Mo money mo money!

[sirsavesalot]

4 years and 8 months ago I started a thread (see below) about possibly buying a bigger house which would lower our savings rate. Well, we decided to stick it out in our current house and keep banking and things are still great. My wife still stays at home and my income has jumped from $90k to about $115k. I made it a goal to increase our net worth by $35k/year and we've destroyed that number (actual $48k). The market did help, but just this last 12 months our net worth is up $80k. Not bad for a single income household barely into 6 figures. I max my 401k, HSA, Roth IRAs and have been doing some stock investing, which I'm actually pretty good at. Unfortunately, my company got rid of our pensions in 2014 ($8k/year at the time) and in turn, upped their 401k match from 4-6%. Boo! Still, the savings must go on.

Our net worth when I posted that thread was about $155k. I just ran the numbers and we broke $380k on December 1st! That's $225k, which works out to over $4k/month! I'm pumped!

I just wanted to share the good news and thank everyone on this board for their participation. I seriously think it helps to read all the success stories and apply what I've read, and that has made an impact on our financial status and will definitely allow us to retire earlier than anticipated. I rarely post but do a fair amount of reading each week. I just wanted to share my appreciation for your knowledge and time.

http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f30/how-am-i-doing-wish-i-was-spending-more-66369.html

 

[Rianne]

Congratulations! It is exciting to watch the $$ grow. We've been through the downturns, 1997, 2000, 2001, 2008 stayed in through all of them and kept adding. In 2008 we added as much as we could. It's scary but historically this market rebounds with vengeance.

Hope to see you FIRE while you can enjoy it!

 

[Red Badger]

Congrats OP from another SAHM family. I retired this year (60); net worth shy of the two comma club, but not far from it. Add in 1 decent (cola) pension and one modest (non-cola) pension, and we are comfy and content.

We also owned three modest homes along the way. We'll have a mortgage for the next nine years, but we're okay with that as well. YMMV.

Best wishes on your (well laid) plan!

 

[Sunset]

OP - You must be a brilliant investor, or is it simply that in this market any fool (myself included) can make money buying stocks ?

If/When the market tanks 20% or more, it won't feel so nice, but will be the best time to keep buying..

 

[Mdlerth]

You doin' fine

You are miles ahead of where I was at your age. Net worth up 2.5x in four years? You're killing it.

Your OP said you hoped to retire at 50. Whether you actually bolt then or not will be less important than whether you have the option. A goodly number of posters here hit their FI number but don't immediately RE. A lot can change in a dozen years.

Don't sweat the lost pension too much. Yeah, it's a disappointment that they are disappearing. But you're looking at a 40 year retirement so, unless it was COLA'd, even low inflation was going to softly gobble it up. Not to mention if you ever change jobs it was gonna truncate anyway. Your savings, however, will follow you and provide a bit more inflation hedge.

Keep up the good work and keep posting.

 

[kimcdougc]

Congrats. Just keep doing what your doing and you will be FIRED before you know it.

 

[CaliKid]

Congrats! Keep up the good work!

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

That is fantastic...good work!

The stock market has been very nice to us over the last few years.

 

[almosttime]

Am I missing something? Net worth of $380k x 4% WR= 15,200/year divided by 12 months = 1,267/month.

 

[Mdlerth]

How about this?

Am I missing something? Net worth of $380k x 4% WR= 15,200/year divided by 12 months = 1,267/month.

I think he means that he boosted NW by 225k during the past 57 months (April 2013 to now). $225k / 57 months = $3947 per month (rounds to 4 thousand).

 

[almosttime]

Got it. Thanks

 

[sirsavesalot]

Thanks for all the encouragement and advice. What's crazy is my wife has a teaching degree and will be back to work after next summer. Even if she gets a teaching gig only making $45k/year, that's going to be gravy for our savings. After taxes, it will almost double our savings rate.

It blows my mind how much money people spend to maintain their lifestyles. We have many friends, and myself coworkers, that are dual income earners making around what we'll make next year, and most of them don't have a pot to pee in. Sure, they get the mortgage paid, but the majority of them complain about lingering credit card bills, etc. It's just...sad.

OP - You must be a brilliant investor, or is it simply that in this market any fool (myself included) can make money buying stocks?

I put 10% of my paycheck into our company stock purchase plan, which has done very well. 15% discount and our stock is up about 110% since I posted. I've also picked a half dozen stocks, of which 5 have beaten the market. I just dabble a little here and there but so far it's worked out.

 

[pj.mask]

Yes, at any income you need to live below that number! Congrats on the improvements. Do you recalculate FI date based on spending + taxes (based on spend amt)? If your spending $120-30k savings -15k tax + 5k tax you will need 80k or 2-3 million depending on SWR ... unless you hit it and decide to increase you standard of living

 

[NgineER]

Congratulations! Feels good to see those improvements. Keep at it.

 

[DrRoy]

Cha ching! Very well done Sirsa. You are on a similar track to mine a couple decades ago. Hang in there cause I can tell you it leads to RE!! Don't get disappointed when the market does not do this well every year.

 

[nerdyJON]

Great job. Love seeing progress!

 

[Cessna152]

I max my 401k, HSA, Roth IRAs and have been doing some stock investing, which I'm actually pretty good at.

Soon your family will be like this one: