My net worth has increased 74% since I retired 4 years ago

[grasshopper]

After 15 years of retirement Vanguard shows a personal investment rate of 7.8%

My portfolio has grown 66%, my only BTD is adventure travel

I am starting to think I am getting to old for some of my adventures.

[Time2]

Our last income from work was 10/18, we retired 31 months ago.
We have spent $270k, (more than half of that for kids tuition)
Our NW is $345k higher than it was 31 months ago.
So far so go, on Sequence of Returns.

[Dawg52]

Quote:

Originally Posted by grasshopper After 15 years of retirement Vanguard shows a personal investment rate of 7.8% My portfolio has grown 66%, my only BTD is adventure travel I am starting to think I am getting to old for some of my adventures.

Nah. Pedal to the metal!

After 14 years of retirement my portfolio has more than doubled but 25% of that is from inheritance. So a steady return but nothing like some have experienced over the last few years. No complaints though as I maintain a pretty conservative AA.

[Markola]

Great news but this string would be even more insightful if folks provided their starting withdrawal rates.

[GravitySucks]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Markola Great news but this string would be even more insightful if folks provided their starting withdrawal rates.

8 years and up about 65% from starting balance. 4.5% WR first 5 years, about 5.5% WR last 3 years.

[ccjarider]

Quote:

Originally Posted by teejayevans When I see a thread like this, I know a market downturn is coming. Time to rebalance...

Yeeeuuuup. When lame stream and social media start having lots of front page noise about wealth growth and how great things are, a downturn is close. Not a bad thing but no one should be surprised.

[jkern]

Retired 12 years ago at age 51. My NW has increased 220% since then.

[Digger1000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Markola Great news but this string would be even more insightful if folks provided their starting withdrawal rates.

I'm the opee. My average withdrawal rate the past 4 years has been 2.3% of my net worth on April 3,2017.

[Amethyst]

We've already taken husband's RMD for 2021. Might as well strike while the funds are high! Congratulations on your NW. We haven't done as well, but then again we've been spending like crazy on the house.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digger1000 I retired April 3,2017 at age 51 and my net worth is 74% higher today than it was on my retirement date. Thats insane. This post probably wont age well, we'll probably have a market crash soon. Thats ok. I can handle a 50-70% market pullback.

[Digger1000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amethyst We've already taken husband's RMD for 2021. Might as well strike while the funds are high! Congratulations on your NW. We haven't done as well, but then again we've been spending like crazy on the house.

But you probably have a higher net worth than me.

[grasshopper]

I only kept track of our withdrawal rate for my first 10 years of retirement.

We were only spending about 70% of what we had back of the envelope budgeted.

3.60% 2008
3.30% 2009
3.30% 2010
3.30% 2011 Costa Rica 2 weeks
2.90% 2012
3.80% 2013 Alaska cruise and Denali
2.60% 2014 Cruise Hawaii 2 weeks
3.20% 2015 Cruise Sea of Cortez
4.20% 2016 Galapagos and Peru
3.50% 2017 Cruise Costa Rica Panama 2 weeks

3.37% AVERAGE

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digger1000 I retired April 3,2017 at age 51 and my net worth is 74% higher today than it was on my retirement date. Thats insane. This post probably wont age well, we'll probably have a market crash soon. Thats ok. I can handle a 50-70% market pullback.

Impressive. What's the AA?

[NW-Bound]

Quote:

Originally Posted by NW-Bound I retired 9 years ago, and my wife 14 years ago. My stash is currently 2.01x its value back in 2012, when my earned income stopped. While I have more money, our expenses shrunk over the years when the kids got out of college and flew the coop, such that our trailing 12-month expenses are just 2% of the stash value. That 2% of portfolio even includes a recently purchased new car paid in cash. My WR is lower than 2%, because my wife has started her SS, while I am still delaying mine. And of course I do not buy a new car each year. The car before this one was also purchased new in 2003. That car still only has around 30K miles on the odometer. I think I am done with buying cars in this life. Back to WR below 1%. Who would have thunk the market god would be so generous. If he turns off the spigot, well I think I can survive.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Markola Great news but this string would be even more insightful if folks provided their starting withdrawal rates.

Highly relevant point.

My WR was around 4% for the first few years of the 9 years of retirement, before tapering downward as expenses shrunk while the portfolio grew.

I just looked it up - very easy to do with Quicken. Over the course of 9 years, I have drawn a net 30% of the initial value of the stash. That's an average WR of 3.3% of initial portfolio.

The initial drawdown certainly depleted the portfolio more than the later withdrawals. The recent withdrawals decrease in dollar values, and are even less in terms of WR percentage.

Again, it's Bernicke's effect at work, plus SS kicking in.

Out of curiosity, I used Portfolio Visualizer to see how much a portfolio with 75% S&P and 25% cash (closest to my AA) would fare under two different conditions.

1) 0% WR: gain of 2.8X
2) 3.3% WR of initial value with no inflation adjustment: gain of 2.28X, which is more than my actual 2.01X.

[HenryD]

Just checked, my NW is up 1,001% since my divorce 7 years ago, but still w*rking, so not a fair comparison, I know.

1,405 days max until FIRE. Want to see another 57%.

AA
62% Stocks
16% Bonds
10% Home equity
9% Cash
3% Boat equity

[brett]

Our equity has grown substantially since retiring nine years or so ago.

We benefitted greatly from sequence of returns and low inflation. I would hate to think what would have happened if both those went against us as it were. Down to good fortune I guess.

We stay invested when the market tanks. In for the long term.

[SoReadyToRetire]

You guys are KILLING me!!! I retired one month before the 2020 crash.

So my SORR sucks. :-(

[CardsFan]

Unless you sold you should be ahead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SoReadyToRetire You guys are KILLING me!!! I retired one month before the 2020 crash. So my SORR sucks. :-(

[Amethyst]

Who can say? But you retired a lot sooner than we did! So that (time) is worth untold amounts of $$.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Digger1000 But you probably have a higher net worth than me.

[smihaila]

OP, unless you really crystalize those gains, your net worth increase is purely theoretical i.e. only on paper .

[Mo Money]

Retired just over six years ago. Overall net worth up 71%. Portfolio and retirement plans (liquid net worth) up 83%. The party can't go on forever, but I am thankful.