Our 1 Million Dollars Shout Out!

[Singuy]

We just hit a million after calculating everything in our retirement accounts, savings, prepaid tuition, stocks, etc etc. excluding our house or any tangible goods!

We choose to be completely debt free, mortgage free first so finally we have hit a mil without the house. Next milestone step is to hit a mil in taxable accounts only!

Progression:

Household Net worth in 2011:

Assets
House: 170k in equity
Retirement: 100k
Savings: 5k

Liabilities:
Student Loans: 187k
House: 48k

Net worth in 2019

Assets
House: 950k Equity (different house, used equity from house 1 and bought a foreclosure at a steal)
Retirement+ everything else: $1,001,891

Liabilities:
Nothing

[disneysteve]

Congratulations! That’s awesome. Welcome to the club.

[bjl584]

Congats!
Great job.

[Fishindude77]

Congrats !

[corn18]

Congrats! Now that we have hit that number, we are focusing on how much do we need to retire. This year we should have enough to pay off our house and still have $1M+ in savings. That to us is huge step toward retiring. The $1M gives us enough to retire and cover our base budget of $105k/year. Now we have to save for fun money. So, we are in One More Year (OMY) territory. The interesting part about this stage of saving is that avoiding a year of expenses by continuing to work is as valuable as saving. OMY = one less year of spending from the portfolio, so we are kind at a crossroads. We are considering stepping away form the $600k / year grind. If I find a job I love that requires 40 hours/week and pays $140k/year, that might be better than the grind I'm in right now. Just have to put off retirement to 58 vs 55. Although with the current situation at my job, I may have that decided for me.

[Singuy]

Congrats! Now that we have hit that number, we are focusing on how much do we need to retire. This year we should have enough to pay off our house and still have $1M+ in savings. That to us is huge step toward retiring. The $1M gives us enough to retire and cover our base budget of $105k/year. Now we have to save for fun money. So, we are in One More Year (OMY) territory. The interesting part about this stage of saving is that avoiding a year of expenses by continuing to work is as valuable as saving. OMY = one less year of spending from the portfolio, so we are kind at a crossroads. We are considering stepping away form the $600k / year grind. If I find a job I love that requires 40 hours/week and pays $140k/year, that might be better than the grind I'm in right now. Just have to put off retirement to 58 vs 55. Although with the current situation at my job, I may have that decided for me.

Shouldn't time be more valuable at your age than a better job at a much lower pay? Time may not be all that valuable when people are in their 20s but as one grows older, each year can add potential health problems that prevents you to retire the life you have hoped as you prolong the retirement age. I mean I would stay at a 600k/year job as long as I can and invest my ass off to have all that money make me more money till I earn 300-400k/year just sitting around. Wealth growth is kind of exponential(unless you start blowing it). Our first million took the longest, but I suspect our next million will take half the time, and half the time again for the million after that.

[disneysteve]

Wealth growth is kind of exponential(unless you start blowing it). Our first million took the longest, but I suspect our next million will take half the time

I'm certainly hoping that's exactly what happens. We're over the $1 million mark and I'm hoping that by the time I'm ready to call it quits, we'll be close to the $2 million mark thanks to compounding. If we can put in $3,000/month for the next 8 years and average 6%, that will put us right around that mark and I'll be good to hang it up.

[disneysteve]

The $1M gives us enough to retire and cover our base budget of $105k/year.

Does that include a pension? I don't think you can plan on 105K/year from a 1M nest egg alone.

[corn18]

Does that include a pension? I don't think you can plan on 105K/year from a 1M nest egg alone.

Yes, it includes a $45k / year COLA pension and $55k/year SS starting @ 70. Once I hit 70, our base budget is pretty much covered by the pension + SS.

[Thrif-t]

Wow, congrats!

We're excited to be closing in on 1/2 mil, of course we have nowhere near the income you all do. But pretty proud of ourselves for accumulating that much on a modest income. The highest we've ever grossed is 80k.

[1claire]

Hard work paid off, congratulations!

[corn18]

Wow, congrats!

We're excited to be closing in on 1/2 mil, of course we have nowhere near the income you all do. But pretty proud of ourselves for accumulating that much on a modest income. The highest we've ever grossed is 80k.

"It's not how much money you make, but how much money you keep, how hard it works for you, and how many generations you keep it for."- Robert Kiyosaki

[Singuy]

Wow, congrats!

We're excited to be closing in on 1/2 mil, of course we have nowhere near the income you all do. But pretty proud of ourselves for accumulating that much on a modest income. The highest we've ever grossed is 80k.

This is way more impressive. I always think people like my parents who made a more modest income can blow their investment up to multi-million before retirement. A lot more sacrifice needed for that to happen.

[Thrif-t]

Thanks Singuy, but it was really just starting at 21 and letting compound interest do it's thing. I started putting 6% in my 401k to get the match and raised it 1% every year when I got a raise. Been working 29 years, and am up to 30% going in my 401k.

It is true if you put $ away right from the start you don't miss it.

edit: This is combining me and my DH together, I don't have this alone! But I do have more in my 401 than he does because I started saving earlier, even though he made more.

[kork13]

It is true if you put $ away right from the start you don't miss it.

This couldn't be more right. I started out from college saving 20%+, as much as 50% after we got married. It was always easy, because I always lived on far less than I earned. In fact, I'm discovering the opposite problem of this: after saving so much for so long, I'm having a hard time reducing my savings in order to bump up our lifestyle some (probably a topic for a different thread).