Milestone

[CorporateSoldier]

Retirement savings hit $500k last week! Woohoo! I am 46 and was thinking of retirement between 60 and 65. Now between 55-60 may be possible. Within a few years should have zero debt including no mortgage and all of the kids' college paid/saved for.

Finally feel like I am making progress.

This is about the only place where I can celebrate.

 

[omni550]

That's wonderful!

Congrats, Corporate Soldier. Keep on marching towards FIRE.

omni

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Congratulations. As you exercise more fiscal discipline over the years, that 55-60 might actually creep down to 50-55, despite you being 46.

 

[CorporateSoldier]

Congratulations. As you exercise more fiscal discipline over the years, that 55-60 might actually creep down to 50-55, despite you being 46.

Agreed. My income has gone up dramatically over the past few years. Fighting the temptation to buy a bigger house and instead trying to focus on paying off the one I have and keeping spending in check. Not easy!

 

[Bestwifeever]

Yay! We love celebrations like that!

 

[Calgary_Girl]

Congratulations!

(I feel like this is the only place I can toot my own horn as well! )

 

[Beryl]

Congrats! What a feeling.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Agreed. My income has gone up dramatically over the past few years. Fighting the temptation to buy a bigger house and instead trying to focus on paying off the one I have and keeping spending in check. Not easy!

Good work. That is smart about the house. We could have easily lived in 1,000 sq feet less the last few decades. Home prices are close to $400 a sq foot here, so a smaller house would have funded a lot of retirement years, especially adding in money we could have saved on insurance, taxes, heating, cooling, repairs and furnishing that extra space.

I wish I would have thought about the trade off between house size and ER years ago. Plus we wouldn't have had the space to accumulate so many useless, depreciating consumer goods.

 

[laurence]

Congratulations! College paid for is HUGE! Mine are 8, 5, and 2! I'm scared!

 

[David1961]

Congratulations! Your next 500k won't take as long. Ain't compounding grand?

 

[panacea]

Congrats! We celebrated our $500,000 milestone not so long ago as well and went out for a nice dinner. It's amazing how quickly at has taken off from there. Won't be long before you hit the million mark...

 

[sengsational]

Another milestone that you might want to track is your annual expenses multiple in savings. You need to know what your current annual expense total is, and you divide that into your 1/2 mil. Actually, the way I do it is I take 70% of my pre-tax accounts (IRA, 401k) and 100% of my taxable and Roths, add that together, and divide by my annual expenses. That's actually a more predictive milestone, I think. Not to take away from the "big round number" though!! Congrats!

 

[sheehs1]

Congratulations on your milestone! Keep up the good work!

 

[BigBangWeary]

Congratulations, that is a big milestone. Way to go!

 

[trirod]

Congratulations! And it's amazing how quickly the second 500k will accrue!

 

[trirod]

Good work. That is smart about the house. We could have easily lived in 1,000 sq feet less the last few decades. Home prices are close to $400 a sq foot here, so a smaller house would have funded a lot of retirement years, especially adding in money we could have saved on insurance, taxes, heating, cooling, repairs and furnishing that extra space.

$400/sq ft? Wow! Just shows how that varies so much across the country. Here in NW Ohio it's probably closer to about $80-$100/sq ft, although even that can vary hugely depending on neighborhood, house etc.

 

[Donzo]

Congratulations! I still remember when I got over 100K and thought that was incredible - you are at a point that your money will be working hard along with you. Good times..

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Congratulations! I still remember when I got over 100K and thought that was incredible - you are at a point that your money will be working hard along with you. Good times..

The secret to becoming rich (and staying rich) is earning money while you sleep. The extra $5k you spend on a car, the $1k in vacation upgrades, and even the $100 more for the extra burner(s) on your BBQ grill add up to a substantial amount that can be invested in appreciating assets. Once invested, the power of compounding takes over and 20 years later - voila! Your retirement nest egg emerges much larger than you could have ever expected by simply saving x% of your paycheck.

Patience is the key. Unfortunately, it is in short supply among those seeking instant gratification.

 

[Maenad]

Congratulations! We're hoping to hit that milestone early next year.

 

[MRG]

Good job, many folks don't understand how to get ahead. You certainly do.

 

[er33]

Congratulations, we are very close to that but not quite Enjoy the feeling!

 

[CorporateSoldier]

Ten Years Later

Well, a little more than ten years after I was excited to hit 500k at 46 years of age.........

Just turned 57, planning on checking out about a year from now and we just hit $3 Million in retirement savings. Ten really great years at work in terms of compensation combined with saving/investing.

Just need to finish paying off the house and that should be done in the next year or so.

Woot woot!!!!

 

[pacergal]

Wow, congratulations. Going from $500k to 3 million in a decade is great!

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

Good stuff, Soldier!

 

[NgineER]

Sweet - Nice work!
You should be good to go!
We have not had quite as good development in our investments over the last decade. We had about the same as you ten years ago and have $2M invested now. We did invest in some rental properties that generate income. We will check out from the race in 25 quarters from now, but who's counting...