A neat milestone

[laurence]

So doing some end year financial research and data mining my portfolio, I realized something cool: my portolio's return (interest, dividends, appreciation, what have you) for '06 was greater than my contributions for the first time. Now this is partially because I had to cut contributions drastically once DW stayed home, but I'm still contributing 10% of our income. It's pretty cool to see this thing build steam!

Now I've got to come up with a new milestone. I hit 100k a while back, and saying "whoo-hoo! 120k rocks!" just doesn't have the ring to it. 200k is a way off, I need something to feed my immediate gratification monkey.

[LOL!]

Congrats. When your portfolio's return is more than your W2 income, you will start salivating.

[d]

When your portfolio's return is more than your W2 income, you will start salivating

well ... that can happen for one of two reasons, and depending on ...

[lowflyer]

Originally Posted by Laurence

It's pretty cool to see this thing build steam!

Quite a few years ago when I spent alot of time "projecting" what my/our portfolio would look like someday, I mentioned to my Dad that "it really picks up steam as it grows." His comment was that it still only grows at the same basic rate, just on more dollars. Well, he might have been technically correct, but now that I've (sort of) arrived, I'm here to tell you that it really DOES pick up steam! The more it grows, the more attention it needs. Just like kids, I suppose.

Congrats on your milestone(s)

[Rich_in_Tampa]

That's a big psychologic milestone. It brings compounding home. Well done, Buddy.

[maddythebeagle]

Time for some beer and nachos

[WM]

Fun! That's the kind of milestone I'm excited to look forward to!

[bssc]

Congratulations and good work.

[Spanky]

Yea -- you are on your way.

[califdreamer]

You're way ahead of where I was at 32. Congrats.

[sparkythewonderdog]

Originally Posted by Laurence

I realized something cool: my portolio's return ... for '06 was greater than my contributions for the first time. ... It's pretty cool to see this thing build steam!

Congratulations on a great start and, yes, it is gratifyihg to watch it build up steam over time. You may very likely also see periods over the years when your portfolio shrinks by more than your contributions. 2001-02 comes to mind. It is indeed discouraging to keep putting money in while watching balances go down. Keeping your head and staying the course through those periods leads to an even bigger bounceback once things turn back around. No, it's not "instant", but it's still very gratifying.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Woo hoo!

You do realize that avoiding unintentionally re-reaching 100k is a good goal too, hmmm?

[Surfdaddy]

For the past two years my earnings from my investments were each more than my salary before taxes! I thought that was a pretty darn good milestone!

Of course I managed to obtain a 32% return over those years. I'm not quite ready to pull the plug yet. But not too many more years should do it.

[Texas Proud]

Originally Posted by LOL!

Congrats. When your portfolio's return is more than your W2 income, you will start salivating.

JUST REMEMBER>>>. It Can go down... I remember when the value of my portfolio LOST more than my W-2 a few years back... it is when this happens that you find out how big your balls are...

[Siv]

Sounds nice.... congratulations.

My target portfolio at the moment is 100K but don't think I can do it all this year but should be by next year. Somehow, I don't know what else to buy / invest in since they're all seem to be up so much. Must be exciting to be making more than contributed...I guess I have to stay disciplined, it'll be my turn one day.

[Andre1969]

congratulations, Lawrence, that is a cool milestone! I had to cut back on my investing last year as well, mainly because I was simply investing too much in the first place, and left myself too short, cash-wise, when some big-ticket stuff came up like property taxes, car insurance, Christmas, etc.

$100K was an exciting milestone for me, but it came at a fairly turbulent time. I first hit it in January of 2004, but at that time I was juggling two residences, and worried about getting my condo fixed up to sell. Took me about 9 months to get to the $110K mark, so at that time, even a $10K jump seemed like a big goal.

$200K was also exciting, but very easy to come by, as the proceeds from selling my condo were what accounted for a big chunk of that. I hit that goal around June of '05.

$300K was a very frustrating milestone, because I got close in May of '06, topping out at $289K. But a month later it was more like $257K. Finally got to $300K in October, but a weird thing happened. By then it just seemed like an empty victory. I think part of it was seeing how fast the balance went down over the summer, and that showed just how fleeting these numbers can be. So now my next major goal is $400K, but I still get excited every time I hit a new $10K milestone.

I guess eventually I'll get to the point that a 10K swing doesn't excite me. Heck, seems not that long ago, I got excited whenever my balance went up another $500!

[Sandy]

Congratulations. The thing about this investing is that there always another milestone to set - until you say you are done. but the goals keep you motivated and on course.

[Mudd]

[i]it is when this happens that you find out how big your balls are... [/i]

My wife says mine fit nicely in her purse, and that's where they are staying.

Seriously. Congrats. After I hit 100k my next goal is to have the amount my 1st house costs in my retirement accounts. Little goals add up.

Mudd

[NinjaPigeon]

Very nice I'll be happy when I reach that point. I'm still enjoying watching a $200 upswing for a given day!

[Outtahere]

Great milestone to reach, congratulations Laurence!