZROX please!

If you sold at market close yesterday you probably did well, looks like the market is opening down today.  No market timing for me anymore, all DCA.

I got the new 12 month high!  17.50, which for me works out to $6.25 in LTCG per share. 

So today I feel good about being a dirty market timer.  Now should have enough in liquid cash or equivalents to fund this year's planned house renovations and living expenses for 12-24 months (depends on how hard core frugal I want/need to be).  IBL is calm for the moment and will continue to be happy if the market drops again.  But she'll probably whine a bit if the market continues to go up....

[Exflyboy]

...
Send good vibes for my lot of FZROX please!

If you sold at market close yesterday you probably did well, looks like the market is opening down today.  No market timing for me anymore, all DCA.

I got the new 12 month high!  17.50, which for me works out to $6.25 in LTCG per share. 

So today I feel good about being a dirty market timer.  Now should have enough in liquid cash or equivalents to fund this year's planned house renovations and living expenses for 12-24 months (depends on how hard core frugal I want/need to be).  IBL is calm for the moment and will continue to be happy if the market drops again.  But she'll probably whine a bit if the market continues to go up....

I'm still waiting for a couple of old 401k rollover checks to show up.. Surprised the S&P 500 hasn't doubled in the meantime!..:)

[catccc]

Double check your HR small fine print for timing.  At my company, if you are employed on Dec 31st, you rate a March bonus even if you leave in Jan or Feb.  However, company 401k match on that bonus is only paid if you are still employed in March when bonuses are paid.

So I'm setting my leave date for the beginning of April, most likely.

Yes, good point, I'll check it out!

Are you still having fun at work?   Do you get excited to go to work most day and do what you do?

If yes, keep doing it.

If no, find something else to do with your time.   Could be for money, could be for something else.


As for college costs for the kids, set a budget and that's how much they get.  They want to spend more than that, it's on their shoulders.   Easy-peasy!

I don't really get excited to work most days, but when I'm doing it I usually enjoy myself.  A lot of this may be due to positive thinking trickery.  Like, a responsibility will land on me, and my initial reaction is "wah, I don't wanna!"  But I reframe and tell myself it will be fun, and it is a little.  So essentially, mixed feelings either way on working.  How can I complain that I like what I do and it pays relatively well?  So I'll take it while this feeling lasts, I guess.  Also, I need to tell myself there's no need to figure it out now, there are plenty of rings on the countdown chain and some ways to go to get to $3M.

DD1 is eyeing private liberal arts schools, so this approach seems like a good way to handle that, but at the same time, I feel an obligation to spend more if it is within our means...

[flyingaway]

Anybody wanting to plan a trip to China might want to wait another year or so -- flights are still ridiculously expensive because they haven't restored enough of the routes that got cut during Covid, and demand is still high because so many people weren't able to get back to see their families for 2-3 years.

In other news, anybody else dirty market timing today?  I'm on the verge of signing my contract with the builder for my renovations, so decided to cash in some of my LTCGs and pad the cash coffers a bit. Hoping the market will swing up enough again to be at least close to the high I missed on Friday.

Send good vibes for my lot of FZROX please!

In a week, I will fly to Tokyo, then to Taiwan, then to China, for a month long trip. If you have time, you can always travel for fun, find a cheap route to go.

[BeanCounter]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement to book our trip. I appreciate the perspectives of those a little further ahead on the road!
We are waiting for the kids passports to get here before we book everything. Hopefully it will all work out. The plan is to fly to Mexico for a week at the same all inclusive resort we spent our honeymoon at 20 years ago. The kids are excited to go snorkeling, see Mayan ruins and of course being 11 and 15 year old boys they want the all you can eat 24/7 food.
It drives me crazy that the plane tickets are so ridiculously priced but it is what it is. The resort isn’t that much more than what we pay to rent the beach condo we like to drive to in the summer. When you’re tied to the school schedule you have to pay the premium. Someday when they are grown, DH and I can do the budget travel thing. Until then we will make memories with the kids with the time we have. Even if they are over priced.

[Bateaux]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement to book our trip. I appreciate the perspectives of those a little further ahead on the road!
We are waiting for the kids passports to get here before we book everything. Hopefully it will all work out. The plan is to fly to Mexico for a week at the same all inclusive resort we spent our honeymoon at 20 years ago. The kids are excited to go snorkeling, see Mayan ruins and of course being 11 and 15 year old boys they want the all you can eat 24/7 food.
It drives me crazy that the plane tickets are so ridiculously priced but it is what it is. The resort isn’t that much more than what we pay to rent the beach condo we like to drive to in the summer. When you’re tied to the school schedule you have to pay the premium. Someday when they are grown, DH and I can do the budget travel thing. Until then we will make memories with the kids with the time we have. Even if they are over priced.

Enjoy it BC.
Make those lasting memories and don't worry about the budget. You've already done the hard work. Have fun.

[Zoot]

Well, everybody, I've finally decided to declare my presence in this thread.

As of month-end for March, we're at $2.04MM net worth, $1.62MM when removing home equity.

I feel kind of smarmy for declaring $2MM, because of the home equity piece--both because it plumps up the total figure and because I recently increased the value of our home in our household balance sheet based on comps in our neighborhood, thereby giving a bump to the equity number--but there it is.  I think I won't feel like a "real" multi-millionaire until our non-home assets are over $2MM.  ;-)

Hi, everybody--necro-ing my own post from April 2022 in order to note that our non-home assets well and truly passed the $2M mark in January 2024, and that I now have my for-realsies full membership card to this thread.  Total NW is now $2.5M.

Carry on.  :)

[Exflyboy]

Well, everybody, I've finally decided to declare my presence in this thread.

As of month-end for March, we're at $2.04MM net worth, $1.62MM when removing home equity.

I feel kind of smarmy for declaring $2MM, because of the home equity piece--both because it plumps up the total figure and because I recently increased the value of our home in our household balance sheet based on comps in our neighborhood, thereby giving a bump to the equity number--but there it is.  I think I won't feel like a "real" multi-millionaire until our non-home assets are over $2MM.  ;-)

Hi, everybody--necro-ing my own post from April 2022 in order to note that our non-home assets well and truly passed the $2M mark in January 2024, and that I now have my for-realsies full membership card to this thread.  Total NW is now $2.5M.

Carry on.  :)

Wicked, bad, naughty, evil Zoot!... How dare you pre-empt your thread membership! But we're glad you're really here now..:)

[Taran Wanderer]

https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240221-workers-shake-off-golden-handcuffs

Not sure if this deserves its own thread or if this a place to discuss it. I didn’t spend my career in the financial sector, but I definitely felt the golden handcuffs tightening. It’s thanks to this forum and this thread that I finally loosened them. Still working on shedding them completely. 

[lhamo]

WTF happened with the market today?  Of course the dirty market timer in me that was so happy at hitting the market high last week is now wondering if I should cash out a bit more on this new high....

[tooqk4u22]

WTF happened with the market today?  Of course the dirty market timer in me that was so happy at hitting the market high last week is now wondering if I should cash out a bit more on this new high....

I know I should be relishing in markets going like this but I hate it bc it makes me just focus on the eventuality of the floor dropping out from under me.  I much prefer a slow grind.

Doesn't matter, a 10% drop is due and woul be so three months ago when all was fine.  Also helps that one of my psychological metrics is where am I at if my portfolio goes down 25% how would I feel. 

[ixtap]

WTF happened with the market today?  Of course the dirty market timer in me that was so happy at hitting the market high last week is now wondering if I should cash out a bit more on this new high....

I might be becoming a dirty market timer: I was planning to wait until a recent sale settled and the funds were redistributed to run the numbers and rebalance, but I did it tonight. Of course, when markets only moved a fraction of a percent a day, I didn't worry about the fact that the actual rebalancing happens at the next close...

We like the new total, though :)

[SwordGuy]

We have 4 different sources of income:

social security (yeah, we're old)
rental house income
farm sharecropping income (basically variable rental farmland income)
stock & bond portfolio

Any one of them crashes for a few years and we just lose out on bonus fun money.
Any two of them crash and we tighten our belts.

I don't sweat market results.

[ixtap]

We have 4 different sources of income:

social security (yeah, we're old)
rental house income
farm sharecropping income (basically variable rental farmland income)
stock & bond portfolio

Any one of them crashes for a few years and we just lose out on bonus fun money.
Any two of them crash and we tighten our belts.

I don't sweat market results.

DH still earns enough that our savings rate is respectable outside of FIRE circles. But I like to see the numbers at market highs so that he remembers he is work optional.

[2sk22]

WTF happened with the market today?  Of course the dirty market timer in me that was so happy at hitting the market high last week is now wondering if I should cash out a bit more on this new high....

I know I should be relishing in markets going like this but I hate it bc it makes me just focus on the eventuality of the floor dropping out from under me.  I much prefer a slow grind.

Doesn't matter, a 10% drop is due and woul be so three months ago when all was fine.  Also helps that one of my psychological metrics is where am I at if my portfolio goes down 25% how would I feel.

It's entirely due to Nvidia, the Cisco equivalenct of the 2020s. Thirty years ago when the Internet was beginning to take off, Cisco was pretty much the only company making money off the Internet so its stock was shooting up like crazy. Analogously, Nvidia is still the only company really making money from AI.

My personal view on AI (since I worked in the field for many years): There are a lot of great demos being created now but its going to be a lot harder to actually make money from any of this. Eventually people will figure out ways to make these new models do useful things but a lot of money will be set on fire  in the meanwhile.

[ATtiny85]

WTF happened with the market today?  Of course the dirty market timer in me that was so happy at hitting the market high last week is now wondering if I should cash out a bit more on this new high....

I might be becoming a dirty market timer: I was planning to wait until a recent sale settled and the funds were redistributed to run the numbers and rebalance, but I did it tonight. Of course, when markets only moved a fraction of a percent a day, I didn't worry about the fact that the actual rebalancing happens at the next close...

We like the new total, though :)

Yeah, I have doing a lot of calculations and was expecting to make another rebalance (working on a slow glide path from around 85% equities to 65% in the couple years) from Total Stock to Total Bond within a couple weeks. Decided that since our equities were going to end up a couple percent, might as well make the exchange in my IRA. Order placed before close and executed.

Between a few exchanges and all new 401k going to bonds, the needle is inching in the correct direction. I assume the market will drop routinely as we go and have also put a loose target on a desired dollar value in bonds as we go along. Sort of helps attenuate the noise for me. Simultaneously, we are building up a string of CDs in taxable as part of the plan.

@2sk22 , good analogy to Cisco. Definitely will see only a few of the early dollars make it through to the other side (whatever that might look like.)

[couponvan]

I have a good Cisco story.  I thought it was a food company (Sysco) in 1995 when DH talked about buying it with his rollover IRA from a government job. I think he invested $500 on it at the time, and it's grown to $7,500. Good thing he bought the tech version versus the food version.

[Fomerly known as something]

My philosophy on market highs.  The higher the market goes, the more room I have in a downfall to not worry.

On golden handcuffs.  I have them in the form of my pension (17 months). But this community has shown me the concept of enough and I am not looking to stay on, or for a retirement job when I become early retirement eligible.  I will be the 1% who will retire before age 50.  Without understanding enough, I’d likely have made financial decisions that would have convinced me that I needed to keep working in order to afford X,Y and Z that wouldn’t have only provided very marginal gains if any on the life satisfaction scale.

[Exflyboy]

I have a good Cisco story.  I thought it was a food company (Sysco) in 1995 when DH talked about buying it with his rollover IRA from a government job. I think he invested $500 on it at the time, and it's grown to $7,500. Good thing he bought the tech version versus the food version.

Haha, back in the days when I used to trade individual stocks I did a similar thing and bought Tata motors in India.... I also made money on that mistaken trade.

I have since leaned that individual stock trading was far too stressful  and dumped everything into ETF's before and during the 2008 meltdown.. I'm much happier now..:)

[2sk22]

I have a good Cisco story.  I thought it was a food company (Sysco) in 1995 when DH talked about buying it with his rollover IRA from a government job. I think he invested $500 on it at the time, and it's grown to $7,500. Good thing he bought the tech version versus the food version.

Haha, back in the days when I used to trade individual stocks I did a similar thing and bought Tata motors in India.... I also made money on that mistaken trade.

I have since leaned that individual stock trading was far too stressful  and dumped everything into ETF's before and during the 2008 meltdown.. I'm much happier now..:)

Same here - the last time I bought individual stocks was in the late 1990s at the height of the Dotcom bubble. The riskiest investment currently in my portfolio is an ETF that tracks the DOW30 (but even that is only a relatively small fraction of the total)

[PathtoFIRE]

Good thing he bought the tech version versus the food version.

I quick look at Yahoo Finance seems to suggest that $500 of Sysco stock at the beginning of 1995 would be worth around $6000 today, so looks like either way it would be doing alright.

[Fomerly known as something]

I’ve recently begun individual stocks again.  The last time I owned any was having a real estate company in 2008.  I throw $25 a week in my sandbox account.  I see it more of a way not to mess with my primary accounts vs. actually investing.

[Exflyboy]

I almost considered throwing $1000 into Bitcoin when I first heard about it. It sounded like an interesting technology at the very least and, heck, why not? Would not have been surprised (or hurt) if I lost it all.

I sue wish I had...:).

[2sk22]

I’ve recently begun individual stocks again.  The last time I owned any was having a real estate company in 2008.  I throw $25 a week in my sandbox account.  I see it more of a way not to mess with my primary accounts vs. actually investing.

There used to be a company called Sharebuilder that I used until it shut down in in 2017. They offered a nice feature I haven't seen anywhere else - you could specify a fixed dollar amount of any share to be purchased every month. In other words, you could do fractional purchase of any share. I mainly used it to buy the Dow ETF but as a fun exercise, I allowed each of my daughters to pick one company to buy regularly: one picked Disney and the other picked Valero (since there is a Valero gas station we used to pass every day on the way to school). I used to buy $5 of each of these shares ever week on Tuesday and it has built up to a decent amount now twenty years later

[Lake]

My worst investment mistake I ever made was with Nvidia. You’d think it would be my investment in MCI worlcom that went bankrupt but nope. I bought NVDA in 2013 when I started thinking about FIRE. I invested $3000.00 and several years later when I had made about $50,000 on it I thought it’s better to get out too early than too late. I just envisioned making that much on a stock and having it crater and losing it all. The other day I did a little back of the envelope math and that original investment looked like it would have been over $300,000. I can’t remember exactly how many splits there have been as I don’t really want to do the actual math to see what those shares would be worth today. I just remember there was like a gold rush for their chips from crypto miners that seemed like a short term bump. The only lesson I learned is that it’s impossible to time when to sell an individual stock and I’m much better suited to total market funds. I’m also no longer envious of anyone hitting a stock that goes through the moon because I know I would have taken too much off the table to ever let it get that high.

[Louise]

My worst investment mistake I ever made was with Nvidia. You’d think it would be my investment in MCI worlcom that went bankrupt but nope. I bought NVDA in 2013 when I started thinking about FIRE. I invested $3000.00 and several years later when I had made about $50,000 on it I thought it’s better to get out too early than too late. I just envisioned making that much on a stock and having it crater and losing it all. The other day I did a little back of the envelope math and that original investment looked like it would have been over $300,000. I can’t remember exactly how many splits there have been as I don’t really want to do the actual math to see what those shares would be worth today. I just remember there was like a gold rush for their chips from crypto miners that seemed like a short term bump. The only lesson I learned is that it’s impossible to time when to sell an individual stock and I’m much better suited to total market funds. I’m also no longer envious of anyone hitting a stock that goes through the moon because I know I would have taken too much off the table to ever let it get that high.

I bought Google when it first became public. I sold it too. Much sooner than I should have, but I'm just not built to hold individual stocks. I feel OK knowing I own a little bit of everything in index funds.

[ATtiny85]

My worst investment mistake I ever made was with Nvidia. You’d think it would be my investment in MCI worlcom that went bankrupt but nope. I bought NVDA in 2013 when I started thinking about FIRE. I invested $3000.00 and several years later when I had made about $50,000 on it I thought it’s better to get out too early than too late. I just envisioned making that much on a stock and having it crater and losing it all. The other day I did a little back of the envelope math and that original investment looked like it would have been over $300,000. I can’t remember exactly how many splits there have been as I don’t really want to do the actual math to see what those shares would be worth today. I just remember there was like a gold rush for their chips from crypto miners that seemed like a short term bump. The only lesson I learned is that it’s impossible to time when to sell an individual stock and I’m much better suited to total market funds. I’m also no longer envious of anyone hitting a stock that goes through the moon because I know I would have taken too much off the table to ever let it get that high.

Sounds like a great win, not a mistake. You made some good money and learned to be an indexer.

[ixtap]

I didn't sell TSLA when it was sky high, if that makes anyone feel better... My gains are an enormous %, but I didn't have that much invested as it was part of a basket. I sold all of the solar companies in that basket at a loss when overall markets were at highs.

[couponvan]

I didn't sell TSLA when it was sky high, if that makes anyone feel better... My gains are an enormous %, but I didn't have that much invested as it was part of a basket. I sold all of the solar companies in that basket at a loss when overall markets were at highs.

That’s another one of our $5K winners

I swear my kids are the best market
Barometers. Hear about it in a game chat-tell mom and dad.

[Dicey]

My worst investment mistake I ever made was with Nvidia. You’d think it would be my investment in MCI worlcom that went bankrupt but nope. I bought NVDA in 2013 when I started thinking about FIRE. I invested $3000.00 and several years later when I had made about $50,000 on it I thought it’s better to get out too early than too late. I just envisioned making that much on a stock and having it crater and losing it all. The other day I did a little back of the envelope math and that original investment looked like it would have been over $300,000. I can’t remember exactly how many splits there have been as I don’t really want to do the actual math to see what those shares would be worth today. I just remember there was like a gold rush for their chips from crypto miners that seemed like a short term bump. The only lesson I learned is that it’s impossible to time when to sell an individual stock and I’m much better suited to total market funds. I’m also no longer envious of anyone hitting a stock that goes through the moon because I know I would have taken too much off the table to ever let it get that high.

What did you do with the $50k? You really could run those numbers to have a little mercy on yourself. Unless you blew it on something shiny that depreciates, you've probably done better than you think.

[BeanCounter]

My worst investment mistake was not holding onto stock purchased through an employee stock purchase plan. We were able to buy at a 15% discount on the lowest price of the quarter. I didn’t buy a lot. I should have bought a lot more. When I left the company in 2015 I thought I was so smart and knew stuff. I thought that the ACA would impact their performance so I sold my $13k of shares. I just looked it up. Those shares would be worth $118k now.
That’s pretty painful.

@couponvan i know what you mean! My kid was talking to me about Nvidia in the summer of 2021!!!

[Lake]

My worst investment mistake I ever made was with Nvidia. You’d think it would be my investment in MCI worlcom that went bankrupt but nope. I bought NVDA in 2013 when I started thinking about FIRE. I invested $3000.00 and several years later when I had made about $50,000 on it I thought it’s better to get out too early than too late. I just envisioned making that much on a stock and having it crater and losing it all. The other day I did a little back of the envelope math and that original investment looked like it would have been over $300,000. I can’t remember exactly how many splits there have been as I don’t really want to do the actual math to see what those shares would be worth today. I just remember there was like a gold rush for their chips from crypto miners that seemed like a short term bump. The only lesson I learned is that it’s impossible to time when to sell an individual stock and I’m much better suited to total market funds. I’m also no longer envious of anyone hitting a stock that goes through the moon because I know I would have taken too much off the table to ever let it get that high.

What did you do with the $50k? You really could run those numbers to have a little mercy on yourself. Unless you blew it on something shiny that depreciates, you've probably done better than you think.

@Dicey thanks for the perspective. I ended up just converting it to VTI so it could have been worse:) I won’t mention all the other exceptionally dumb things I’ve done in my life and yet somehow still made it into this club.

@BeanCounter don’t beat yourself up too much. After Enron the right call is usually diversifying out of the company you work for but it still hurts to add up what could have been:)

@ATtiny85 thanks yes it was good lesson on finding a comfort zone.

@Louise I totally agree.

[Exflyboy]

I worked for a hi tech fortune 500 company for 27 years.. Had all kinds of stock options.. Which expired worthless because the company cratered. They were worth over $100k at one point.

I used to roll my 401k into and out of company stock and made 36% one year.. I was so glad I realised how risky that was. I lots the stock options but at least I didn't lose my shirt!

[MaybeBabyMustache]

@Exflyboy - we've had varying stock experiences. Really wish I'd kept my MSFT options ;-) Also, if you don't mind me asking, how do you like Corvallis? I grew up in SW Washington, but haven't spend any time there, and DS18 is considering OSU for college in the fall. I've heard it's a great college town.