How much money have you made life to date?

[corn18]

I am retired and was futzing around with my social security spreadsheet which shows all my earnings from 1984 through 2021. What I am calling earnings is all W-2 income. I indexed them all to 2024 using the social security wage index data.

$12,301,860 Total earnings (average $322,720 / year)
$2,421,439 Total savings (in 2024 dollars).
19.68% Average savings rate

We had no savings at all in 2013 and $142,000 of consumer debt (4 car loans, RV loan, horse trailer loan, multiple credit cards. Does not include the mortgage). We paid off all debt except the mortgage in 2014 and started saving in earnest. This is the data from 2014 to 2021 indexed to 2024.

$7,153,887 Total earnings (average $894,235 / year)
33.85% average savings rate

My actual pay in 1989 (my first full year in the Navy) was $16,066 a year. I thought I was rich back then. That is $59,556 a year indexed to 2024 dollars. I got a $90 / mo stipend while I was at the Naval Academy. I remember getting my first real paycheck after graduation and it was something like $562. I almost crapped my pants and had no idea how to spend that much money. And then two weeks later, they sent me another one. Life was good.

 

[aja8888]

Not enough as a California style divorce in 1989 took away about one million and two houses, one a small horse ranch. After that it's a blur.

 

[HFWR]

Nickel ninety-five

 

[FLSUnFIRE]

My current LNW is about 116% of my lifetime earnings and about 153% of my lifetime after tax earnings. Imputed savings rate during my career varied from -8% to 46% per year and averaged about 30%.

 

[Gumby]

More than a dollar and less than all the money in the world.

 

[RetireBy90]

Too early in the thread, but I will report my lifetime is more than I need or seem to be able to spend. As one of the books recommended by Warren says “money is just how we keep score”. Took a while to wrap my head around that.

 

[corn18]

Too early in the thread, but I will report my lifetime is more than I need or seem to be able to spend. As one of the books recommended by Warren says “money is just how we keep score”. Took a while to wrap my head around that.

Concur. We were the people who looked rich but were really in massive debt. We read The Millionaire Next Door in 2013 and decided to change. Glad we did.

 

[SnowballCamper]

The more important question is: How much of your time is yours? Over half of my lifetime, so I'm rich!

 

[Dash man]

It doesn’t really matter, does it? I think what you did with your life matters more.

 

[Midpack]

More than I ever imagined...

 

[MichaelB]

More than a dollar and less than all the money in the world.

Thanks for that. It’s something my grandfather would say, and he was a dear man with a good heart.

 

[corn18]

It doesn’t really matter, does it? I think what you did with your life matters more.

Concur. I did a lot of cool stuff, but I am now happy family and friends.

 

[Franklin]

I am retired and was futzing around with my social security spreadsheet which shows all my earnings from 1984 through 2021. What I am calling earnings is all W-2 income. I indexed them all to 2024 using the social security wage index data.

$12,301,860 Total earnings (average $322,720 / year)
$2,421,439 Total savings (in 2024 dollars).
19.68% Average savings rate

We had no savings at all in 2013 and $142,000 of consumer debt (4 car loans, RV loan, horse trailer loan, multiple credit cards. Does not include the mortgage). We paid off all debt except the mortgage in 2014 and started saving in earnest. This is the data from 2014 to 2021 indexed to 2024.

$7,153,887 Total earnings (average $894,235 / year)
33.85% average savings rate

My actual pay in 1989 (my first full year in the Navy) was $16,066 a year. I thought I was rich back then. That is $59,556 a year indexed to 2024 dollars. I got a $90 / mo stipend while I was at the Naval Academy. I remember getting my first real paycheck after graduation and it was something like $562. I almost crapped my pants and had no idea how to spend that much money. And then two weeks later, they sent me another one. Life was good.

I have not done near as well in holding onto the earnings over the years. I looked this up and my LNW is about 36% of my earnings since the beginning on MYSSA. My earnings were low in the 70's and super high in the early 2011 and up. Ive been fat fire since 2016. This was in interesting look.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

A more appropriate question would be, how much money have we blown to date?

 

[Car-Guy]

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure while I was working I made ~90% of my money between the ages of 50 and 60. Until I was 40 it was just paycheck to paycheck to live, from 40 to 50 I actually started to turn the corner and save a little, after 50 it came started coming in by dump trucks until I retired at 60.

 

[corn18]

A more appropriate question would be, how much money have we blown to date?

I might do the math for after tax earnings and see what that number is. It will be embarrassing, to be sure.

 

[imjustawarrior]

My first full time job out of HS paid less than $600/mo. I ended up earning way more than I would have ever expected.

Once I hit a certain income level, I was content. My family and life were more important than money. I bailed once we had enough.

 

[Atlantis]

I don't post my numbers on the internet but I don't worry about money. I was drilled on saving money a few minutes after I tied my first shoe. I had a bank book at a very young age. I don't recall the exact age. I worked in a store when I was nine and worked all high school and college years. My older brother by 5 years was the opposite as if he never listened to a word my dad said. A few days before he died he showed me a cigar box he called his life savings congaing one nickel and a paper clip and a couple other items. I said nothing but it told me his sad life story. I started in vesting at 32 in mutual funds and by the grace of God I bailed out of three internet funds just before the crash as Buffet warned everyone, they were all without value. In chat rooms young people were laughing at me as they wrote they were applying for many credit cards in order to buy internet stocks and funds calling me every form of stupid loser there was because I told them to get out and stay out. I often think how I would have done things differently if I had it to do over but I am satisfied with my earnings.

 

[Atlantis]

A more appropriate question would be, how much money have we blown to date?

Why?

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Why?

Why Not?

 

[CaliKid]

Made a lot, spent a lot, doing fine, life is good.

 

[Jerry1]

Not interested in sharing specifics but I’ve done that exercise and I was left thinking, where did it all go. Obviously what I did save is sufficient, but I was surprised at how much money flowed through our hands over the course of our lives together.

 

[indiajust]

I put all my old records into quicken and scanned the statements in 1996 with my first computer. 3 computers later, I have every transaction lifetime in one database. Salary gives me just barely 1M. SalaryNT is all the side jobs, unemployment, value added to house sold. Another quarter. After 17 years of ER, I am still rising to 1.7 No interest in trying to adjust for dollar destruction over time.

 

[OldShooter]

Recounted by John Bogle: At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, the late Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, the author Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel "Catch 22" over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have . . . Enough.

In life we have been extraordinarily fortunate in matching needs to our income. IMO, "enough" is not a number. It is an attitude. We have had and continue to have enough.

 

[ls99]

Enough.