Wealth Accumulation

[Lewis Clark]

My wife and I were DINKS - double income no kids. Except for the first few years of marriage we saved all of her income and some of my income. The classic living below our means followed by most who accumulate wealth.

The few times we acquired a small windfall we saved most or all of it.

Began investing while in college after attending a lecture on personal finance. Wish I could find that individual and thank him for what he taught me.

 

[athena53]

Hard to ascribe it to only one factor.

Parents who taught me to LBYM and paid for my education; Dad started investing early and I learned a lot from him.

Well-chosen major and lucrative career as an actuary.

Made a killing on two houses in NJ- one I owned with my Ex and the second I bought after the divorce. Down payment on the first was from an inheritance from his parents so I agreed to 40% of the equity (after supporting him while he was unemployed the last 5 years of the marriage).

Having only one child. Going back to work 6 weeks later.

Moving to LCOL area with second husband, who cleared $100K from sale of his house.

Just knowing how to invest and how compound interest works, and being married to someone who didn't think that the unspent limit left on his credit card was money he could spend. He was a true financial partner.

And of course good genes, marketable skills and luck or the grace of God, whichever you prefer.

 

[target2019]

I was employed for 5 years. Then self-employment and W-2 for 15 years. Finished up with 12-15 years of W-2 (with a bit of SE).

Spouse worked 45 years W-2.

Some inheritance, about 15% of all wealth at the time.

What we have is mostly the product of our human capital and saving/investing. LBYM waa the model, many years out of necessity.

 

[Walt34]

Started with a county public safety job at age 23 and stayed there for just shy of 30 years, retired with a COLA'd pension that they stopped offering about 1983 or so. Those are pretty much extinct now. Got married once to the wrong girl, who like Athena53's ex, also thought that unused credit on a credit card was a waste. That marriage ended in 1983 when I refused to take out a loan for a trip we couldn't afford, but fortunately left me enough time to financially recover. And I haven't paid a dime in credit card interest since. Oh wait, I did once when a drill press that I was saving up to buy anyway went on sale a month before I was going to buy it and I figured that the interest I'd pay was a lot less than the full price of the drill press, so I charged it and paid a month's cc interest on part of it.

The failed marriage was a "learning experience" as they put it and when I finally started dating DW-to-be at a niece's insistence I watched more carefully how she dealt with money and priorities. Turns out that if anything she is more "financially conservative" (i.e., frugal) than I am and we've been married 35 years so I think it's gonna work.

Same as the others, LBYM, don't buy what you can't afford, no credit card interest payments, and the like.

 

[aaronc879]

No inheritance or large gifts from family. I just started saving in my 20's and lived cheap. Never even hit $50K in yearly income ever in my life but had 6 figures saved before I hit 30 and let compound interest do the rest. I did make one bad investment that derailed me a bit but I learned my lesson and moved forward.

 

[braumeister]

Started with a county public safety job at age 23 and stayed there for just shy of 30 years, retired with a COLA'd pension that they stopped offering about 1983 or so.

Much like me. Started with nothing, but I beat the draft by going into the Air Force and immediately recognized that the military had the best pension system on the planet. If you're willing to earn less than your civilian counterparts and to let people try to kill you from time to time, the payoff is great.

 

[disneysteve]

Combination, but mostly working for pay and living below our means and investing. That got us to over $2 million by the time I was 56. Then in 2021 (not fully distributed until 2022) I inherited about $1.3 million so today we sit just over $3.2 million.

 

[jazz4cash]

So for the younger folks on this forum, you can accumulate a good chunk of money (even millions) as a worker bee, as I did. I don't think I'm an exception or a rare case. Just steady work, saved, invested (conservatively), took advantage of things like a companies matching 401k, (that is a big deal over 30 years), etc. Of course getting a well paying job helps.

Anyone else care to share their wealth accumulation story?

This is a really significant point. We are worker bees (professionals) at large employers that have decent employee benefits. Entire extended family survived on salaries and DB pensions. Not a shred of stock anywhere in the entire lot. DW and I accumulated assets within DC plans but also have small pensions and SS.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We saved ours the hard way, working and saving. CDs were our only investments never invested in the Casino known as the Stock Market. We did fine and are better off than most, worse off than some.

 

[Martlet]

About 60% of our financial wealth is in our retirement accounts, so mostly working and saving for us. The remaining 40% is about evenly split between inheritances and our after-tax savings. I don't count our equity in our house as part of our financial wealth but if I did, it would be about a 15 % adder.

Big step changes for us were (i) moving from the UK to the US in 1998 - lower taxes, higher salaries, more affordable housing, self-directed retirement savings; (ii) about six years of my employer being sold, restructured, IPO'd resulted in various bonuses and stock ownership opportunities that padded both retirement accounts and taxable accounts; (iii) a few longterm buy and hold stocks account for a large fraction of our investment returns.

We invested in our children's education, paid more or less full freight at the best colleges they could get admitted to. Also bought a nice house in a nice town for more than we could readily afford when we moved to Massachusetts in 2005. Partly as a result, never bought a summer house or expensive toys. Very happy with the way things worked out.

We both worked steadily at good engineering jobs but never made really big money. Could have definitely made more and saved a bit more. But you have to enjoy the journey because that's all there is. Since retiring about four years ago, I've been a bit more analytical in managing our investments, and that has been interesting, though I'm not sure that our numbers are much different than if I had done nothing.

 

[madatrub]

Grew up poor. Row home living in a east coast blue collar city. Paid my own way through college, becoming the first college graduate of anyone bearing my last name. Picked a degree that paid great that I knew I'd enjoy.

Always contributed max to retirement. In mid 2000s had a significant business loss (6 figs+), lost about 10 years worth of retirement/savings. Got divorced, changed jobs, started over. Now im 50, and have maxed all retirement/aftertax savings living significantly below my means. Targeting a retirement in 8-9 more years with a mid 7 figure Net worth. Terrible luck, so no lottery winnings. Poor family, so negative inheritance.

 

[Route246]

Engineer salary, max out 401K 35+ years, held mostly SPY/VTI or equivalents, a few fortunate stock picks that out-performed SPY, no scores, no lottery, no inheritance until last year (when it no longer mattered or changed anything. Always participated in ESPP when available, buy and hold, live below means and continue to work after FI.

 

[swakyaby]

Started out deep in debt from college and private medical school educational loans. Married DH who earned a modest salary but managed to put a downpayment on a modest duplex. Tried to make a dent in my loans, but gave up while on a truly meager medical resident’s salary. Then I began my first professional medical staff appointment, and I put away all my debts in a little over one year. Bought a nicer home.

I contributed the maximum each year to a SEP-IRA, investing in broad indexes like Vanguard’s Total Stock Market index or S&P 500 index. With after-tax earnings, I would auto-invest each month into Vanguard’s tax-managed funds (capital appreciation, small cap), a diversified international fund, and a state-specific municipal bond fund.

Didn’t spend much time thinking about my investments, just buy and hold, and auto-investing. Never had a financial advisor. Accumulation was slow at first, but investment growth became high enough at a point before retirement that investment returns were earning more than my annual expenses. i retired at age 56, live very comfortably with DH, and find the portfolio keeps growing despite no efforts to budget.

 

[Healthy Lifestyle]

I worked hard, I didn't spend all the money I made, and I invested the savings. No inheritance, no lottery. Nothing but work, save, and invest.

+1
Slow and steady won my race to financial comfort.

 

[swakyaby]

CDs were our only investments never invested in the Casino known as the Stock Market.

I find this interesting.

 

[harley]

Hopefully after tonight I'll be able to say Lottery.

 

[Scout]

... Also doing just about everything possible myself without hiring anyone, for about any task. Even built my own home from ground up and saved a huge amount of money. I haven't had a loan in over 35 years and always bought used vehicles in my working years.

Big thumbs up on Building a house from ground up…..Much respect.

 

[Drake3287]

For me, it was a life time of both saving, investing and living within my means. After a 30 year public service career I'm now a self made millionaire without even counting my pension or paid off home.

Bottom line, I'm the perfect example of what some one can do financially if they wish too. Unfortunately too many people refuse to follow common sense financial planning. If you've ever read the book the "Millionaire next door", that's me.

 

[COcheesehead]

Retired at 57.
About half came from good old saving and investing. We could have retired comfortably on this alone, likely at 50.
The other half was almost equally divided between owning, selling a business and owning, selling commercial properties. A small portion, about 5% was an inheritance.

 

[mrfeh]

Worked as a software developer for 30 years, mostly at smaller companies, but also at a research university. Never got into management, as I wasn't interested.

So, compared to the average Joe walking down the street, I made a nice salary. Not MD type money, but pretty good. Lived below our means and invested.

I suppose this is the "millionaire next door" path.

 

[audreyh1]

Got lucky with a start-up.

 

[dmpi]

Lived at my parent's house four years after starting working at MegaCorp. Being a workaholic I managed to save enough for a 30% down payment on a modest home. A year and a half later I married my spouse who also worked for MegaCorp and pretty much did the same thing. We put all our savings together and managed to pay for the house. That's a good position to be in. Early 30s, good incomes, have a home and no debt. After that it's LBYM and invest 95% the extra money in the stock market both in a 401K and a after tax brokerage account. Hit a million just in time to get hit by year 2000 dot-com. Recovered from that and got hit by the 2008 housing bubble...but recovered from that too. It's been a fun ride but being retired now I don't take big risks in the market anymore.

 

[calmloki]

Four years in the navy bobbing about off the coast of Vietnam made unca Sam feel like paying for most of another four at a great liberal arts college. Parlayed that diploma into a job growing mushrooms for a year or so. Used the GI Bill to buy a pretty whupped old house. Got together with my gal, who didn't shy away from my lack of furniture. Went to law school for a while. Fixed cars for a while. Bought an old but attractive home that was going to be a practice burn. We spent years fixing it up - new foundation, roof, wiring, walls, plumbing - our Christmas presents to each other were in the nature of a a replacement window or new front stairs. We were showing off to each other with what we could do.
We borrowed a minimum amount against the completed house to buy a worn out rental house. Fixed it up and rented it. Bought a really beat up old 9-plex, went through all the units making them something we would have lived in in our earlier days. Rented them. Through banking and real-estate crashes and huge interest rates we bought what we could, working low dollar jobs, or in my case, operating a two-man VW repair shop, then working on the rentals. At one point noted that in 2 1/2 years we had worked on the rentals every. single. day. Got up to 53 doors, pushing every spare dollar at improvements, loans and repairs. 35 years after buying the 9-plex hoping it would remain standing for 5 years we sold it. Now down to 19 doors and trying to sell the tri-plex this year and the 16-unit next year. Still with the same gal and hopefully by the age of 75 we'll be free of rentals and can cut loose. We've plenty, but thrift is a habit

 

[DrRoy]

Saving and investing > 80%. Inheritance < 20%.

 

[rk911]

- We continuously invested in good growth muual funds for 20+ years. We bought nearly every month.
- Strategy was buy and hold.
- Lived simply and way beneath our means
- No consumer debt including mortgage. 30-yr refinanced to15-yrs paid off early.
- Retired early in 2005 and 2006.
- By 2005 we crossed the 7-figure NW
mark
- By 2018 we trippled our NW. we were at low 7-figure NW
- 2021, BIL passed, wife was essentially sole beneficiary. Our NW effectively doubled to mid 7-figures.

Still living benesth our means and loving it. Also give credit to long bull market and for staying
the course during the downturns.