Welcome!
This thread is for people who want to post their net worth numbers and celebrate financial progress in a friendly atmosphere. You’ll hear no chiding for high or low net worths here. It doesn’t matter if you started with nothing or with a big honking inheritance; you’re welcome to participate without apology.
Inspiring stories, stories of great luck, progress updates, goal setting, charity numbers, dismaying over setbacks, and cheerleading are all encouraged. Let’s get rich together!
Ooooohhh I love it! About 5 years ago I had student loans, CC debt, and no retirement savings. I was generally living beyond my means. I read a ton of self-help personal finance books, listened to all the money podcasts, and found forums via MMM. While I don’t know that FIRE is right for me, I wanted to feel in control of my future. I’m also generally an anxious person with a low tolerance for risk. Today, it’s a different story! I am thankful for all the support, cheerleading, and guidance I received along the way. Looking forward to what the next 5 years can bring.
My net worth background story
I began tracking my household’s net worth in April 2017, at which point it was $63,207.51. My household income has increased a lot since then, as have my expenses (some by choice, some not).
My household income is around $105k pre-tax and we currently put 15% into husband’s 401(k). We live in a MCOL area and have no debt. Right now, I’m not putting away money for myself because my retirement savings are larger than his, and I’m younger (34) than him (37). We’re trying to play catch-up for him and once that’s done I’ll start investing in my IRA again.
This month was super exciting because we broke the $250k mark! My goal for the entire year was to hit $260k, but it looks like we’ll be higher than that! If all things go according to my very conservative estimates, we will hit $500k in 2027 and a million in 2034. This blows my mind because (as I’ve said on the site before), it took me 10 years to get to $100k, and then just two years to get to $200k. Compounding is magical!
Here are my current numbers:
Total Net Worth: $256,557.44
Charity Net Worth: $6,444.25 (started tracking April 2020, no numbers for prior)
Checking Account: $4,284.42
Savings Account: $30,535.32
My 401(k): $40,065.19
My IRA: $91,318.32
His 401(k): $72,865.02
His IRA: $17,489.12
Sometimes I worry that we don’t have enough in our savings account but it’s so much easier to save pre-tax. Open to advice/observations!
Oh and I’m also not really shooting for traditional FIRE. I already only work (super) part-time now. My main concern is having enough money so my husband can retire comfortably at a reasonable age!
i grew up in chaos with little stability and no financial role models … quite the contrary, in fact, as my dad ruined my credit before i even knew that was a thing.
because of my upbringing and possibly my constitution (i love pretty things!) it has been really challenging for me to learn how to save and how to invest, and though i’m much older than a lot of the early retirees, i am super proud that my net worth is just over half a million at this point (no real estate, just stocks/bonds/cash).
i started from less than zero and now im rich, bitch! how cool is that?
PS i love this idea for a thread and am looking forward to hearing y’all’s stories!
I’m in! I’ve been tracking my Net-worth for a few years now.
At the end of 2016 I was in the hole -$50,566.03 with Student loans and CC debt. I found MMM in early 2017 and started to turn things around. Increasing my NW each month, there were a couple bumps along the way of course but I kept on pushing and saving and watching my spending. Getting to zero felt amazing and was probably harder than going from 0-100k. My New Worth as of today is $107,927.38. I’m averaging about $5,000 per month in increased NW this year, which kind of blows my mind since my take home pay is about $4,500. That’s all my little dollars working for me not against me anymore! I’m hoping to end the year close to $140k.
ETA: Now with pretty graph because I was jealous 
(Early 30s, household numbers)
I feel like this utterly batshit graph pretty well speaks for itself. I started tracking when we combined finances when we got married summer of 2015. (I had found MMM early 2014 I think? Maybe 2013. And slowly read, absorbed, and planned). With combined finances, we started somewhere between $0-10k net worth. Husband had a slightly positive NW (a few hundred or a couple thousand?) I had both assets (retirement accounts from HS and college jobs- always been a saver and invested, thank you Dad for the education) AND about $75k in debt, so I was slightly negative. It was pretty cool having a clean start at near zero. This is also when graduated nursing school and went to work. The first few years of our marriage we hustled pretty hard. Lived in a cheap rental with my brother, did work for our land lady on the other units for breaks in our rent. Lucked out with a home purchase and accidental sweat equity- we thought it would be our forever home, put in a bunch of work, Life dictated we sell it two years later for a profit ($70k profit). Husbands first job was with family and they had a very sweet retirement set up with a SEP IRA, 20-25% of what he earned the year before, going straight in each summer.
Now we’re spendier than we were starting out, but in a stable way, and still really shoveling cash. I feel like we end up saving a lot because living it up on an income of $70k a year seems lavish to us, but we happen to make $40k base salary more than that each year. So I both feel like we’re fire hosing cash (cuz we kinda are) but also just bring in so absurdly much at this point that it works out. Add a hot market, and we blew past $500k this year… and blew past $550k. And that’s not counting the value of our cars, and a conservative estimate of our house (what it was appraised for at purchase- it’s probably $60k more than that now 
)
It’s absolutely insane remembering the headwind I felt trying to move the needle under my student debt, and now that wind is pushing at our backs and it is utterly bonkers.
Congrats on breaking the big milestone! Your pre-tax savings rate is awesome.
I wanted to suggest that you also use a taxable investment account, too. Of your savings account, keep 6 months living expenses there, and start putting the rest in a taxable investment account so that compounding can work in your favor on that money too. Since you are both young, this would allow you to retire (or at least have the option to use a chunk of your savings, say on a trip or home or project or emergency) before age 59.5.
Putting that taxable investment $ in something like Vanguard Target 2035 will be 75% stocks and 25% bonds now, and automatically adjust to more conservative (more bonds) over time as you get closer to the projected withdrawal date. If you want to be even more conservative/predictable, you could choose an earlier target date like 2025. (Note the names make it sound like a retirement account, but it is just a regular fund; the asset mix is designed for withdrawal around the target date, but there are no restrictions on selling or withdrawing it at all based on age.)
Thanks for the advice, I always love input for things like this. Question: Do you think it makes sense to prioritize a taxable account when we aren’t maxing out our untaxed accounts yet? My thinking was to get to the point of maxing those out first (401k and IRAs) and then put overflow into a taxable account like you’re talking about. Do you think that makes sense? Or is there another reason I should prioritize a taxable sooner?
Oooh. Great question. I was thinking you could start a taxable account with the cash that’s already laying around. Then increase your pretax savings rate until you’re maxed out. And then once you’re maxed, start contributing to taxable savings again.
But it depends a lot on your personal goals! A financial advisor I met with in my early 20s helped me see that I personally wanted to get off the beaten path of salary, so I needed more taxable investments that I could draw down. Turned out to be very true, and I used those savings 2x in my late 20s (once for a down payment, once to subsidize an extended period of low salary to pursue a passion project).
Starting to get out of my depth here so batsignaling others for help!
I see what you’re saying! I don’t think I’d want any less than I have in my savings/checking right now…but I don’t know. Can you really withdraw any time without a penalty? I guess if that’s the case there’s no reason not to do it. Like what is the process for withdrawing from an account like that? I don’t want to lose easy access to that $30k.
(Anyone feel free to chime in!)
To withdraw from a taxable account, you would sell the holdings (a few clicks online) and then transfer money to your bank (another few clicks). Usually it’s fully settled in a couple of days, or you can pay ~$20 for a wire transfer that settles same day. There’s no penalty, but you do pay taxes on any capital gains. If you bought at $10 and sold at $11, you pay tax on the $1 that you “earned”. But because the rules are written by selfish rich people, capital gains tax rate is lower than income tax rate.
Cash savings is definitely a peace-of-mind thing, so maybe for you the right choice is to keep that $30k in cash, and come back to taxable investments afterward!
The only “penalty” is the risk of having to sell an investment in a down market. And, you owe taxes on the gains. (Capital gains tax).
Thanks for the info @Ferngully and @Bracken_Joy. This seems like something I should do. I think I’ll start investing half of my cash savings ($15k) and go from there. Now to research funds…
I believe Vanguard, Fidelity and Schwab all have decent index target funds with lower MERs. Personally I like Vanguard because my understanding is their organization structure is set up to reduce screwing over customers.
I posted this in tiny victories but last month I hit $500k (aud) net worth. I can post my fancy graph next time im on a computer and not just posting from my phone.
Great thread! I’m not ‘allowed’ to post numbers (per agreement with RLG), but I’m definitely following along.
I’m kind of Curious as to why one would invest in taxable accounts prior to maxing out their pre tax investments, especially if they had any Roth contributions?
I had a thing typed up, but it didn’t save so here’s a graph.
So I’m 40% of the way to FI, 20 % of the way to R(E?)
$150k is in checking/savings/money market. Most of that is the down payment for the house I’ll never buy.
I don’t count the farmland or my business assets. The big jump you see between year 11 and 12 is when I sold one of my businesses and we got a modest inheritance from my FIL’s death. (May he suffer for eternity)
Currently contributing $36k/year to retirement accounts (5% mandatory from work + 401k matching + nearly maxing out contributions to 403b). I could add another $18k to a 457b, but meh. If I never contributed again, my investments would still put me into eternal green territory by the time I can access them.
I’m far too highly paid for a Roth, so never you mind those options.
It’s been a ride. In my youth, I had to do some unpleasant things to make ends meet. Some harder things to keep the money I’d just gotten. Now I’m rich beyond my wildest dreams. But there’s a long way to go before we rest. I’ve seen things go to hell too many times to not build a proper hoard.
Yes! I already have accounts at Vanguard and Schwab. I was also looking at T. Rowe Price. I’m down to two very similar looking products, just comparing costs now. These two, for the curious:
https://investor.vanguard.com/mutual-funds/profile/fees/vwusx
https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/tools/fund-research/TRBCX#content-portfolio
For me it’s for access to the money. Right now it’s just sitting in a savings account. I want to keep a large amount of money not in retirement accounts as an emergency fund. I probably want more in mine than some people because in the past I’ve had huge unexpected medical bills, and we’re a single income household, so I feel like we’re higher risk in a couple areas.
