Race from 100 to 250k

[Uncle Scrooge]

I really enjoyed reading the 10-100k thread. Let's start a race to a quarter million!

Net worth:

Jan 1, 2015:    $110,000
Feb 1, 2015:    $114,700
March 1,2015:  $119,400
April 1,2015:    $132,700
May 1,2015:     $138,000
     

[Breck]

Good timing to start this race for me :)

Jan 1, 2015:    $184,600
Feb 1, 2015:    $196,000
March 1,2015:  $208,000
April 1,2015:    $224,850
May 1,2015:     $236,000

[FIreDrill]

Sweet! A race I can be apart of.  We should hit 250k by Jan 2017, I am hoping to hit 200k sometime in 2015 but that will be a stretch.


Jan 1, 2015:    $113,226
Feb 1, 2015:    $120,796
March 1,2015:  $125,852
April 1,2015:    $134,096
May 1,2015:     $147,916

[StartingEarly]

At about 110k now.

[Uncle Scrooge]

I really enjoyed reading the 10-100k thread. Let's start a race to a quarter million!

Net worth:

Jan 1, 2015:    $110,000
Feb 1, 2015:    $114,700
March 1,2015:  $119,400
April 1,2015:    $132,700
May 1,2015:     $138,000
     

June 1,2015: $140,600

[FIreDrill]

Sweet! A race I can be apart of.  We should hit 250k by Jan 2017, I am hoping to hit 200k sometime in 2015 but that will be a stretch.


Jan 1, 2015:    $113,226
Feb 1, 2015:    $120,796
March 1,2015:  $125,852
April 1,2015:    $134,096
May 1,2015:     $147,916

Hit just over 152,000 this month.

[retireatbirth]

I will join in. I don't have exact historical number since my 401k isn't linked to Mint, but I hit $100k in late January.

6/5/15: $120,300

[2Birds1Stone]

I'm absolutely in!

Investable Assets are right at $99-100k as of this month. Net worth is ~20k higher.

[FIreDrill]

Great to see some additional  folks joining  this thread! 

Sent from my klte using Tapatalk

[savingstldad]

I never know if I should include home equity or pre-tax 401k amounts in my net worth.

[oinkette]

I'll join in.  As of this morning I am at $125,957.81
 
My current job is pretty middle class (maybe slightly above) but my expenses, since moving into a rented room, are quite low (<$1,000/mo).  I'm hoping to move to a city where I will make a lot more, but maintain a low cost lifestyle.  Plotting and planning right now.

[greenmimama]

I want to join in but it will take me awhile to figure out our NW, it's in about 3 diff. types and I don't have a good number on any of them right now, I know I should do better.

I am assuming this is only money you have invested, not the equity in your home, right?

[gecko10x]

I'll join!

Jan 2015: 148k 156k
May 2015: 186k

Goal is 250k somewhere near the end of 2017

[Uncle Scrooge]

I want to join in but it will take me awhile to figure out our NW, it's in about 3 diff. types and I don't have a good number on any of them right now, I know I should do better.

I am assuming this is only money you have invested, not the equity in your home, right?

I'd consider net worth being all of your assets minus your debts, so home equity would count.

It's hard to know what your house is really worth until you sell it, so I keep my house at a conservative number and keep it the same each month, that way there's no fluctuation in my NW.

[ohyonghao]

I want to join in but it will take me awhile to figure out our NW, it's in about 3 diff. types and I don't have a good number on any of them right now, I know I should do better.

I am assuming this is only money you have invested, not the equity in your home, right?

I'd consider net worth being all of your assets minus your debts, so home equity would count.

It's hard to know what your house is really worth until you sell it, so I keep my house at a conservative number and keep it the same each month, that way there's no fluctuation in my NW.

Having just graduated from the race to 100k thread (yippy!) I'll now join this one.  It was debated there also, and I'm assuming many times on these forums, in the end it is left up to personal preference, the net worth police aren't going to kick down your door for including something they consider a mere possession rather than an asset.  I figure the house is an asset that reduces my expenditures by the amount I would have spent otherwise on securing shelter, it's just not a very liquid asset that can be transferred to other kinds of assets easily.

In this vain I don't consider my car an asset as much as it is a liability.  Without a car I wouldn't seek or expend more on transportation as I get everywhere on my bike.  Possessing it does nothing to reduce this amount, if anything it costs me considerably more due to licensing and insurance to have it sit 5 days out of 7 most weeks, but is a luxury I choose to possess.

For me I use the current Zestimate (Zillow's estimate) of my houses value when calculating networth.  This happens to keep my budget software in line with Personal Capital which uses the same method.

Here are my numbers:
May 2015: $100,323.89

Our goal is to reach $117k by years end, which we may have to adjust as that is just under $3k/mo, whereas we have averaged about $5k/mo.  We have a goal to get our AGI under $61k to reap the savers tax credit, which means we need to utilize our retirement savings a bit more.

[mrshudson]

I'm in. I'm reporting networth (split over retirement and taxable accounts) the first of every month. Portfolio is 90% index funds, 10% dividend paying stocks (I'm 29, will reallocate when approaching late thirties, and not planning to RE in thirties, but just FI.)

Jan 2015 - $94,000
Feb 2015 - $ 97,000
Mar 2015 - $106,000
Apr 2015 - $108,000
May 2015 - $114,000
June 2015 - $ 117,000

[Uncle Scrooge]

I want to join in but it will take me awhile to figure out our NW, it's in about 3 diff. types and I don't have a good number on any of them right now, I know I should do better.

I am assuming this is only money you have invested, not the equity in your home, right?

I'd consider net worth being all of your assets minus your debts, so home equity would count.

It's hard to know what your house is really worth until you sell it, so I keep my house at a conservative number and keep it the same each month, that way there's no fluctuation in my NW.

For me I use the current Zestimate (Zillow's estimate) of my houses value when calculating networth.  This happens to keep my budget software in line with Personal Capital which uses the same method.

I was using the Zillow estimate for a while too, but it tended to jump around alot, especially this year. I'd say my house is worth around 210k or so, but Zillow was saying it was worth 180k then the next month it jumped to 200k, then the month after that it went up to 235k then back down to 217k. It was throwing my spreadsheet out of whack, so I just picked a conservative static number (200k) and I'll keep my house at that figure until I sell it.

[ohyonghao]

I was using the Zillow estimate for a while too, but it tended to jump around alot, especially this year. I'd say my house is worth around 210k or so, but Zillow was saying it was worth 180k then the next month it jumped to 200k, then the month after that it went up to 235k then back down to 217k. It was throwing my spreadsheet out of whack, so I just picked a conservative static number (200k) and I'll keep my house at that figure until I sell it.

I haven't seen that personally, but if I did I would probably do the same thing, or calculate it myself off of comps.  My wife watches the real estate market here relentlessly so we have a fairly good idea of what our house is worth.  This past year and this year has been pretty insane around here.  We bought our house December of 2013 at $220k, now same layout, year, neighborhood, we see them being sold in a week for $275k.  Zillow still estimates $250k, but I'm sure if we wanted to sell we could get the higher number out of it.  Our neighborhood/hoa has some history that depressed the sales price even during the beginning of the recovering market.  We lucked out and picked up a second hand short sale (one bought by an investor, remodeled lightly, then sold) and haven't seen another at the same price since.

Personal Capital can be funny too, like when I paid off a credit card the $3k showed as increased net worth for a day as the CC reported the balance down, but the bank hadn't sent the money yet.  I take my net worth from my budget software (YNAB) which doesn't get fooled by such tricks, and reports it by the month anyway because who really cares about a day by day net worth value anyway?

[FIreDrill]

I want to join in but it will take me awhile to figure out our NW, it's in about 3 diff. types and I don't have a good number on any of them right now, I know I should do better.

I am assuming this is only money you have invested, not the equity in your home, right?

I'd consider net worth being all of your assets minus your debts, so home equity would count.

It's hard to know what your house is really worth until you sell it, so I keep my house at a conservative number and keep it the same each month, that way there's no fluctuation in my NW.

For me I use the current Zestimate (Zillow's estimate) of my houses value when calculating networth.  This happens to keep my budget software in line with Personal Capital which uses the same method.

I was using the Zillow estimate for a while too, but it tended to jump around alot, especially this year. I'd say my house is worth around 210k or so, but Zillow was saying it was worth 180k then the next month it jumped to 200k, then the month after that it went up to 235k then back down to 217k. It was throwing my spreadsheet out of whack, so I just picked a conservative static number (200k) and I'll keep my house at that figure until I sell it.

I keep my home value static as well...  Zillow is all over the place over the course of any 6 month period.  I may adjust it up/down once a year if the market moves significantly enough.

[Guava]

I will join!

Jan 2015: 89,640
Feb 2015: 93,225
Mar 2015: 112,015
Apr 2015: 116,045
May 2015: 120,820

[Auldtriangle8]

I'm in too!

Jan 2015: 94,500
Feb 2015: 107,000
Mar 2015: 109,000
Apr 2015: 118,500
May 2015: 122,000

Estimated date is early 2018.

[Uncle Scrooge]

Does anyone want to set up a Google Doc like they did in the race to 100k? That sounds like a neat idea. I'd do it, but it's not my forte.

[Frugal_NYC]

I'll join in:

8/27/14: $78.2K
1/26/15: $95.8K
6/22/15: $112.6K

[ohyonghao]

Numbers are in now:
May 2015:  $100,323.89
June 2015: $106,433.29

An increase of $6,109.40, not too shabby.  We also started contributing to my 401k this month.  I hadn't contributed before because there is no match, but the funds actually aren't too bad, mostly index funds or target funds with low MER's, comparable to Vanguard's.  Currently contributing 12% while maxing out our IRA's and HSA.  May change to maxing out 401k first, then contributing to IRA's since those can be done after the end of the year in case I need to lower my AGI.

[Uncle Scrooge]

Net worth:

Jan 1, 2015:     $110,000
Feb 1, 2015:     $114,700
March 1,2015:  $119,400
April 1,2015:     $132,700
May 1,2015:     $138,000
June 1,2015:    $140,600
July 1,2015:     $139,600

Unfortunately, June was a bad month financially. I had to make a few large one-time purchases which cost about 3k total, and then the market lost a couple percent at the end of the month. Oh well, July should be much better. It's an extra paycheck month!

[ohyonghao]

Net worth:

Jan 1, 2015:     $110,000
Feb 1, 2015:     $114,700
March 1,2015:  $119,400
April 1,2015:     $132,700
May 1,2015:     $138,000
June 1,2015:    $140,600
July 1,2015:     $139,300

Unfortunately, June was a bad month financially. I had to make a few large one-time purchases which cost about 3k total, and then the market lost a couple percent at the end of the month. Oh well, July should be much better. It's an extra paycheck month!

Great job on the $30k increase so far this year!

We get paid weekly, so I have 4 of those a year.  I thought it was funny when I was getting the loan for our house that the insist on taking my weekly pay times 4.33 to get my monthly salary as I've always budgeted based on 4 weeks.  Using the YNAB method my 5th paycheck actually doesn't come into my budget until August, but it still increases my net worth in July.

[Uncle Scrooge]

Thank you. Since finding MMM, we have become really focused on paying off all debts and increasing our NW. We still have so much frivolous spending that we can cut back on, but man is it hard. I love my daily Dunkin Donuts hahah.

It looks like you're doing a great job this year as well. Keep up the good work!

[retireatbirth]

I will join in. I don't have exact historical number since my 401k isn't linked to Mint, but I hit $100k in late January.

6/5/15: $120,300

7/3/15: $120,800

[Wads]

Feb 1, 2015:      $184,568
March 1,2015:   $195,888
April 1,2015:      $198,602
May 1,2015:      $209,565
June 1,2015:     $223,876
July 1,2015:      $232,773

[fb132]

Just found out this thread and curious. How are you all increasing the NW by 30-40K in 6mos.  I am estimating that I could add only 3k (that too if i cut down on almost all expenses under tight budget )from my after tax to my savings acct, which I am planning to put in taxable acct in index funds. I add some to 401K that would be another $600pm including employer match. even then it is only~21k for 6 mos. I have <50k in 401k, which would not perform to the extent to cover the rest to achieve 30-40k per 6 months. Just wanted to know what am I missing. Is it just high earnings(salary)in general? By the way what is the average time to go from 100-250k. With my estimation it is going to take atleast 4 yrs to cover 150k. Is that what we are looking at?


Am going to read the 10k to 100k thread as well to get more information.
H2R

It has to be big salary, low expenses. I make low income and despite saving about 50% of my income, I come nowhere near the huge increase in networth that some get. Yes I am jealous :P

[Wads]

Just found out this thread and curious. How are you all increasing the NW by 30-40K in 6mos.  I am estimating that I could add only 3k (that too if i cut down on almost all expenses under tight budget )from my after tax to my savings acct, which I am planning to put in taxable acct in index funds. I add some to 401K that would be another $600pm including employer match. even then it is only~21k for 6 mos. I have <50k in 401k, which would not perform to the extent to cover the rest to achieve 30-40k per 6 months. Just wanted to know what am I missing. Is it just high earnings(salary)in general? By the way what is the average time to go from 100-250k. With my estimation it is going to take atleast 4 yrs to cover 150k. Is that what we are looking at?

Once you get over the 100K range the growth seems to be much faster. Personally, I have one rental unit and also invest outside of index funds. There is no right or wrong way of investing, the most important part is a high saving rate and the rest will take care of itself IMO.

[Uncle Scrooge]

Just found out this thread and curious. How are you all increasing the NW by 30-40K in 6mos.  I am estimating that I could add only 3k (that too if i cut down on almost all expenses under tight budget )from my after tax to my savings acct, which I am planning to put in taxable acct in index funds. I add some to 401K that would be another $600pm including employer match. even then it is only~21k for 6 mos. I have <50k in 401k, which would not perform to the extent to cover the rest to achieve 30-40k per 6 months. Just wanted to know what am I missing. Is it just high earnings(salary)in general? By the way what is the average time to go from 100-250k. With my estimation it is going to take atleast 4 yrs to cover 150k. Is that what we are looking at?


Am going to read the 10k to 100k thread as well to get more information.
H2R

I can't speak for everyone here, but in my situation we have two incomes (DW and myself). Neither of us make super incomes, but it's nothing to sneeze at either. We are constantly working on lowering expenses as well. We've also received a higher than normal tax return this year as well as an unexpected windfall as a gift from a family member.

[Guava]

June 2015: $125,300

Just found out this thread and curious. How are you all increasing the NW by 30-40K in 6mos.  I am estimating that I could add only 3k (that too if i cut down on almost all expenses under tight budget )from my after tax to my savings acct, which I am planning to put in taxable acct in index funds. I add some to 401K that would be another $600pm including employer match. even then it is only~21k for 6 mos. I have <50k in 401k, which would not perform to the extent to cover the rest to achieve 30-40k per 6 months. Just wanted to know what am I missing. Is it just high earnings(salary)in general? By the way what is the average time to go from 100-250k. With my estimation it is going to take atleast 4 yrs to cover 150k. Is that what we are looking at?


Am going to read the 10k to 100k thread as well to get more information.
H2R

I suppose I have a higher salary for my LCOL area which helps. I have been trying to cut expenses and focus more on saving in the last six months too. I also have shares of multiple rental properties that provide a little boost. However, this is by far the best year I have had for NW increase ever.

[Mikhial]

Just found out this thread and curious. How are you all increasing the NW by 30-40K in 6mos.  I am estimating that I could add only 3k (that too if i cut down on almost all expenses under tight budget )from my after tax to my savings acct, which I am planning to put in taxable acct in index funds. I add some to 401K that would be another $600pm including employer match. even then it is only~21k for 6 mos. I have <50k in 401k, which would not perform to the extent to cover the rest to achieve 30-40k per 6 months. Just wanted to know what am I missing. Is it just high earnings(salary)in general? By the way what is the average time to go from 100-250k. With my estimation it is going to take atleast 4 yrs to cover 150k. Is that what we are looking at?


Am going to read the 10k to 100k thread as well to get more information.
H2R

My guess is the people who are doing better are more likely to respond, so this thread is biased towards high incones and low spending rates.

[Enough]

Slow and Steady

Jan-15    $103,510
Feb-15    $104,580
Mar-15    $113,223
Apr-15    $118,072
May-15    $122,214
Jun-15    $124,279
Jul-15    $126,969

Guessing that I'll hit it March 2018.

[mrshudson]

Okay, I added about $1800 in June, but balance fluctuates due to market performance, and so I'm flat at $117,000.

Jan 2015 - $94,000
Feb 2015 - $ 97,000
Mar 2015 - $106,000
Apr 2015 - $108,000
May 2015 - $114,000
June 2015 - $ 117,000
July 2015 ~ $117,000 $120,000

Edited to add: I managed to add another $1500 today, which has brought up my total to $120,000. Normally I would refrain from making mid-month updates on this thread, but $120,000 is an important milestone for me so I'm making an update. It has been taking me around 2-3 months to hit an increment of $10,000. Hit $100,000 in mid-February, $110,000 in mid-April, $120,000 in mid-July. I should be on track to hit my target of $140,000 by the end of the year.

[ohyonghao]

For what it's worth, I make $85k/year, paid weekly.  I just recently started putting money into our 401k, which doesn't have a match, but this will get our AGI below $60k which in turn qualifies us for the saver's credit.

This year the big thing that has increased our net worth is our house.  When we bought it in December of 2013 our local neighborhood was in a depressed market due to some litigation with the builders.  That lawsuit has now been settled, and repairs made, so people who were stuck here before are now selling and house prices have gone up about $60k, though ours has only gone up $34k.  They still are not back to what they were when they were originally sold in 2005, so we may see another year of fast growth up probably another $30k before slowing down to a more normal inflation rate.  Our other investments are all just index funds in different buckets, be it HSA - Vanguard, IRA - Vanguard, or 401k - Merril Lynch.

All in all we put aside about $3,100 a month into house principal and retirement accounts, and still have a little left over after everything else.  Our current savings rate is about 55%, might be able to squeeze that up to 60%, depending on unforeseen expenses, like a broken bicycle which we had over the weekend.  Our yearly expenses are $26k including our lavish personal spending money, or about $21k if we were to trim down on those.

[BBub]

I'll join!  Tracking liquid investments only:

Jun 2014: $100k
Sep 2014: $130k
Dec 2014: $155k
Mar 2015: $186k
Jun 2015: $219k

Hopefully will break $250 by end of 3rd quarter!  If so, total time will have been 15 months.

[Wads]

Jun 2014: $100k
Sep 2014: $130k
Dec 2014: $155k
Mar 2015: $186k
Jun 2015: $219ks.

Nice gains BBub!

[StartingEarly]

About 119k, having to opt out of the race due to unemployment. I will be drawing on my savings for the interim.

[Uncle Scrooge]

About 119k, having to opt out of the race due to unemployment. I will be drawing on my savings for the interim.

Sorry to hear that. I hope you land on your feet quickly.

[BBub]

Jun 2014: $100k
Sep 2014: $130k
Dec 2014: $155k
Mar 2015: $186k
Jun 2015: $219ks.

Nice gains BBub!

Thanks Resignby35!

[codemonkey]

This is for our Investment Accounts only.

January 2015:  $77,300
February 2015: $90,000
March 2015:     $95,000
April 2015:       $106,000
May 2015:        $109,000
June 2015:       $111,000
July 2015:        $115,800
August 2015:   $117,700 
Sept 2015:       $112,700
Oct 2015:         $116,500
Nov 2015:        $124,000
Dec 2015:        $127,400

7/15: Our biggest gain was from a year end bonus and then a tax return.  We finally hit the 100,000 mark in late March.  The rest of the year will be fairly steady, with market fluctuations helping with increases / decreases in gains.

8/15: Despite withdrawing $1,100 from our HSA to pay the hospital bill for the birth of our son, we still made some  progress from July to August.  I plan on putting that amount in our taxable account by the end of the year.

9/6: We put just as much into our investments as usual, but The Market decided we should lose a bunch of money anyway.  This was our first negative month since we started saving for retirement in mid 2010.

10/5 Still below our August number despite continuing contributions, but at least it wasn't another negative month

11/1 The market rebounded a bunch and helped boost our numbers back to where I was hoping they would be by this time of year

12/1 Slow and steady over the last month.  It's rewarding to look back and see how far we've come during the year since this was the first year we started budgeting and really trying to save and not waste our money.  It took us 5 years to reach the 77k mark that we started the year with.

[Uncle Scrooge]

This is for our Investment Accounts only.

January 2015:  $76,000
July 2015:       $115,000

Wow! Almost a 40k gain in half a year. Very impressive!

[codemonkey]

This is for our Investment Accounts only.

January 2015:  $76,000
July 2015:       $115,000

Wow! Almost a 40k gain in half a year. Very impressive!

Thank you!  We have been really working hard to save 50% of our gross this year.  Last year we hit 32% and then spent every extra penny.  We found MMM half way through the year and after 6 months of reading and discussing, we've majorly changed our purchasing habits.

I'm fairly happy with the results so far, especially since we just welcomed baby #4 two weeks ago.  The second half of the year will definitely be more challenging to keep our expenses down since we'll be a bit more tired and busy.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's net worth grow along with ours!

[recipro]

Based on Mint--

Jan 15: $147,400
Feb 15: $156,100
Mar 15: $154,400
Apr 15: $153,800
May 15: $161,600
Jun 15: $156,400

Not much climbing so far this year, since I was unemployed from February until May, and also traveled abroad. Hoping to get back to saving soon, though!

[oinkette]

The way it's going at this point my goal is to get to $150K net worth by the end of the year. Most of that will be contributions, so the extra tiny push will come from the market and reinvested dividends/capital gains. I'm currently sitting on ~128K.

[Justin1911]

I'm in! New Mustachian here and its time for me to step up to the plate. On 21 July I added up my net worth between cash, Roth TSP, Roth IRA, taxable account and I'm sitting on $96,990. I'm ready to push hard towards 250k.

I'm 29 years old. bring home 63k yearly. Trying to save 50% of each paycheck since discovering MMM two months ago. 

[ohyonghao]

I'm in! New Mustachian here and its time for me to step up to the plate. On 21 July I added up my net worth between cash, Roth TSP, Roth IRA, taxable account and I'm sitting on $96,990. I'm ready to push hard towards 250k.

I'm 29 years old. bring home 63k yearly. Trying to save 50% of each paycheck since discovering MMM two months ago.

Welcome to this thread, and Mustachianism!

[ender]

I love reading threads like this!