Major financial milestone reached

[disneysteve]

I just updated my spreadsheet of all of our financial assets and it brought our total holdings to over $500,000 for the first time. We are officially half-millionaires! Of course, technically we had reached that point a while ago if you include home equity, of which we have about 200K, but we now have 500K just in savings and investments not counting hard assets like the home, car, jewelry, etc. We are not yet 100% debt free as we still owe about 78K on our mortgage but that still gives us a nicely positive net worth. Also, the 500K does include DD's 529 plan (42.6K) but that is still technically our money. If I really needed to (or wanted to), I could pull it out and pay the penalty.

Not a bad place to be at 46 years of age. The house should be paid off in about 7 years, possibly sooner. We should be on track to have over $2 million by the time we retire. To think that it all started with a $50 opening deposit in our first mutual fund in 1992 shortly after we got married just goes to support the value of investing steadily over time.

[Goldy]

Nice work Steve!!

We just cracked 300k right before we bought our house and are now down to 250k but at 27 I think thats on the right track.

[KTP]

Congrats! Awesome!

[creditcardfree]

That is great news!!

[snafu]

Happy milestone, the 2nd half accumulates quicker and I look forward to the announcement that you have joined the ranks of The Millionaire next door!

[Mr Nice Guy]

Way to go Steve.

I was watching Cramer the other night and saw that Disney had a bum quarter. Made me think of you. Not the bum quarter part.......the Disney part

[JoshuaHeckathorn]

Congrats...nice work!

[bjl584]

Congrats on reaching that milestone!

[disneysteve]

the 2nd half accumulates quicker

It definitely should for a couple of reasons. Compound interest works more and more in your favor as the balance grows. And, of course, our contribution rate has grown dramatically over the years. When we started, we were contributing 6% of our take-home pay to savings, and we were earning less back then. Today we contribute at least 25% of our gross pay to savings and are earning more.

Left alone, if the 500K earns 7%/year for the next 16 years, that will be $1.6 million.
If we continue to add $2,500/month, it would grow to $2.5 million.

Those numbers are going to skew downward a bit due to college costs but even if you knock off 100K or so, it still leaves us in good shape.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Congrats! Our retirement savings hit $250k this year and I think we have another $50k cash. With our home equity we're right there with you! It's crazy how fast it really starts to compound.

[rj.phila]

nicely done!

[Scanner]

Congratulations. . .that is a milestone.

You know what they say - "Making a million dollars isn't hard. . .it's making $500,000 that is the hard part."

I reached a milestone too but didn't post it - my retirement savings just exceeded my mortgage balance. . .I feel now, I could, if I had to, pay the penalty and pay off my house. I probably wouldn't (would actually rather just protect my retirement in case of a bankruptcy). . .but it's just a small mental milestone.

[disneysteve]

I reached a milestone too but didn't post it - my retirement savings just exceeded my mortgage balance.

That's a great one, too. Knowing that you have debt but also have enough money to repay it if you chose to do so.

[kork13]

lol -- I was pretty happy when I broke $100k cash net worth around the new year..... ah well, I'm only 24, so there's still plenty of time to build. By my estimates, it'll be around 10 years from now when I hit $500k.

[disneysteve]

lol -- I was pretty happy when I broke $100k cash net worth around the new year..... ah well, I'm only 24, so there's still plenty of time to build. By my estimates, it'll be around 10 years from now when I hit $500k.

It is all relative. Remember, I'm 46. At 24 I was still a student and had no money so you're doing great.