Daystar beat me to the punch with news about reaching a $250,000 milestone recently, but I wanted to share mine:
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.
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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!
As for the bad news, I hope you're not planning to double up the engagement ring as the Christmas present...
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You got that right! Don't even make THAT mistake, or you'll be back on here looking like this.... LOL! Congrats on all the great financial news & especially the engagement!!!
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 6,438
This year I finally exceeded my balance in 2000... :P
__________________ Have Funds, Will Retire "...but do feel free to assert your duly noted opinion on this subject again without benefit of reference or provision of additional information..."
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.
As it should be! I thought that getting to 100,000 took forever, but the next milestone came more quickly (ah, the power of compounding)
Congratulations on all this and your engagement too!
This year I finally exceeded my balance in 2000... :P
Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart. Although fairly well deversified back then, it's been a long struggle back to 2000 levels. Just passed it this year. Much more solid (conservative) now than then. Never again.....
Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart. Although fairly well deversified back then, it's been a long struggle back to 2000 levels. Just passed it this year. Much more solid (conservative) now than then. Never again.....
You've got that right. Many of us learned very expensive lessons back in 2000 that we're just recovering from today.
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He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it . . . It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. -- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jay, some of us haven't caught up to 2000 yet (in my defense, I was 4 years in grad school and not contributing to retirement savings, and since then have not had a 401(k) and $4k/yr just isn't much)
Jay, some of us haven't caught up to 2000 yet (in my defense, I was 4 years in grad school and not contributing to retirement savings, and since then have not had a 401(k) and $4k/yr just isn't much)
Understood. I've had to take tax losses every year on crappy stocks that tanked in 2000 and never bothered to recover (anyone remember Worldcom, Lucent, Excite@Home, etc...?) Very painful when the money that was tied up in those was a solid chunk of my net worth. For the most part, I've sold all of my losers for tax losses and am now getting rid of stocks in solid companies for which I paid way too much back in 2000.
Like many folks, I used to consider myself a pretty smart investor.... :P
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He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it . . . It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. -- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 6,438
Used the last of mine last year. No mas!!
__________________ Have Funds, Will Retire "...but do feel free to assert your duly noted opinion on this subject again without benefit of reference or provision of additional information..."
I think I'm going to celebrate when I don't have anything left to sell for tax losses.
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He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it . . . It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. -- The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Congratulations on hitting a major milestone, it's great, isn't it ??
I can't believe how the growth takes over after a while. I've done the 10% into a 401k since I started as an engineer, now I'm 43 years old, so that was some 20 odd years ago.
Started with 12k in student loan debt... now my investment portfolio is > 700k. I didn't learn about indexing and asset allocation until quite recently, wifes 401k went from 100k -> 20k in the dot-bomb era, and I'm not particularly frugal.
Time flies by so fast, you'll be crossing 125.... 150.... 200....
I'm enjoying your milestone vicariously. Great job keep at it !!
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.
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Work? I don't have time to work....I'm retired.
Disclaimer: I make no warranty or guarantee about the accuracy or completeness of this information. I am not a financial planner, my comments only represent my opinion.
Congrats on all of the deserved (and undeserved) milestones.
Bank that bonus and some of the raise.
If you read some old threads you will see that many here opted for less expensive weddings, but don't go overboard to the point of resentment. Hoefully you are on the same page.
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I would not have anyone adopt my mode of living...but I would have each one be very careful to find out and pursue his own way, and not his father's or his mother's or his neighbor's instead. Thoreau, Walden
Quote:
Don't even make THAT mistake, or you'll be back on here looking like this.... 
LOL! Congrats on all the great financial news & especially the engagement!!!
:P
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