$100,000 and other good news

[rw86347]

Originally Posted by SteveR

Nice to see you kids starting to hit some significant targets in your quest to FIRE. Keep to the path of LBYM and investing in low cost assets. Time will be your friend if you keep your portfolios balanced.

In 1991, after my divorce I started out with a NW of -200k. In 2002, I had a NW of over seven figures. I don't own a business. I don't have a high level executive salary. I don't have inherited money or assets. What we have is what we earned, saved and invested. It can be done and many on this board have done far better than we have. I am not an expert on markets, or specific stocks, or annuities. I do however, know what I spend and what I make and have always managed to save more than I make and to make decent investment choices....all learned the hard way.

Today we don't track our NW. We track our investments and cash funds since these will be what is used to pay the bills and allow us to travel as much as we want each year until we die. My projections show we will die with a lot on the table. We are not willing to do that so our spending in early ER will be staggering compared with many others here.

Keep the faith and keep good records on where you spend and why. Put together a budget and stick to it...no matter what. The real gains in NW come from compound interest and with capital appreciation in real property and assets.

Good luck and keep on trudging ahead. The end will come as soon as you want it to.

I love this response!!! I think I might cut and paste it to my office wall.

Can I ask how much you make and the percentage you saved in the begining, and the percentage you save now?

[CybrMike]

WE WANT PRENUP! WE WANT PRENUP!

[Jay_Gatsby]

Originally Posted by CybrMike

WE WANT PRENUP! WE WANT PRENUP!

Hey, that's my line!

As for a pre-nup. Yep, we've got one.

[SteveR]

Originally Posted by rw86347

...Can I ask how much you make and the percentage you saved in the begining, and the percentage you save now?

How much I make is not for public disclosure.

We saved between 25-35% (depending on the year) of our before tax wages. All dividends were reinvested, all interest reinvested and 50% of any bonuses were invested somewhere. This year it is only my wage income plus a small disability check for DW. I knew I would be retiring this year and our cash flow was more a priority than 401k deposits. However, I still saved up the company match level so I could take the "free money" and lower my taxable income since the 401k contribution is pre-tax.

We will reverse the savings process when I ER. We have already changed the various re-invest decisions to sweep into a MM fund we can then transfer to our checking account as needed.

Life is Good.

[dmpi]

Originally Posted by SLC Tortfeasor

I have just reached $100,000 in investable assets!! That includes stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash, but not my home equity. Finally cracking the $100,000 mark is a huge milestone for me.

Oh, and I just got a totally unexpected and undeserved $7,000 raise at work.

Oh, and I also received a very nice $8,000 bonus.

Oh, and most importantly, my girlfriend and I just got engaged on Saturday!

With all this good news, I'm starting to worry about the bad news that must be around the corner. Things can't possibly get any better than this.

Congratulations & CONGRATULATIONS!
Getting an extra digit on your net worth is quite a rush. You don't get too many more!

[SLC Tortfeasor]

It's sort of funny that this thread has suddenly been revived after about three months of dormancy. Anyway, you might be curious to know that since I last reported on this issue, I've gone from $100,000 to $118,000.

The woman and I are still planning our wedding, which will be a reasonably modest affair. We're splurging on the honeymoon though, going to Greece and then hiking the Haute Route in Switzerland at a time when its very expensive for Americans to travel in Europe. But we're in love, and it's only money, right?

[runchman]

I say take a nice honeymoon - you never know when those pesky kids might arrive, and then your time alone is on hold for a *long* time.

Congrats on the +18k too

[bow-tie]

Originally Posted by SLC Tortfeasor

It's sort of funny that this thread has suddenly been revived after about three months of dormancy. Anyway, you might be curious to know that since I last reported on this issue, I've gone from $100,000 to $118,000.

The woman and I are still planning our wedding, which will be a reasonably modest affair. We're splurging on the honeymoon though, going to Greece and then hiking the Haute Route in Switzerland at a time when its very expensive for Americans to travel in Europe. But we're in love, and it's only money, right?

Congrats SLC. FWIW, I think spending the money on a great honeymoon will always trump dropping big coin on the wedding. Have fun!

[SteveR]

We had a home wedding and small reception in the back yard. We spent maybe $1000 on the whole thing. But, it was also our third wedding each so there was no need or desire for a big wedding; been there done that and grateful my FIL paid for the whole ball of wax.

We went to Maui for our honeymoon. Very nice but also quite expensive. Thank goodness for my annual bonus! Well, at least it was nice while it lasted.

We took a cruise two years ago. It was a nice idea but we just made it in between huricanes (western caribbean cruise) only to get stuck in the Bahamas because of a broken propeller. We want to actually finish that cruise but it may have to wait a while.

Spend the money on a nice and unique honeymoon. The memories will be priceless.

[SLC Tortfeasor]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone. It should be fun.

[Darryl]

Nice move from $100,000 to $118,000 in the last few months.

Glad to hear your not scrimping on the honeymoon. Ours was 22 years ago I think we drove our NW to zero. It was one of the best investments I ever made. I remember it like it was yesterday, we went to Maui & Oahu.
Our financial life has tracked very well with the exception of underestimating the cost of two kids and an income drop when my wife left work to care for them, but we came through that adjustment just fine.

[djmob]

Congrats.

I have a newbie question relating to this.

My wife and I are currently have about 125,000 in retirement savings of which 100,000 is in IRAs. I'm currently 34 and hope to retire early (not sure yet exactly what age that is yet), but if I do retire before 59.5 will it be difficult to redrawal money from these accounts? Is it advisable to also put money into a regular taxable account. Currently I have a little over $20,000 in a regular brokerage account.

[rw86347]

Originally Posted by djmob

Congrats.

I have a newbie question relating to this.

My wife and I are currently have about 125,000 in retirement savings of which 100,000 is in IRAs. I'm currently 34 and hope to retire early (not sure yet exactly what age that is yet), but if I do retire before 59.5 will it be difficult to redrawal money from these accounts? Is it advisable to also put money into a regular taxable account. Currently I have a little over $20,000 in a regular brokerage account.

We are in the same boat, and the same age. You are about 6 months behind me in saving. I looked hard and long into the exact same question. There are two solutions I considered.

1) SEPP (Substantually Equall Payment Plan) This allows you to pull money out from an IRA early without penalty under very strict guidlines. You must have identical withdraws every year for until 59.5, and still have money left over for retirement.

I like to think of my savings as a "money tree" and I didn't feel my money tree was mature enough when I reach 45 to pull money out of it. So I think I will allow it to grow untill 59.5.

2) I own a rental, and love it! I like working with my hands and people. I spend about 2 hours per month dealing with my douplex. My ROI is 10%, and is inflation friendly. It pays twice as much money as the 4% rule, but does require some work (2hr/mo). I think I might buy one more douplex, and then hire a good property manager. This should bring in $3500/mo with any work. This will allow me to retire at 45. Pay very little taxes, and live a carefree life style.

This is my 45-60 stop gap measure. By then my IRA should be worth 3 million. And considering that I didn't need it for the past 15 years. It should be all gravy.

I have a great spreadsheet I would love to share with you. Email me and I will share more.

RW

[Celany]

congrats to you! on making 100K & then another 18K in the past few months!

I'm more of a lurker than anything...I'm 27 & really really really hoping to make 100K by the time I'm 30. It depends on sooooo many factors. I've got about 47K right now, & if a number of factors go well, then I may very well meet my goal.

It's so inspiring to hear someone else meeting it though!

[runchman]

Originally Posted by Celany

I'm more of a lurker than anything...I'm 27 & really really really hoping to make 100K by the time I'm 30. It depends on sooooo many factors. I've got about 47K right now, & if a number of factors go well, then I may very well meet my goal.

It's so inspiring to hear someone else meeting it though!

I wish I'd discovered asset allocation and indexing at your age. I'm an old fart of 43 - but believe me, blink your eyes and you'll be there, and 100k will seem like a distant memory!

To think how much better off I'd be had I avoided active money loosing stock picking for so many years. I'd probably be retired right now.

You are off to a great start, just keep plugging away at it, over and over and over.

- John

[SLC Tortfeasor]

Originally Posted by Celany

congrats to you! on making 100K & then another 18K in the past few months!

I'm more of a lurker than anything...I'm 27 & really really really hoping to make 100K by the time I'm 30. It depends on sooooo many factors. I've got about 47K right now, & if a number of factors go well, then I may very well meet my goal.

It's so inspiring to hear someone else meeting it though!

Good luck to you. It sounds like you're in extremely good shape already!

For what it's worth, thanks to a beefy tax refund and a favorable stock market over the past couple of days, I'm now up to about $123K! It's so much fun to watch it go up every day. But if the market tanks I'm sure I'll suddenly be somewhat less excited about tracking my net worth!

[rw86347]

Originally Posted by SLC Tortfeasor

Good luck to you. It sounds like you're in extremely good shape already!

For what it's worth, thanks to a beefy tax refund and a favorable stock market over the past couple of days, I'm now up to about $123K! It's so much fun to watch it go up every day. But if the market tanks I'm sure I'll suddenly be somewhat less excited about tracking my net worth!

I just hit $184!!! Just think, I gained $84k in 19 months!

[accountingsucks]

I'm 31 and have about 65K in the retirement accounts. Now that my home is paid off I"m hoping to add 50K per year. I like it when the market is up, as I can get into work and find out I've already made $500 from the markets....heee heee. Now of course this is a bad way of looking at things since the markets have done well lately, but it makes the days go by faster.

[runchman]

Originally Posted by SLC Tortfeasor

It's so much fun to watch it go up every day. But if the market tanks I'm sure I'll suddenly be somewhat less excited about tracking my net worth!

Isn't that the truth? My best 'up' day was 10,500 which was very exciting. Then when we had that 3% drop day, my best 'down' day was -23,500 !!!

I've stopped tracking it so close, so when the inevitable down market comes I don't drive myself nuts.

What a bunch of money whores we are

[rw86347]

Originally Posted by runchman

Isn't that the truth? My best 'up' day was 10,500 which was very exciting. Then when we had that 3% drop day, my best 'down' day was -23,500 !!!

I've stopped tracking it so close, so when the inevitable down market comes I don't drive myself nuts.

What a bunch of money whores we are

I keep hoping for a depressed market, but I have to admit I like seeing up days much more than down days.