Quote:
Originally Posted by timeasterday
I'm still a long way from retirement and only have been in the six figures for 3 years. That was a great milestone to reach and I'm happy to say that I am getting close to doubling that already.
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I have to admit, I sort of "cheated" my way into the 6-figure bracket. In the summer of 2003, my Mom surprised me with a bunch of savings bonds that she had started taking out when I was born. She had put them away somewhere, and totally forgotten about them. At that point, my NW was probably around $85,000, but when she gave them to me, it took me to about $101K. There was about $3700 worth that had already hit final maturity, which I cashed in and deposited at the bank. The rest came to about $12,500. The ones that haven't hit final maturity are paying around 4%, so I've been letting them sit until they hit the 30 year, final maturity mark, and then start cashing them in and putting them in my checking account.
Most of them have been cashed in now, though. I think what's left it worth about $2400. And, in the 1980's, Mom was much less aggressive with savings bonds. I don't think I had a single one to cash in 2011, and for 2012, only 1 or 2. I think there's another 1 or 2 this year, and the final one hits the 30 year mark in 2024.
Because of that, I guess, I didn't quite get the euphoric feeling I thought I'd get, from hitting the $100K mark. If you factor out those bonds, I hit the $100K mark sometime in early 2004. But by that time, I was trying to juggle a house, and getting a condo fixed up and ready to put on the market, and having problems with contractors. Plus having a pickup truck that tended to die at random. So, things were stressful enough to take my mind off the accumulation. The contractors fell so far behind schedule that I lucked out, because the condo saw some serious appreciation in value, and then when it sold, I cleared about $77K, and suddenly that put me over the $200K mark, and suddenly $100K was a forgotten memory, and I was focusing on a "quarter of a million dollars" (sounds so much more fancy than just "250K"
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For some reason, way back when I broke the $60K barrier (and didn't know about those savings bonds yet), which was around October 2000, I felt really proud, and on top of the world. Kind of an odd milestone to be proud of, I guess, but I was. Probably because I was so much younger and dumber then, and less jaded, and thought there was nothing but prosperity and good times ahead! I do remember I came close to buying a used motorhome around that time, but fortunately came to my senses. And, about a month later, I quit my evening pizza delivery job...although then I got nervous and went back, but found out I didn't need the money as bad as I thought I did, and quit again.
I wonder if I'll get any sort of magical feeling when I hit the $1M mark?
), if I add about $20K per year, and the portfolio returns about 5.4% per year, I should be at around $1M at the beginning of 2016.
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