Share your FIRE Milestones - 2013- 2020

Status
Not open for further replies.
Congratulations guys, on your milestones. I'd say $500K, $600K, and $700K are all very significant, as well. And once you get to those levels, $1M might come easier than you think, because of the aforementioned "critical mass" or whatever you want to call it.

FWIW, here are the dates that I first hit a few of those milestones...
$500K: October 2009
$600K: November 2010
$700K: February 2012
$800K: January 2013
$900K: November 2013
$1M: August 2014 (the first time)
$1M: October 2014 (the second time)

Also, I don't know if any of this other data is really useful, but...
1) Once I broke $500K, I only dipped below it once, for two months, in June/July 2010.
2) Once I broke $600K, I only dipped below it once, for two months, in Aug/Sept 2011.
3) Once I topped $700K, I only had one month below it, May 2012.
4) After breaking $800K, I dropped below it twice. February and June of 2013. Also, once I popped the $800K barrier, I started paying down my mortgage. If I hadn't done that, I don't think I would have ever dipped back below $800K
5) After breaking $900K, I have yet to dip back below it. And I hope to keep it that way, until I'm well into my old age, and it's only as a result of spending it down in the waning years of my life...:D
 
Always cool seeing other peoples data points, thanks.

From $500k to $1M in 5 years is fast IMO, kudos.

I think I could potentially hit $1M four years from now, but of course you never know what might happen. That's the goal though!
 
Thanks. One thing that probably helped me hit $1M so quickly though, was coming off of the recession. 2010, 2012, and 2013 were great years. 2011 was flat, for me, at least, and I think I actually lost about $1,000 over the year.

Plus, the higher up you get, compounding really does work its magic. For instance, so far in 2014 I'm only up about 5.8%, factoring in additional investments. But, that's still about $55,000.

I really do wonder if the market can keep up this kind of momentum. I think it will be difficult. But, on the other hand, I keep hearing about how this has been a jobless recovery so far, but now things are finally starting to truly improve. So that has me wondering...if the market has done as well during the "jobless recovery" phase, what is it capable of during a "real" recovery!
 
Andre1969, you got to $1M a lot faster than you predicted in a thread I began in 2010 as I was approaching the $1M mark and the bumpy road to subsequent $100k increments.

Here is the thread:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/approaching-a-milestone-49602-4.html

In post #66, you predicted 2016. Glad you beat that by 2 years. :)

In 2010, I bounced up and down over and under the $1M mark, nearly falling below it in 2011. I have hit the next $100k level in each year since then, $1.1M in 2012, $1.2M in 2013, and $1.3M in 2014. It's a lot easier to grow by $100k when you are over $1M already, as I was adding $100k about once a year when I was working but that was on a lower base and included the exploding company stock value.
 
Cumulative returns greater than cumulative contributions

I went over our accounts and did some analysis of sources of our current accounts and discovered that during this year our cumulative returns have surpassed our cumulative contributions. More than 50% of the money in our accounts come from returns on investments vs. piling money in.

Still hoping to hit $1MM when I am 40, hovering around $.92MM right now.
 
Thanks for that little flashback, Scrabbler. My next goal, although this one is a bit more of a pipe dream, is to hit $2M by my 50th birthday, which is April 2020. Doing the math, I figure if I average roughly 11.5%, plus my contributions, I'll make it. But, I think 11.5% is a bit optimistic.
 
Andre1969 said:
Thanks for that little flashback, Scrabbler. My next goal, although this one is a bit more of a pipe dream, is to hit $2M by my 50th birthday, which is April 2020. Doing the math, I figure if I average roughly 11.5%, plus my contributions, I'll make it. But, I think 11.5% is a bit optimistic.
Click to expand...

Andre-

An outstanding goal!

I was in a similar situation several years ago (I'm a bit older than you). I'd read an article describing how one could "guarantee" XX% annual returns if one made the commitment to make up any shortfall with additional contributions (I needed 12%/yr for 6 yrs to hit my FIRE number). This is a tough commitment to make so, I ran the numbers, determined it was feasible, and made the commitment to do it.

Fast forward to the end of the story, and I made it; I FIREd earlier this year (actually semi-FIREd because I want to work part time for a couple years but, don't have to work for the income). My goal was 6 yrs of >=12% annual returns. The timeframe tells you that 2008/9 was right in the middle of it. Our NW took a big hit during that period, taking us from being slightly "above" the 12% annual return line to being substantially "below" it. So, we sucked it up and socked away every extra $$$ we could for several years to make up the difference. Some very good bonuses helped---a lot. By 2012, we were back "above" the line, and above the FIRE number.

Of course, there are a lot of other factors that make a difference (AA, not panic selling, etc.) but, the biggest factor for us was sticking to the commitment. Sometimes, brute force is very effective.

Just food for thought.
 
Always said I was done @ 50. Kinda snuck up on me @45 when I was let go yr 1/2 ago. Advice from this forum and going over every calculator and SS I could find to see if I could stay done, I'M DONE! Thought it but hadn't said it until this week end. Still need to get my investments going. Also not sure what retirement actually means because I still have several big projects to get done. Now if I can only get that warm fuzzy feeling that it's ok to spend. I have not been fishing in about 15yrs!!!

Hyper
 
Hyper said:
Always said I was done @ 50. Kinda snuck up on me @45 when I was let go yr 1/2 ago. Advice from this forum and going over every calculator and SS I could find to see if I could stay done, I'M DONE! Thought it but hadn't said it until this week end. Still need to get my investments going. Also not sure what retirement actually means because I still have several big projects to get done. Now if I can only get that warm fuzzy feeling that it's ok to spend. I have not been fishing in about 15yrs!!!

Hyper
Click to expand...

Congrats on the decision! It takes a lot of courage to navigate through such circumstances and make thoughtful, data informed decisions - good on ya!
 
My investable assets are at a solid $333k. Not a round number, but a nice, clean fraction. I also figure this is about 1/5 of what I'll need to FIRE. I'm proud of myself and my ongoing discipline to not buy a bunch of man-toys that would just end up collecting dust in the garage. Stay the course!
 
Net worth crossed the $2M mark today ($1900K retirement fund + 100K short term savings fund). All calculators say I'm better than good to go for planned retirement at 55 next July.
 
hiker88 said:
Net worth crossed the $2M mark today ($1900K retirement fund + 100K short term savings fund). All calculators say I'm better than good to go for planned retirement at 55 next July.
Click to expand...

Great milestone! Do you plan on staying in CA?
 
After tax Brokerage account balance reached new all time highs as of close today after selling off hard in late September / October.
 
Net worth crossed the 100k mark last month! Next milestone will be 100k Investable assets.
 
Last week, finally set a narrow[ish] date range. DW jokes that it has been "five more years" for the past 10 years, due to my continued lowering of safe initial withdrawal percentage and lengthening of her "planned for" life expectancy.
 
My Roth IRA crossed over mid-day today into 6 digit territory, but ended the day just a few dollars under that mark. And it looks like all my investments (457b, Roth IRA, & Brokerage) have permanently passed the $500k mark as well. Not FI yet, but its looking more and more do-able.
 
Yesterday's gains pushed us over 3mm for the first time. Hit 1mm at 34 years old in 2007, hit 2mm at 39 in Jan 2013, over 3mm at 41. Started small and just kept putting more and more away as my business grew, kept lifestyle in check.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum
 
WannabeRetired said:
Big thumbs up, Retire44. Congrats!
Click to expand...

+1

That's very impressive Retire44.

I'm curious if you will make AA or other adjustments based on progress, age (3 yrs to FIRE), or other factors?

For example, ~7-8 yrs from our target retirement age, we moved from almost all stocks on a glide path to 60/25/15 just before semi-FIRE in the summer of 2014. We had hit our number (won the game) and started to be driven more by capital preservation and the desire for steady income.
 
Huston55 said:
+1

That's very impressive Retire44.

I'm curious if you will make AA or other adjustments based on progress, age (3 yrs to FIRE), or other factors?

For example, ~7-8 yrs from our target retirement age, we moved from almost all stocks on a glide path to 60/25/15 just before semi-FIRE in the summer of 2014. We had hit our number (won the game) and started to be driven more by capital preservation and the desire for steady income.
Click to expand...

We had that conversation with our fee based FA last year about this time, that we will probably start to pile up some cash and start to reduce our stock exposure the next few years.

While my FIRE goal is just 3 years away, I don't expect to walk completely away unless things go VERY well the next 3 years. I am thinking I will cut my business back to 4 months of part time work over the winter months (home office) and make enough to pay the bills and not need to touch our investments maybe for 3-6 years, and give me something to do when it's too cold to do anything else! I guess it's FIRE with an insurance plan?

Right now, just focused on saving and getting to the point we can make decisions!
 
New to the thread 53 hit the new high at over 500k in 401k vanguard plus pension lump sum puts us over 1m. Thankful for all I have saving hard to hit 2m is the goal. Any advise would be helpful. Saving with employer 52k a year. Next goal Payoff house in 2 to 3 years


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum
 
Retire44 said:
Yesterday's gains pushed us over 3mm for the first time. Hit 1mm at 34 years old in 2007, hit 2mm at 39 in Jan 2013, over 3mm at 41. Started small and just kept putting more and more away as my business grew, kept lifestyle in check.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum
Click to expand...

Congrats retire44. Looks like you are doing well!
 
Not quite the milestone of so many others here, but my savings and investments powered on past the 500K mark Friday.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

E
Story on 38-year old FIRE aspirant
Replies
12
Views
2K
dunkelblau
D
T
All Your Worth (Book Review)
Replies
5
Views
692
walkinwood
walkinwood
Bryna Kra
  • Locked
Lonely soul beneath the shine of wealth.
Replies
21
Views
2K
MichaelB
MichaelB
U
Thank You !!!
Replies
7
Views
1K
HawkeyeNFO
HawkeyeNFO
T
Retired 10 years today!
Replies
18
Views
1K
Koolau
Koolau

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom