Where were you at 31?

[SecondCor521]

I was 31 in 2000. At the time I was married and six years into my engineering job, and our net worth was about $219K. Divide that by two if you want, because I lost half of my net worth in my divorce last year.

All of that was not on my own, though. My parents helped out a great deal and were very generous to me.

2Cor521

 

[laurence]

Well, that was 2 years ago, and I think judging from how the housing market has crashed in my area, I think my net worth is the same! Probably somewhere in the 75-90 range for liquid/retirement assets, ~150-200k in home equity, no debt outside of the house. Now the liquid is around 130k.

 

[Nords]

Boy, those were the good ol' days. My 31st birthday was in 1991, a year when I made a six-month deployment last for eight and combined the Mount Pinatubo eruption with Subic Bay liberty. I think I was starting to question the conventional wisdom of going for 20.

By then spouse & I had piled up nearly a decade of two-income savings with not much opportunity to spend it. We'd been socking it away in Fidelity mutual funds (and a hot runner called 20th Century Ultra) so our net worth was pushing the lower six figures. Of course that foundation plus additional DCA leveraged quite nicely in the subsequent decade.

A couple months later we decided to start a family...

 

[citrine]

I turned 31 in November 2005 and my net worth was about $36K.....then i sold the condo in Jan 2006 which brought my net worth up to $136K. I started renting a place and getting my plans finalized to move to NC in the spring of 2007.
But life happened and I am still in NJ...net worth is about $155K...hoping to break $160K by the end of the year.

 

[jblack]

Turned 31 in July and DW and I are at ~$325k invested, prob another $125-150k house equity, and ($60k) in school loans.

 

[Kate16]

In 2001 I was 31 and hubby 34. We had about $95K in RRSPs and $55K equity in our house. We started putting money into RRSPs in 1990 ($1000) and bought our house in 1998.

Now, 6 years later, we have about $275K in investments and $200K equity in our house.

 

[yona]

I only started keeping a record of my NW in Feb 04 when I was few months older than 31.

At that time we had 150K in stocks and around 100K in house equity. Today at age 35 we have about 1 million in stocks and no house.

Great advice from Grizz. Try to use your after office hours to increase your income.

 

[Kwirk]

26 years ago I was in my last year of residency, my wife had recently finished her residency, we had a child, no house, no savings, and ~$80k in educational debt. We now have 2 grown children, a house, nice (but not spectacular) savings, and will begin collecting 85k of cola'd government pensions next year with SS to follow in 4 and 6 years. We lived a little below our means, but many of you put us greatly to shame on that count (and with your investment success).

 

[Kronk]

That was two years ago for me. Hey, it's right here in my welcome to the board thread: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f26/another-new-guy-17615.html

I claimed $575k in net worth. The way it turned out was more like $370k because we couldn't sell the business at what we bought it at, and we had $30k of car debt.

Two and a half years later we have no debt, $400k-ish house value, $248k in retirement accounts, and a token $3k after-tax account that will grow quickly. Our goal is at leasta $1.5 mil in liquid assets, so we are around 1/6 of the way there.

 

[Keopele]

just turned 31 4 months ago. I have since reached my first milestone of 103k NW. This includes 45k in 401k/RothIRA/MF and 40k in house equity. Yeeah!! New goal is 1mil by 40.

 

[furpants]

Age 31 (2001)
$60k net worth. $16k retirement savings, $4k cash, $40k home equity. I was newly divorced and had just split half with the ex.

Age 37 (2007)
$253k net worth. $85k retirement savings, $10k cash, $45k investment property equity, $113k home equity. Have a new wife now, too, and she came with her own financial issues. She had loads of credit card and student loan debt, then decided to change careers (and go through more schooling) after being laid off. I supported her through all that, and we've been making some nice progress for the last couple of years.

 

[lucija]

Age 31 was 2 yrs ago for us...

We had some equity in our home and about 225K in investments (401(k), etc). Unfortunately, our loans (home, 2 cars) pretty much matched the amount invested.

 

[OAG]

1971-NW Zero to Negative.
First year of a 4 year tour in Alaska.

 

[packrat44]

At 31yo (32 years ago) I was working as a Mining Engineer when I met and married my wife a 22yo who was a newly minted Registered Nurse. Marrying her was the best move I have every made.

 

[Medit8]

I thought 20th Century Ultra was an American Century fund. At least it was when I invested in it some 12 years ago.

31 was 13 years ago. Lived paycheck to paycheck with about 3,000 saved up (in 20th Century Ultra coincidentally).

How things have changed. End in sight. 21 months to go.

 

[money248]

At age 31, January 2005: Single renter and IT employee down in the DC area.

Assets: 6K Cash & Liquid Accounts, 62K Retirement Accounts
Liabilities: 33K Grad Student Loans, 21K CC, 2K Bank Loan
NW: 12K

A little under 3 years later, I moved to NYC, became an independent IT consultant, got married in April and bought a new condo here in Jersey City, NJ. Now things are a little different from paying for the wedding and putting down the downpayment but:

NW:188K, 38K cash, 117K Retirement, 13K Stocks, 20K Home equity

Hope to pay off wife's student loans (30K) and car (11K) over the next 9 months. We hope to add 80K+ per year to our bottom line through home equity and 20% savings plan. Hope to be to 1.0M NW by 2017. FIRE'd by 2020 though I haven't done indepth calculations yet since I'm new here.

I've definitely increased my income but learned to keep my standard of living low and paid off all my debts that I had. Really tried to put into action what I learned in various books but the biggest is to Pay Yourself First.

 

[camefromnothing]

Hmmm..let's see

At 31: Wife and her debts, 1 kid, 0 savings
At 33: bought the first house, same wife, 2 Kids
at 51: ERed, kids in college, same wife
NOW: I'm 54, 1st kid graduated last year, 2nd a senior, same wife still works,

 

[bright eyed]

I have to revise my OP...

After all the fog cleared and ING got their crap together, I am now at $66,800, and not yet 31 (in a few weeks, i was rounding up)...hehe

i feel a little bit better...

 

[cletis]

At 30 I hit 100k liquid and about 150k NW. Now at 40 about 225k liquid and around 800k NW. It's kind of weird to think of it like this. Cletis

 

[JC_6]

I just turned 30 and I'm not married. I have $205K in emergency fund + 401K + Roth IRA + mutual funds. Another $40K in home equity so $245K net worth overall. By this time next year, hopefully, I'll be at around $300K net worth.

 

[saluki9]

I just turned 30 and I'm not married. I have $205K in emergency fund...

You must be expecting one hell of an emergency to have an emergency fund that big at 30.

And I thought I was conservative keeping $75-80K around in short term reserves.

 

[laurence]

You must be expecting one hell of an emergency to have an emergency fund that big at 30.

And I thought I was conservative keeping $75-80K around in short term reserves.

And I thought the same having $20k! I always figured with impeccable credit, home equity, and large retirement funds there were lots of options if the 4 month stash got burned through. I just can't imagine both of us not finding any work at all for that long...

EDIT: oh, I see, that's all those funds combined.

 

[JC_6]

You must be expecting one hell of an emergency to have an emergency fund that big at 30.

And I thought I was conservative keeping $75-80K around in short term reserves.

Actually, it's only $15K in emergency funds, the other $190K is 401K, Roth IRA, and Vanguard taxable funds combined. I guess I didn't word it too clearly.

 

[NinjaPigeon]

That was only 4 years ago (I'm 35), combined with DH, our net worth was about $800K give or take a few thousand. No debt.

Today, our net worth is $1.27 million and we still have no debt (unless you count a 17 month old toddler as debt )

I'm sure you might have posted this at some point, but how did you get to 800k at 31?

 

[Tadpole]

One year out of school and buying the first mattress I owned that didn't lay on the floor.