Humorous article on reaching a million bucks.

[bclover]

And they mention Firecalc.
I just became a millionaire at age 35, and it's a huge letdown - Business Insider

 

[38Chevy454]

Article basically encourages the same philosophy that is stated on here:
1) LBYM
2) Save as much as possible

Of course for this guy his timing is good in that he has benefitted from good returns on his savings, and stayed in the market instead of bailing out. Good for him, it shows a regular guy without a huge income can get to $1M savings.

 

[Nemo2]

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/...E3du4z-3__bQSAQILkG6rbyiYtvrV5tvVauer8wNO7EsM

 

[Andre1969]

I can relate to the article. I hit that mythical $1M mark last year, in August or September I think. It was nice, but not a life-altering event.

I hit that mark at age 44 though...it would probably feel a lot more magical if I had hit it at 35! And, similar to the author of that article, I remember smaller milestones seeming to be a lot more important at the time.

 

[Big_Hitter]

wow, lots of hate in the comments - mostly sour grapes


good for the author

 

[jazz4cash]

wow, lots of hate in the comments - mostly sour grapes


good for the author

This post inspired me to actually read the comments and then I noticed the author claims to have gone from 100k to 1M in 7 years so I can see why there is so much skepticism.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Accounts by anonymous bloggers often get filed under "to be taken with giant grain of salt." But it will drive traffic to his blog, so good for him.

 

[Big_Hitter]

just goes to show that dollar cost averaging, scrimping and saving is what it takes to accumulate wealth on your own - I don't doubt he did what he claims

 

[MichaelB]

Accounts by anonymous bloggers often get filed under "to be taken with giant grain of salt."

Oh no. You mean these unsubstantiated accounts written on the internets by avatars using pseudonyms might not be entirely truthful and totally accurate? Say it isn't so.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Oh no. You mean these unsubstantiated accounts written on the internets by avatars using pseudonyms might not be entirely truthful and totally accurate? Say it isn't so.

I know! Imagine that. And it's not like there are very many of them, either .

They all have a few kernels of helpful information to offer so I see their appeal.

 

[NW-Bound]

Did he say what single hot stock he put all his money into? It's possible, you know.

 

[ls99]

Humerous article on reaching a million bucks

Hmmm. Can't figure out if my Humerus should be humored about a million bucks.

Alternatively there is a female in "Singlemuslim com" who may be intersted in a million bucks.

 

[marko]

If I'm reading the second chart correctly, he doubled his money every three years and did so for over a decade. Hmmmm.

Maybe I'm overlooking something.

 

[bclover]

Humerous article on reaching a million bucks

Hmmm. Can't figure out if my Humerus should be humored about a million bucks.

Alternatively there is a female in "Singlemuslim com" who may be intersted in a million bucks.

lol my bad. going back to fix

 

[MRG]

If I'm reading the second chart correctly, he doubled his money every three years and did so for over a decade. Hmmmm.

Maybe I'm overlooking something.

I think thats what is says. Pretty good returns Maybe everything on the Internet isn't real.

 

[ESRwannabe]

And they mention Firecalc.
I just became a millionaire at age 35, and it's a huge letdown - Business Insider

These financial independence websites must make descent money. I'd imagine anyone that has frequented message boards like this one could create the same product as these websites if they wanted to.

 

[Fred123]

Did he say what single hot stock he put all his money into? It's possible, you know.

He's one lucky dude. For the max rate he says he saved at ($40K), the low estimate for the annual return looks to be around 30%. For 8 years. I hope he diversifies very soon.

 

[Andre1969]

Now, after reading some of the comments here, you guys have me starting to question it! Initially, I couldn't read the date points on that graph because they were too fuzzy, but then I blew it up real big. Looks like it starts in April of 2006, goes in 2 month intervals, and ends at February 2015. And it looks like that graph starts at around $50K, and ends at the $1M mark.


In my own case, I had about $362K in April of 2006, and ended February at around $1,074K. So, while this guy's chart has gone up 20x over that period, mine has only gone up less than 3x.


Some of the trends in his graph are similar to mine, though. For instance, he shows a big jump from around Aug-Oct 2007. In my case, it was a jump from around $375K to $450K....about a 20% jump. However, August was a down month for me, where I lost about 10% compared to July.


Looks like his biggest drop was over the summer of 2011. I saw a similar drop, losing about 14% from 7/7/11 to 8/8/11. In those days, I kept track of peaks and valleys throughout the month, rather than just last-month data, so my own graph looks more volatile than one using simply month-end data would. However, to make it easier to compare over the years, I switched to month-end data starting in September 2011.


Oddly, the Great Recession doesn't seem so "great" on his graph. On mine, it's a big W-shaped monstrosity (I hit bottom around Thanksgiving '08, rebounded pretty nicely by January '09, but then cratered again in March '09). That little blip over the summer of '11 seemed to do more damage to him than the Great Recession did!


One area where I no doubt screwed myself up, compared to this guy, was that I started cashing out some investments in late 2012, and a lot more in 2013, when the market kept shooting up, to pay down the mortgage. I pulled out around $12K at the end of 2012, and close to $40K in 2013, most of that in the earlier part. The majority of 2013's run-up was later in the year, so I missed a bit of opportunity there.


As for my own journey from $100K to $1M, it took a bit longer than this guy. I first hit $100K in November of 2003. $1M came along in August of 2014. So, about 10 years, 9 months for me. I had a lot of help along the way though. Sold a condo in late 2004 and cleared about $76K. I also raided some home equity in the current home, and invested it. I'm not sure how much of the home equity went into investing though, as I went through a lot of phases of investing when the markets seemed down, but then paying down the HELOC when the rates went up, maxing the HELOC out during the Great Recession, and then paying down aggressively in 2012-13. My maximum limit was $175K, but with all the raiding, paying down, and buying other things, my accounting got messy.

 

[LOL!]

He probably didn't mention an inheritance.

 

[Bestwifeever]

Now, after reading some of the comments here, you guys have me starting to question it! Initially, I couldn't read the date points on that graph because they were too fuzzy, but then I blew it up real big. Looks like it starts in April of 2006, goes in 2 month intervals, and ends at February 2015. And it looks like that graph starts at around $50K, and ends at the $1M mark.


In my own case, I had about $362K in April of 2006, and ended February at around $1,074K. So, while this guy's chart has gone up 20x over that period, mine has only gone up less than 3x.


Some of the trends in his graph are similar to mine, though. For instance, he shows a big jump from around Aug-Oct 2007. In my case, it was a jump from around $375K to $450K....about a 20% jump. However, August was a down month for me, where I lost about 10% compared to July.


Looks like his biggest drop was over the summer of 2011. I saw a similar drop, losing about 14% from 7/7/11 to 8/8/11. In those days, I kept track of peaks and valleys throughout the month, rather than just last-month data, so my own graph looks more volatile than one using simply month-end data would. However, to make it easier to compare over the years, I switched to month-end data starting in September 2011.


Oddly, the Great Recession doesn't seem so "great" on his graph. On mine, it's a big W-shaped monstrosity (I hit bottom around Thanksgiving '08, rebounded pretty nicely by January '09, but then cratered again in March '09). That little blip over the summer of '11 seemed to do more damage to him than the Great Recession did!


One area where I no doubt screwed myself up, compared to this guy, was that I started cashing out some investments in late 2012, and a lot more in 2013, when the market kept shooting up, to pay down the mortgage. I pulled out around $12K at the end of 2012, and close to $40K in 2013, most of that in the earlier part. The majority of 2013's run-up was later in the year, so I missed a bit of opportunity there.


As for my own journey from $100K to $1M, it took a bit longer than this guy. I first hit $100K in November of 2003. $1M came along in August of 2014. So, about 10 years, 9 months for me. I had a lot of help along the way though. Sold a condo in late 2004 and cleared about $76K. I also raided some home equity in the current home, and invested it. I'm not sure how much of the home equity went into investing though, as I went through a lot of phases of investing when the markets seemed down, but then paying down the HELOC when the rates went up, maxing the HELOC out during the Great Recession, and then paying down aggressively in 2012-13. My maximum limit was $175K, but with all the raiding, paying down, and buying other things, my accounting got messy.

Now this is a story that is most believable to me--and congratulations on your accomplishments!

 

[sanfanciscotreat]

I do not remember the year that we reached a million in net worth.
Did not seem like such a big deal, as I knew we would need more.

 

[scrabbler1]

He also has no kids (a good choice) but wasn't clear if he intended to remain that way permanently.


I nearly hit $1M in 2007 but then the markets began tumbling so it took me another 3 years to recoup the losses (in those 3 years I ERed so it wasn't all bad LOL!).

 

[purplesky]

If this supposed millionaire gave the specifics of his investments his story might be more believable.

 

[MRG]

He did, low cost index funds. He really got better than average returns! Maybe if he published real data that was fact checked he wouldn't have an article like that to write?

Edit to add: I take articles like this to be like H.G. Wells. You can say our write almost anything today and get a bunch of exposure. Is it real or fiction?

 

[Surewhitey]

Sorry to burst your skeptical bubbles, but we had a savings rate of $10k+ / month, for many years.

This is very doable if you have a good job, large savings rate for many years...and ...the returns of the past 5 years.

This allowed us to do just what he's talking about at ages 41 & 47 and living below 1% SWR here in Mexico on our savings and a little online w*rk, 20 hrs / month. Starting on our 4th year down here.