Celebrations Thread

[aimlesstourist]

Just finished paying off my grad student loans!! Grinded for several years and was very disciplined with our household budget and money and it's now paid off. A huge worry source gone for good.

[midweststache]

Just finished paying off my grad student loans!! Grinded for several years and was very disciplined with our household budget and money and it's now paid off. A huge worry source gone for good.

AMAZING! CONGRATS! WOO HOO! This is awesome!

[The Beebsta]

Crazy how much easier the second one was....

The third one was a little bumpy due to inflation but rode it out and arrived. 

Congratulations @Huffduf41! $2m to $3m in just over 3 years. That’s very impressive and incredibly inspiring to see!

[chasingthegoodlife]

Yesterday I sold my investment property (my first home) at auction for a lot more than expected. I’m still feeling shocked.


I won’t be talking about this much in person - I have friends who are struggling to get into the housing market - so I post here to say ‘Hurray’ Wow! Thank god that stressful process is over’.

[midweststache]

Yesterday I sold my investment property (my first home) at auction for a lot more than expected. I’m still feeling shocked.


I won’t be talking about this much in person - I have friends who are struggling to get into the housing market - so I post here to say ‘Hurray’ Wow! Thank god that stressful process is over’.

Congrats! Glad you can shout it here! :)


Almost a year ago I texted DH with an image of our YNAB assets, which had just tripped over $1M. This week, we tipped over $500K in investment-only net assets (!), which was my next goal. But while that line is still fluctuating with the market (we could easily be back under next month) our assets are $1.12M, which is BONKERS to me. In just under 11 months, our NW has increased $125K+.

It's been kind of a hard month for us, with some surprise large purchases/fixes, and I was really bummed to not hit our savings goals for the first 6 months of the year due to those things; however, looking at this is a great reminder that we're still doing the work by automated savings efforts and trusting the market, even if our three-paycheck-month gets eaten up by home ownership and kiddos being kiddos.

[thedigitalone]

We hit our 4% number in our liquid accounts this month, $2.5m and change. Now we just need to finish off about $275k in mortgage and college obligations and we can FIRE, it's finally starting to feel 'real'.

Maybe as early as 2025 if this market run keeps up?

[Sibley]

We hit our 4% number in our liquid accounts this month, $2.5m and change. Now we just need to finish off about $275k in mortgage and college obligations and we can FIRE, it's finally starting to feel 'real'.

Maybe as early as 2025 if this market run keeps up?

You're in the home stretch!

[Glenstache]

I have been waiting a really long time to make this post. Circa 2013 I was putting away maybe 10% of my income and had a shiny new red pickup truck and a piece of property in the mountains. I thought I was doing okay. Then I started reading some FIRE stuff, and binge read all of the MM blog posts and started making spreadsheets and really exploring the idea. I sold the red truck and bought a cheap ass car. I bumped up to a 50 to 70% savings rate. I maxed out my retirement contributions early each year and set a rule that any money above a certain amount in the bank would go to my taxable brokerage after that. Then there was the long progression in the middle. I finally sold the property in the mountains and dumpted that into investments too. I reached super lean FI in late 2021 and shifted to coast mode and reduced my hours at work. Last night I logged off of my work computer for the last time and fully pulled the plug and am officially FIRE'd. Whew! Made it!

While I did work hard and was consistent about my approach, I also realize that I hav been very fortunate in life to get where I am. I happened to have been born smart enough and raised to be diligent enough to be able to get here. I know many hard working people that, even wiht frugal habits, simply don't have the resources to be able to retire early because of the sequence of things that have happened in their lives. I don't intend to waste the opportunity, and I also appreciate the face-punch part of this community that set the example and demonstrated that it can work.

[grantmeaname]

Fuck yeah! Congrats, Glenstache!

[chasingthegoodlife]

Well done Glenstache and well said.

[OttawaNeal]

Congratulations @Glenstache! Awesome! 😊

[DaKini]

Holy cow, im quite impressed and very euphoric! What big difference such small steps yould yield... Its really impressing to see such changes in only 8 months time!

Ten years later… we just crossed the 400k€ mark.
While we could certailny have done better or be more aggressive, I think we put our not saved €€€ to good work to improve our lifes.
Fire under the current circumstances (we got some unexpected rise in rent and bills along the way) is still about ten years away, but that is still in the ballpark which my prognosis spit out ten years ago.
And as the kids grow older, expenses also shift around, so this can not be more than a rough estimate.
Speaking of kids: they both know how to save and what return and compounding is, which makes me very proud. They are careful users of their bank-of-dad savings book. They still just receive 1€ fixed plus interest (which is the big beef: 10% per month, capped to the age). And they hold substancial real stock themself, bought from the surplus after the capping…

Greetings from Germany,
A proud bavarian dad

[Trifle]

Congratulations @DaKini! Very well done with both your savings and passing on knowledge to your kids. 

[footwear]

Crossed $1mil NW for the first time when doing our monthly pulse check on finances. Feels like the first big accomplishment on this journey...feels good! Onto the next million...ha!

[Turtle]

Congratulations @footwear and here’s to the next one!  It might surprise you how much faster it goes than this one.