At what point did you think the $1 million milestone was possible?

[dixter]

not sure why.. but it seemed after getting the first $mil the next $mil was harder to get to

 

[kingkarmann]

I really never thought it was at all possible.
A combination of really hard work and incredible luck made it possible!

 

[Koogie]

About 3 or 4 years after I started my small business I knew it would happen.
The actual moment was documented right here on this very forum:

https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f26/a-quiet-anonymous-little-victory-38299.html


2008. Jeez. Seems like a lifetime ago. You people must be getting old..

 

[O2Bfree]

I always figured I'd hit $1M and beyond and be able to retire early based on the disparity between my income and spending. It really became tangible when I started tracking my net worth and saw how the YOY increases were more than my retirement contributions.

It feels kind of weird to see my net worth increase so much when I haven't worked for over a year, but I'll try to get use to it.

 

[F.I.R.E User]

Senior year high school.

 

[NW-Bound]

I was too busy raising a family and working at a couple of startups that I helped found that, for a few years, I did not look at my investable assets. This was during the late 90s when the market kept rising, so it was all good to let things take care of themselves.

Only when both startups were in trouble, and I was working for no pay that I decided to look at what I had, in case my wife's income was not enough and I had to tap into the savings to pay bills. I pulled out all the envelopes containing account statements that were stacked up and unopened for these years.

That was when I discovered that I had close to $1M already. And that was when I decided to keep a diary to jot down the total of my investable assets each day. This is a simple text file on my laptop, that I still update to this day. The 1st entry says: "964852".

And I crossed the $1M line just two weeks after that. This was more than 20 years ago.

 

[Car-Guy]

1 million bottles of beer on the wall... 1 million bottles of beer on the wall... can't remember when it happen'd....

And I've heard all my life that you'd always remember your first one.... Maybe I'm confusing that with something else.

 

[gooddog]

Age 7. Was lucky enough to have a great grandmother who was very wise in finances. Stayed on her ranch a couple of summers at about age 7 & 8. She would take time to explain things to me, and at the same time she helped people in the community with their finances. Great when older generations pass on this kind of info.

 

[NgineER]

At age 38, a year after my wife stopped working. We had just started investing in 2007 after grad school and kept investing through the trough of 2008-2009. Moved and switched companies and focused on finances when we decided wife should stay home after kid #3. Set a goal to retire at 55 with 2.5M, kept investing and hit 1M two months after turning 40. Purchased the first rental property at a foreclosure auction that fall and fixed it up and financed it. Purchased a couple more and now cash flow equivalent to $1.1M invested (4% rule). Hope to pull plug in 4-5 years with 3.3M combined rental cash flow and investments.

 

[texasdiver]

I first thought it was possible (to achieve one day) about 25 years ago after some exposure to personal finance, compound interest and investing. I figured that it would take me until my late 60s to get there. More recently, with the run of the last ten years or so, there is a chance I may achieve it sooner. I think it hit me a few years ago when I realized I was less than two "doubles" away from $1 Mil. For those not familiar, Patrick Bet-David discusses his "20 Rules of Money" in a you tube video and talks about how if you start out with $1,000, then you are only ten "doubles" away from $1 Mil. So, getting to $1 mil is a matter of how quickly you can keep doubling your money. Time will tell, of course, but what an amazing milestone that would be.

And then only 10 more doubles to get to a billion.

But who is counting!

 

[calmloki]

So I tend to to play games with myself - used to view hundred dollar bills as un-spendable, so they would slowly pile up. Another thing I did was to tell Quicken that the rentals were only worth what we paid for them - ignoring appreciation. In 2006 I decided that we would start using the property tax appraiser's "true cash value" as the property values. All of a sudden our net worth per Quicken went from under $827k to well over double that. And amounts kept climbing. Still wear the same t-shirts and socks, but now I is a millonaire. Carbonate our drinking water with a carbonation rig i made up, but spend $0.30/gallon for store-boughten distilled water.

 

[RxMan]

I never really thought about the $1 million mark early on other than the very abstract “someday” idea. Luckily I had the mindset that saving for retirement was important and my parents instilled that value in my head early in my career.

I was more focused on the habit of saving and watching whatever little nest egg I did have go up and down as my savings continued and the markets did its thing. The numbers and scorecard weren’t as important as reaffirming the positive financial habits that would result in growth of my net worth.

I think when I realized that I was reaching the 500K mark that it hit me that the elusive $1 million was possible. After all, it’s only a matter of doubling at that point. It becomes more of a math problem and less of an active process at this point.

We’re happy to say we’ve reached the big $1 million milestone not including our paid off home that oddly didn’t feel that big when it finally arrived. Now we are plugging away to go after that second million which might happen in just a few years with the blessing of the markets.

I was a persistent saver and a big believer in the power of compounding. That combined with a relatively stable employment history meant it was only a matter of time.

My advice for those who still have a bigger road ahead of them to reach their financial goals is to not be so hung up on those bigger milestones at least early on. Focus on the habits that will make you prosperous and celebrate the mini milestones that are more important than they may seem. Also work to keep your needs and lifestyle in check so you don’t need a really large nest egg to live comfortably.

I’m living proof that hard work + regular savings + a little good luck x time = financial security. That formula has worked for me for decades and it will be my path to a financially secure retirement one day.

 

[Ready-4-ER-at-14]

What you measure you can influence.

I started using an excel spreadsheet precursor MS works and earliest record on net worth goes back to 1986 which is roughly when schooling was completed. Had a few HEAL loans at 17% interest so had a personal negative net worth for a short time.

I never invested primarily for capital appreciation, mostly for dividend paying things that were the size monsters of their sectors.

Game plan changed when tax deferred stuff became available and finally when Roth opened up to us. Prepaid a lot of tax to move stuff that can still appreciate especially this year so this year will be more of a wash which is amazing how much tax we prepaid.

But as to when I knew it was reachable, the magic number to me was around 186k. The moment I compounded the amounts by even 3% annually it was a certainty in progress. The only question to me was what a million could buy then. After all inflation is huge if you live long enough.. I still remember penny candy and 3 cent candy bars, 5 cents for the big one.

 

[Yoheadden]

I never really thought about the $1 million mark early on other than the very abstract “someday” idea. Luckily I had the mindset that saving for retirement was important and my parents instilled that value in my head early in my career.

I was more focused on the habit of saving and watching whatever little nest egg I did have go up and down as my savings continued and the markets did its thing. The numbers and scorecard weren’t as important as reaffirming the positive financial habits that would result in growth of my net worth.

I think when I realized that I was reaching the 500K mark that it hit me that the elusive $1 million was possible. After all, it’s only a matter of doubling at that point. It becomes more of a math problem and less of an active process at this point.

We’re happy to say we’ve reached the big $1 million milestone not including our paid off home that oddly didn’t feel that big when it finally arrived. Now we are plugging away to go after that second million which might happen in just a few years with the blessing of the markets.

I was a persistent saver and a big believer in the power of compounding. That combined with a relatively stable employment history meant it was only a matter of time.

My advice for those who still have a bigger road ahead of them to reach their financial goals is to not be so hung up on those bigger milestones at least early on. Focus on the habits that will make you prosperous and celebrate the mini milestones that are more important than they may seem. Also work to keep your needs and lifestyle in check so you don’t need a really large nest egg to live comfortably.

I’m living proof that hard work + regular savings + a little good luck x time = financial security. That formula has worked for me for decades and it will be my path to a financially secure retirement one day.

+1
Couldn’t agree more. We just focused on saving as much as we could, being frugal & enjoying each new milestone (another 100Gs) as they came.
To answer the OPs original ?, probably once we passed the 1/2 mil mark in our mid 40s.

 

[Green Papaya]

When I got my first job after college, a co-worker said he would have $1M by 40. I thought that was optimistic. I did not think that was possible for me based on salary alone. I did not think much about that conversation afterward but just practiced LBYM, raised a family, and continued to save. When I hit 40, another friend said he could not envision having $2M by retirement, but I had changed my mind by then due to effect of compounding and said sure I could. I think I achieved $1M NW by 50 and doubled that 5 years later thanks to a robust stock market.

 

[mickeyd]

I realized in the '70s that I would need at least a mil to live on @ age 65. My executed plan since that time has provided more than enough cash for DW and I to retire with ease.

 

[Nick12]

When I paid off my house in year 11 of a 30 year mortgage, I increased my monthly investments into my diversified mutual funds regardless of market conditions. 13 years later I FIRE’d. The $1M Mark was a non event. I just kept my eye of the prize and stopped work when I felt the time was right.

 

[Surewhitey]

Remember like yesterday. DW was debating on taking the relocation to LA for office grand poobah position. After many turndowns, mega Corp sweetened the deal. After the spreadsheet nerd finished running the numbers, I told her that we would be officially 7 figures after the 3 year offer and she could then choose to not work.

That was 2007 & 2010 was the year just as we calculated. She spent 1 more year before running off to Mexico for 3 years.

 

[HI Bill]

Around age 38, I met my "Maui Multi-Millionaire" FIRE friends (4 people who FIRED by age 50). It then became my goal, although at the time, I thought it implausible. I had about $76K in investments, and it took me a decade to hit my first $1M. About 1/10th of that was real estate appreciation on on condo; I saved more than half my income, and had no debt for much of this time, sans mortgage). Five more years to the second $1M, and another 2 years to the third.

 

[bada bing]

The emotional experience of exponential growth is different from understanding the math. I had a financial hard reset 30 years ago with a divorce and business failure that put me to literally negative NW. Prior to that I had been well on my way, I was worth $650K in 1989 - in 1989 dollars, which is quite a bit more than a million today.

The first 20 years of slogging back from zero seemed to take forever and to barely move. Then it seemed like a few years of increasing acceleration. Now the numbers click up and down and don't seem connected to real dollars, like the ones I worked for. Schwab portfolio tracker sez my NW increased $550K in just the last 12 months. Doesn't seem like those dollars are the same stuff I worked for at an hourly rate.

 

[DrRoy]

I could see it coming in the late 90's, as the market had one good year after another.

 

[ckelly78z]

At 55 years old, I just hit $300K, not sure if I can put together $1M, although my company just announced an additional 1% match, and I will be raising my deduction by 10% this year.

I also have a nice pension waiting for me, so not imperative I hit $1M.

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

In college, I thought I want $1M by 40. What I really wanted was FI and I redefined my goal pretty quickly and soon discovered John Greaney/REHP on TMF shortly after graduating. Understood the math so totally knew it was possible. Lots of ups and downs but mostly stayed on track and hit $1M sometime during my marriage with combined assets, I went back and smoothed my NW and expenses after divorcing and was around $900K of "my money" on my 40th birthday (a bit of lifestyle creep while married that has since been reversed). Got divorced at 42 and had $1M liquid NW for the first time at the end of that year and have managed to not dip below since. Really close to having $1M in my TSP which, for some reason, seems more significant to me. I think because it is all in one place and having other assets beyond the "$1M" feels more significant/"permanent"? Market is lofty IMO so I'm not holding my breath but it's sort of exciting to think about having an account statement with $1,xxx,xxx.xx on it!

 

[calmloki]

Don't remember wanting a million when young. DID have the fantasy of having a house within a day's drive going different directions. My folks had spent years going from trailer to small house to house with a bit of land to more land to more land yet as they wanted to raise cattle as well as us kids. The houses became secondary to the land and were pretty rough. They looked at a number of fantasy ranches with hundreds of acres and multiple homes, but just couldn't stretch enough to make those buys.

I started with an old trailer as my first purchase as a home when starting college, bought a little raw land while in the Navy, used a VA loan to buy my first home, and then started buying rough places that needed vision and work. Looked at a lot of fantasy places that would have made us millions - or more probably bankrupted us. Instead we focused on the places that we could afford - barely - and thanks to lots of renters and property appreciation we passed a number of millions.
Still am attracted by fantasy places and think a place between our Oregon and California houses would be a nice day's drive way station.

 

[NW-Bound]

... think a place between our Oregon and California houses would be a nice day's drive way station.

You already have several. They are called Marriott.

Or you can buy a motorhome.