Already in ER? What was your #

[aimhigh]

I've read a lot about how certain indexes have done over the course of say 15 years. I've also read a lot about possible returns for the future. I'm really curious as to how well those who are already in RE did during the course of their "period of growth". So all you lucky RE guys and gals what was your " since inception" rate of return?

 

[haha]

So all you lucky RE guys and gals what was your " since inception" rate of return? 

It is likely that no one knows that. I know it for one pre-tax account that I funded over the course of 5 years, and then never touched.

The rest of it would be impossible to figure out.

Ha

 

[aimhigh]

ok how about a ballpark figure then.

 

[SteveR]

I have no clue how to calculate this. All I know is I went from a -$200k in debt in 1991 to where I am today which is well north of $1M in my IRA account.
My return for last year was around 12% for the IRA accounts.

 

[aimhigh]

maybe I'm just ignorant   But is it really possible not to have a rough idea of how well you've done individually over the course of your accumulation period. If I was to go from say 10K to over 1mil of net worth in 15 years, shouldn't I be able to say ...ya I've averaged between 8-9% return since I started investing? Please don't think I'm being "smart" by any means. Maybe I'm using the wrong terms here. My investment vocabulary is still in it's infant stage.

 

[grumpy]

Like the others, I can't give you an exact return figure because all of the numbers I track include the amounts we saved during the years leading up to FIRE. What I can give you is the year end values of our investments which show how our nestegg grew:

1993 $135K
1994 193
1995 253
1996 307
1997 371
1998 431
1999 487
2000 525
2001 514
2002 696
2003 932
2004 1043 FIRE'd

If I had to guess at average annual investment returns for my fairly conservative portfolio, I would guess around 9%. This was accomplished by keeping expenses extremely low and avoiding big loses in '97 and '00.

Grumpy

 

[Nords]

So all you lucky RE guys and gals what was your " since inception" rate of return?

11.2% 1986-2002, as far as Quicken can tell.

That's the whole ball of wax-- everything from mutual funds to EE bonds to volatile small-cap tech stocks to Israeli bonds.

 

[eridanus]

Israeli bonds.

How? Everbank or elsewhere?

 

[Nords]

How? Everbank or elsewhere?

Spouse brought them to the marriage. I think they were bought for her in the '60s or '70s for her by relatives. By the time we cashed them in the late '80s they were a couple thousand dollars.

My point was that the returns included all our investments-- weird things as well as low-interest accounts.