Share your investing/life timeline

[97guns]

Thought this could be fun and constructive




Born in 1970 learned to save by 5, it was very apparent, a friend buys me a smurf holding a penny "because I save money"

18 and I'm a shoestring from dropping out of high school

At 20 started a small landscaping business only netting around 12k a year, was partying a lot and had no vision of my future.

26, landed my first real corporate job and began making net worth, started to get the taste of real money.

30, changed job/career, net worth around $180k from previous employer stock program + saving. Bought a triplex that didn't work out and sold to break even.

34, Company moved and got laid off, net worth now around 220k from saving

35, went to a state funded vocational school and landed a job from it, worked 4 years and got laid off again

39, net worth 280k and moved it all into RE.

43, father passes away leaving me around $300k

45, got married, net worth 1.6mil

[corn18]

1988 - graduated from the Naval Academy with a $15k car loan.

1988-2008 twenty years in the Navy. Slowly built up debt to near bankruptcy

2008- retired from Navy. Got pension. Got job as defense contractor making better money. Net worth -$60k

2008-2013 slowly built up enormous debt to near bankruptcy. Net worth -$150k

2013-2017 found this place in 2013. Saw the light. Paid off all debt. Saving 40% of net income. Got promoted. Saving like crazy. Might be able to retire in 3-4 years. Just have to get the mortgage paid off. Net worth $850k and climbing fast.

[AJ444]

1980-born

2001-graduated with a bachelors in business and got my first professional job a month later. Paid off school loans and maxed 401k

2002-bought a house and car I could barely afford, lowered 401k to only get the match.

2004-graduated with a masters in business

2007-job hopped for more money, got married to a spouse that was a financial train wreck

2009-divorced train wreck, got together with current wife. With our negative home equity our net worth was essentially zero.

2010-laid off, got another job for same money. We get extremely frugal and start aggressively saving.

2011-Wife does a 6 month tour in Afghanistan to get money to sell her house. We both get promoted.

2012-pay off my house, we start living more in the now by spending one of our incomes each year.

2016-I job hop to another promotion, wife is promoted again. I sell my house and we start renting.

2017-should hit 1 mil net worth by mid year, still saving all but one income after 401k max.

Bad decisions of 20's changed to good decisions in 30's.

[greenskeeper]

1979 - born

1997 - first invested in 401k with company match (age 18)

2003 - bought first house

2007 - sold first house, profit of 70k

2007 - bought second house, aggressively paid down mortgage to be free and clear on or before 2022

2012 - career change, almost doubled yearly income

2017 - net worth $310k

always lived below my income level, single credit card paid in full every month. Never financed a thing aside from housing (NO CAR LOANS)

[phantom]

2004 - I got my first job, but wouldn't be eligible to contribute to the 401k for another 22 months. So, I just started paying off my student loans as aggressively as possible. I saw some graphs showing how it's better to start saving sooner rather than later, and concluded that the graph for people who started at 30 looked good enough. So, I decided that if I could pay off my student loans, buy a car, and buy a house before I was 30, I could start saving for retirement after that and still be fine.

2006 - I was already looking for another job by the time I became eligible for the 401k. I figured there was no way the match would be vested before I was gone, so I never started a 401k. Before the year was up, I'd left that job for a job at a small company with no 401k.

2008 - My student loans were nearly gone and I was working on a healthy downpayment for a house, and I decided I could afford to start saving for retirement. I let my mom hook me up with the financial advisor she got through work. I set up a Roth IRA with him, but I was very leery of the economy so I only put in a couple thousand dollars and set up a $100 monthly contributions, figuring I'd up it if my fears proved unfounded. By the end of the year, I was feeling pretty justified in not contributing more.

2010 - I realized that there were a lot of fees on my IRA and moved it to Schwab, which was where my husband had his retirements savings. By this time, I had a house and my student loans were gone, so I figured I could max my IRA, and I did.

2011 - I started a new job with a 401k and started contributing 18%. By this point, I was almost 30, not quite so sure about the idea of waiting till 30 to start saving, and feeling like I needed to catch up.

2016 - I maxed out my 401k for the first time ever and plan on continuing to do so.

[cologero]

1988 - graduated from the Naval Academy with a $15k car loan.

1988-2008 twenty years in the Navy. Slowly built up debt to near bankruptcy

2008- retired from Navy. Got pension. Got job as defense contractor making better money. Net worth -$60k

2008-2013 slowly built up enormous debt to near bankruptcy. Net worth -$150k

2013-2017 found this place in 2013. Saw the light. Paid off all debt. Saving 40% of net income. Got promoted. Saving like crazy. Might be able to retire in 3-4 years. Just have to get the mortgage paid off. Net worth $850k and climbing fast.

Wow. From 2013-2017 you created $1 million in net worth. Wish I could do that! Nice job.

[corn18]

Wow. From 2013-2017 you created $1 million in net worth. Wish I could do that! Nice job.

Thanks! Making a huge paycheck made it possible. This forum teaching me how to spend waaaaayyyyyy less was the real secret. I should be up to $2M in 4 more years. Then I am FIRE.

[kork13]

I wasn't originally going to post here, but I did my taxes today, which led me to looking over my financial spreadsheets...I looked at my Net Worth tab, and was shocked a bit at how far I've come. So here it is:

- 17 (2004): Graduate high school having never held a regular job outside of occasional lawn/babysitting/cleaning jobs. Went to the AF Academy with ~$2k in my savings account and a suitcase of clothes (which I didn't see for the next year ).
- 20 (late 2006): My turning point -- I got pulled into an instructor's office with a few friends one evening, and he taught us about investing, retirement accounts, and budgeting. I read a few personal finance books (Millionaire Next Door, for one), started a Roth IRA, and have maxed it every year since. Later that year I got a $30k personal loan @ 1% (typical at the military academies), invested half, and bought a car with the rest. I had too much in precious metals, watched it fall, then gave up & sold out literally a handful of weeks before the market started to collapse (whereafter metals soared).
- 21 (2008): Found these forums. Graduated college, net worth ~$15k negative, earning ~$50k/yr. A year later, I was in the positive at ~$9k. With the "Great Recession" in full swing, I was gleefully throwing as much money as I could into my investments and soaking up the cheap stock shares.
- 24 (early 2012): After a healthy promotion & living the cheap overseas bachelor life while earning a total of nearly $100k/yr (plus a tax-free deployment), I had squirreled away alot, NW around $135k. I was getting ready to move back to the U.S., and planned to buy my first house (which I did that summer, with a 25% DP). Of note, I met my wife that winter.
- 26 (2014): Got married, earning a combined $150k/yr, and crossed over $250k net worth. We started renting the house that she also bought in 2012 to some friends, and we decided to live on my income while we saved 100% of hers, which we've tried to do ever since.
- 29 (late 2016): Sold my wife's house, turned mine into a rental. Moved to Alaska (1.5 y/o son in tow, with son #2 cooking), and bought a new house that is slightly larger, more than 2.5x the cost of the previous house ... hello HCOLA.... However, this was our second year maxing our TSP (401k equivalent) accounts, and the plan is to stick to that going forward. NW has soared north of $500k thanks to our dual income (earning ~$220k/yr, due to cost of living adjustments), controlling our spending, a continued high savings rate, and good investment performance.

I/We have been exceedingly blessed. To have gone from $2k to $500k+ in just 12 years is simply incredible (if not shocking) to me. I've learned alot, and gratefully try to encourage others to make smart money choices.... Because I've found that if you make enough good ones, things can happen pretty fast.