$100,000 and other good news

[SLC Tortfeasor]

Daystar beat me to the punch with news about reaching a $250,000 milestone recently, but I wanted to share mine:

I have just reached $100,000 in investable assets!! That includes stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash, but not my home equity. Finally cracking the $100,000 mark is a huge milestone for me.

Oh, and I just got a totally unexpected and undeserved $7,000 raise at work.

Oh, and I also received a very nice $8,000 bonus.

Oh, and most importantly, my girlfriend and I just got engaged on Saturday!

With all this good news, I'm starting to worry about the bad news that must be around the corner. Things can't possibly get any better than this.

 

[Nords]

Oh, and most importantly, my girlfriend and I just got engaged on Saturday!
With all this good news, I'm starting to worry about the bad news that must be around the corner. Things can't possibly get any better than this.

Congratulations!

As for the bad news, I hope you're not planning to double up the engagement ring as the Christmas present...

 

[martyb]

You got that right! Don't even make THAT mistake, or you'll be back on here looking like this.... LOL! Congrats on all the great financial news & especially the engagement!!!

 

[HFWR]

This year I finally exceeded my balance in 2000...

 

[dmpi]

Congratulations! My you pass many milestones in the coming years.

My problems was I had to pass the milestone about 10 times before I passed them for good.

 

[Linney]

I have just reached $100,000 in investable assets!! That includes stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash, but not my home equity. Finally cracking the $100,000 mark is a huge milestone for me.

As it should be! I thought that getting to 100,000 took forever, but the next milestone came more quickly (ah, the power of compounding)

Congratulations on all this and your engagement too!

 

[lowflyer]

This year I finally exceeded my balance in 2000...

Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart. Although fairly well deversified back then, it's been a long struggle back to 2000 levels. Just passed it this year. Much more solid (conservative) now than then. Never again.....

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart. Although fairly well deversified back then, it's been a long struggle back to 2000 levels. Just passed it this year. Much more solid (conservative) now than then. Never again.....

You've got that right. Many of us learned very expensive lessons back in 2000 that we're just recovering from today.

 

[ylm23]

Jay, some of us haven't caught up to 2000 yet (in my defense, I was 4 years in grad school and not contributing to retirement savings, and since then have not had a 401(k) and $4k/yr just isn't much)

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Jay, some of us haven't caught up to 2000 yet (in my defense, I was 4 years in grad school and not contributing to retirement savings, and since then have not had a 401(k) and $4k/yr just isn't much)

Understood. I've had to take tax losses every year on crappy stocks that tanked in 2000 and never bothered to recover (anyone remember Worldcom, Lucent, Excite@Home, etc...?) Very painful when the money that was tied up in those was a solid chunk of my net worth. For the most part, I've sold all of my losers for tax losses and am now getting rid of stocks in solid companies for which I paid way too much back in 2000.

Like many folks, I used to consider myself a pretty smart investor....

 

[uncledrz]

SLC -- good for you. Take some time to smile at yourself in the mirror, then on to the next level.

Jay -- A buddy and I were discussing this a few months ago. I keep my Lucent, just to remind myself how smart I'm not!

 

[ylm23]

At least I am getting tax deductions for the cap losses, $3k/yr is finally running out this year I think, or maybe 2007!

 

[HFWR]

Used the last of mine last year. No mas!!

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Used the last of mine last year. No mas!!

I think I'm going to celebrate when I don't have anything left to sell for tax losses.

 

[Sisyphus]

Congrats!!!!

Great feeling, isn't it!? Next stop, $250K, right?

I have a feeling the first $100K is the hardest, but I'm sure others on the board have more thoughts on that.

Nice work!

 

[rw86347]

As it should be! I thought that getting to 100,000 took forever, but the next milestone came more quickly (ah, the power of compounding)

Congratulations on all this and your engagement too!

18 months ago I hit $100k. It took me 7 years to save $100k. 18 months later I am at $175k.

Compounding rocks. As soon as my house is paid off I hope to super charge my saving!

 

[runchman]

Congratulations on hitting a major milestone, it's great, isn't it ??

I can't believe how the growth takes over after a while. I've done the 10% into a 401k since I started as an engineer, now I'm 43 years old, so that was some 20 odd years ago.

Started with 12k in student loan debt... now my investment portfolio is > 700k. I didn't learn about indexing and asset allocation until quite recently, wifes 401k went from 100k -> 20k in the dot-bomb era, and I'm not particularly frugal.

Time flies by so fast, you'll be crossing 125.... 150.... 200....

I'm enjoying your milestone vicariously. Great job keep at it !!

- John

 

[SteveR]

Nice to see you kids starting to hit some significant targets in your quest to FIRE. Keep to the path of LBYM and investing in low cost assets. Time will be your friend if you keep your portfolios balanced.

In 1991, after my divorce I started out with a NW of -200k. In 2002, I had a NW of over seven figures. I don't own a business. I don't have a high level executive salary. I don't have inherited money or assets. What we have is what we earned, saved and invested. It can be done and many on this board have done far better than we have. I am not an expert on markets, or specific stocks, or annuities. I do however, know what I spend and what I make and have always managed to save more than I make and to make decent investment choices....all learned the hard way.

Today we don't track our NW. We track our investments and cash funds since these will be what is used to pay the bills and allow us to travel as much as we want each year until we die. My projections show we will die with a lot on the table. We are not willing to do that so our spending in early ER will be staggering compared with many others here.

Keep the faith and keep good records on where you spend and why. Put together a budget and stick to it...no matter what. The real gains in NW come from compound interest and with capital appreciation in real property and assets.

Good luck and keep on trudging ahead. The end will come as soon as you want it to.

 

[chinaco]

Congrats... Keep it up.

 

[Sandy]

Congrats on all of the deserved (and undeserved) milestones.

Bank that bonus and some of the raise.

If you read some old threads you will see that many here opted for less expensive weddings, but don't go overboard to the point of resentment. Hoefully you are on the same page.

 

[rw86347]

Nice to see you kids starting to hit some significant targets in your quest to FIRE. Keep to the path of LBYM and investing in low cost assets. Time will be your friend if you keep your portfolios balanced.

In 1991, after my divorce I started out with a NW of -200k. In 2002, I had a NW of over seven figures. I don't own a business. I don't have a high level executive salary. I don't have inherited money or assets. What we have is what we earned, saved and invested. It can be done and many on this board have done far better than we have. I am not an expert on markets, or specific stocks, or annuities. I do however, know what I spend and what I make and have always managed to save more than I make and to make decent investment choices....all learned the hard way.

Today we don't track our NW. We track our investments and cash funds since these will be what is used to pay the bills and allow us to travel as much as we want each year until we die. My projections show we will die with a lot on the table. We are not willing to do that so our spending in early ER will be staggering compared with many others here.

Keep the faith and keep good records on where you spend and why. Put together a budget and stick to it...no matter what. The real gains in NW come from compound interest and with capital appreciation in real property and assets.

Good luck and keep on trudging ahead. The end will come as soon as you want it to.

I love this response!!! I think I might cut and paste it to my office wall.

Can I ask how much you make and the percentage you saved in the begining, and the percentage you save now?

 

[CybrMike]

WE WANT PRENUP! WE WANT PRENUP!

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

WE WANT PRENUP! WE WANT PRENUP!

Hey, that's my line!

As for a pre-nup. Yep, we've got one.

 

[SteveR]

...Can I ask how much you make and the percentage you saved in the begining, and the percentage you save now?

How much I make is not for public disclosure.

We saved between 25-35% (depending on the year) of our before tax wages. All dividends were reinvested, all interest reinvested and 50% of any bonuses were invested somewhere. This year it is only my wage income plus a small disability check for DW. I knew I would be retiring this year and our cash flow was more a priority than 401k deposits. However, I still saved up the company match level so I could take the "free money" and lower my taxable income since the 401k contribution is pre-tax.

We will reverse the savings process when I ER. We have already changed the various re-invest decisions to sweep into a MM fund we can then transfer to our checking account as needed.

Life is Good.

 

[dmpi]

I have just reached $100,000 in investable assets!! That includes stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash, but not my home equity. Finally cracking the $100,000 mark is a huge milestone for me.

Oh, and I just got a totally unexpected and undeserved $7,000 raise at work.

Oh, and I also received a very nice $8,000 bonus.

Oh, and most importantly, my girlfriend and I just got engaged on Saturday!

With all this good news, I'm starting to worry about the bad news that must be around the corner. Things can't possibly get any better than this.

Congratulations & CONGRATULATIONS!
Getting an extra digit on your net worth is quite a rush. You don't get too many more!