Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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Stinky
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Stinky »

willthrill81 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:28 pm We joined the two comma club today! This is our net worth, slightly over half of which is in our investment portfolio, and most of the rest of which is in our home. I didn't think that our home would take up such a large proportion of our net worth by this point, but its value has nearly doubled over the last 6 years. :shock:

Next stop, two commas in our portfolio!
That $1 million in your investment portfolio will come a lot faster than you might think. Congratulations on your financial achievement.

Thank you for your numerous contributions to the Forum. You are a prolific and very thoughtful member of this Community.
Retired life insurance company financial executive who sincerely believes that ”It’s a GREAT day to be alive!”
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willthrill81
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by willthrill81 »

Stinky wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:55 pm
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:28 pm We joined the two comma club today! This is our net worth, slightly over half of which is in our investment portfolio, and most of the rest of which is in our home. I didn't think that our home would take up such a large proportion of our net worth by this point, but its value has nearly doubled over the last 6 years. :shock:

Next stop, two commas in our portfolio!
That $1 million in your investment portfolio will come a lot faster than you might think. Congratulations on your financial achievement.

Thank you for your numerous contributions to the Forum. You are a prolific and very thoughtful member of this Community.
Thank you for the kind words. I'm hoping that with our contributions and a little continued cooperation from Mr. Market that we'll pass the $1M mark in our portfolio in about 3-4 years.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by EHEngineer »

EnjoyIt wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:05 am This week I ran our numbers and we hit our 3rd tier of financial independence. This tier includes covering private college expenses for the kids, a nice travel/discretionary budget and covering healthcare without subsidies. This was a very big deal for us. As of this week we don't need to make any more money. All of our needs as well as most of our wants are covered.

We still have a 4th and final tier which adds extravagance to the budget. I doubt we will get there, but who knows. We are in our 40s and still working part time....for now.

Glad I can share this with someone.
Congratulations on your progress! Tier 3 sounds like true financial independence. :sharebeer

Will you describe/define your tiers? I like your idea to create some intermediate milestones. Will you also give some idea of relative value? For example, if tier 1 is $X, Tier two is 1.5X or 2.1X, etc. Thanks!
Or, you can ... decline to let me, a stranger on the Internet, egg you on to an exercise in time-wasting, and you could say "I'm probably OK and I don't care about it that much." -Nisiprius
EnjoyIt
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by EnjoyIt »

willthrill81 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:28 pm We joined the two comma club today! This is our net worth, slightly over half of which is in our investment portfolio, and most of the rest of which is in our home. I didn't think that our home would take up such a large proportion of our net worth by this point, but its value has nearly doubled over the last 6 years. :shock:

Next stop, two commas in our portfolio!
Congrats, what a great feeling.
A time to EVALUATE your jitters: | viewtopic.php?p=1139732#p1139732
EnjoyIt
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by EnjoyIt »

EHEngineer wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 12:13 am
EnjoyIt wrote: Mon Apr 26, 2021 9:05 am This week I ran our numbers and we hit our 3rd tier of financial independence. This tier includes covering private college expenses for the kids, a nice travel/discretionary budget and covering healthcare without subsidies. This was a very big deal for us. As of this week we don't need to make any more money. All of our needs as well as most of our wants are covered.

We still have a 4th and final tier which adds extravagance to the budget. I doubt we will get there, but who knows. We are in our 40s and still working part time....for now.

Glad I can share this with someone.
Congratulations on your progress! Tier 3 sounds like true financial independence. :sharebeer

Will you describe/define your tiers? I like your idea to create some intermediate milestones. Will you also give some idea of relative value? For example, if tier 1 is $X, Tier two is 1.5X or 2.1X, etc. Thanks!
Tier 1: X
Tier 2: 1.2x
Tier 3: 1.6x
Tier 4: 2x

Tier 4 adds what is in my opinion some extravagant luxury. As you said, Tier 3 makes us feel truly financially independent allowing us to cover all of our needs, plenty of reasonable wants with some sporadic unreasonable desires.
A time to EVALUATE your jitters: | viewtopic.php?p=1139732#p1139732
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by ruralavalon »

willthrill81 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:28 pm We joined the two comma club today! This is our net worth, slightly over half of which is in our investment portfolio, and most of the rest of which is in our home. I didn't think that our home would take up such a large proportion of our net worth by this point, but its value has nearly doubled over the last 6 years. :shock:

Next stop, two commas in our portfolio!
Congratulations :D .
"Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein | Wiki article link: Bogleheads® investment philosophy
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by willthrill81 »

EnjoyIt wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 7:07 am
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:28 pm We joined the two comma club today! This is our net worth, slightly over half of which is in our investment portfolio, and most of the rest of which is in our home. I didn't think that our home would take up such a large proportion of our net worth by this point, but its value has nearly doubled over the last 6 years. :shock:

Next stop, two commas in our portfolio!
Congrats, what a great feeling.
ruralavalon wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 9:35 am
willthrill81 wrote: Tue Apr 27, 2021 9:28 pm We joined the two comma club today! This is our net worth, slightly over half of which is in our investment portfolio, and most of the rest of which is in our home. I didn't think that our home would take up such a large proportion of our net worth by this point, but its value has nearly doubled over the last 6 years. :shock:

Next stop, two commas in our portfolio!
Congratulations :D .
Thank you both! :beer
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jambadoc
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by jambadoc »

We hit two milestones this month. Our investable assets just crested $1 million, and our net worth including house just went above $1.5 million. We're now under 100,000 for the house and hope to have it paid off within a year! Yay! As mentioned above, you guys and girls are the only ones besides my wife that I can tell.
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Stinky
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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jambadoc wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:00 pm We hit two milestones this month. Our investable assets just crested $1 million, and our net worth including house just went above $1.5 million. We're now under 100,000 for the house and hope to have it paid off within a year! Yay! As mentioned above, you guys and girls are the only ones besides my wife that I can tell.
That is just wonderful!

Keep up the good work.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by GG1273 »

jambadoc wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:00 pm We hit two milestones this month. Our investable assets just crested $1 million, and our net worth including house just went above $1.5 million. We're now under 100,000 for the house and hope to have it paid off within a year! Yay! As mentioned above, you guys and girls are the only ones besides my wife that I can tell.
Congrats! The second million seemed to come a lot faster than the first ($2.3 here, without counting house)

I know what you mean about telling people. My wife and I discussed with her brother, who manages some mortgage backed mutual funds about our portfolio since we're just past 60 and wanted him to help should I die. His jaw dropped as we've had pretty modest jobs in a HCOL area.

Maybe I should've just written it down for my wife to discuss if I passed away suddenly...
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by ruralavalon »

jambadoc wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:00 pm We hit two milestones this month. Our investable assets just crested $1 million, and our net worth including house just went above $1.5 million. We're now under 100,000 for the house and hope to have it paid off within a year! Yay! As mentioned above, you guys and girls are the only ones besides my wife that I can tell.
Congratulations on joining the two comma club, and in nearing payoff of the mortgage :) .
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by stoptothink »

GG1273 wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:27 pm
jambadoc wrote: Thu Apr 29, 2021 6:00 pm We hit two milestones this month. Our investable assets just crested $1 million, and our net worth including house just went above $1.5 million. We're now under 100,000 for the house and hope to have it paid off within a year! Yay! As mentioned above, you guys and girls are the only ones besides my wife that I can tell.
Congrats! The second million seemed to come a lot faster than the first ($2.3 here, without counting house)

I know what you mean about telling people. My wife and I discussed with her brother, who manages some mortgage backed mutual funds about our portfolio since we're just past 60 and wanted him to help should I die. His jaw dropped as we've had pretty modest jobs in a HCOL area.

Maybe I should've just written it down for my wife to discuss if I passed away suddenly...
My best friend asked me last Saturday while we were on a hike. He's the one and only person I know well who has a similar money/investing ideology as I do. He was discussing the goals of him and his wife, and just wanted a benchmark. I had an internal struggle for a second because he has freely shared numbers with me over the last few years and I knew we were well ahead of them. It wasn't uncomfortable, but I guarantee he went home and had multiple discussions with his wife about it. We're doing another peak tomorrow, I'm sure it'll be discussed more.

We hit $1M in net worth about June of last year; back-of-napkin, I think we're close to $1.4M now (~$350k of that home equity). Cool to see our net worth growth approximately double our gross income over that time period. Of course, insane to expect this market growth to continue, but it's fun now.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Doc7 »

Milestone:

As of April 2021 my wife and I are putting away 25.06% of income to retirement. 24% to tax advantaged accounts and 1% to a taxable account in a TSM ETF - ostensibly a “pay off mortgage 5-10 years early fund” but may be used for college or retirement, it should be 1X or more our annual expense to bridge some time to 59.5.

We are 36 with $730K invested assets and after matches we are putting away 32% / $62K a year and suddenly I feel like retiring in 18 years, depending on our 3X kids college expenses may be a possibility!

I always believed in “save 17% for retirement.” I included company match. Then over the last 3 years I said, let’s get to 17% pre match. Then over the last 3 months, our emergency fund finished ($650/mo savings was going there to get to 4.5 months expenses), and I just hit the brakes on our 529 plans also, and cranked us from 17% to 25% over the course of about 6 weeks. Our next couple years of raises will likely go back into 529s, I was saving $350/mo per kid and now only $30/mo per kid. But they say, “you can’t take out a loan for retirement” and by the time they go to college i could very well have $3M+ and dial back retirement to assist with college via cash flow.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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Doc7 wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 10:31 am Milestone:

As of April 2021 my wife and I are putting away 25.06% of income to retirement. 24% to tax advantaged accounts and 1% to a taxable account in a TSM ETF - ostensibly a “pay off mortgage 5-10 years early fund” but may be used for college or retirement, it should be 1X or more our annual expense to bridge some time to 59.5.

We are 36 with $730K invested assets and after matches we are putting away 32% / $62K a year and suddenly I feel like retiring in 18 years, depending on our 3X kids college expenses may be a possibility!

I always believed in “save 17% for retirement.” I included company match. Then over the last 3 years I said, let’s get to 17% pre match. Then over the last 3 months, our emergency fund finished ($650/mo savings was going there to get to 4.5 months expenses), and I just hit the brakes on our 529 plans also, and cranked us from 17% to 25% over the course of about 6 weeks. Our next couple years of raises will likely go back into 529s, I was saving $350/mo per kid and now only $30/mo per kid. But they say, “you can’t take out a loan for retirement” and by the time they go to college i could very well have $3M+ and dial back retirement to assist with college via cash flow.
Great milestone, and I agree with that strategy for college costs.
67/12/21 US stock/international stock/bonds. Bonds capped at 10x annual spending. Semi-retired as of 2022.
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Re: Milestone #2 250K

Post by HENRYGRUGER »

VAslim16 wrote: Wed May 17, 2017 6:42 am Hi everybody,

Just wanted to post because I hit a mini milestone today. Checked my Vanguard account and my stock holdings were just over 100K. I know this is small for most people on here, but considering I started investing in March 2013 and don't make a huge salary (I'm a teacher) it's something I'm happy about. I will keep my overall portfolio at about 70/30 stock to bond and keep using VTI/VXUS at a 50/50 ratio. Really appreciate all your guys' help on here and hope the next milestone, 200K for the whole portfolio, occurs by summer 2K18.

Thanks again guys. Now I probably jinxed things and will be back under 100K in a few hours when the market opens.
Congratulations VAslim16! One $100k at a time! Great Job.

You started a neat thread with this subject. Lot's of great Milestones reported on. I am considerably older than you are, but I noticed this afternoon, at Market Close, I am $9,000 from having $1M in my Vanguard Portfolio.. If I add my 403b and my brokerage accounts to the total, I am at $1,111,389...A Member of the Two Comma Club. (Never heard of that, before this thread!). FYI, I am an educator as well, at the college level.

I was considering retirement last year, before the March Meltdown. My primary reason for considering retirement was due to my extensive travel requirements. (2018 - 22 of 52 weeks on the road. 2019 - 26 of 52 weeks in the road.) With the COVID shutdown of the country, traveling became a non-issue, as today, 100% of my classes are online. I decided to stay on the job and continue to enjoy my well above average income, health care benefits and my 403b. I have cut back slightly, on my teaching load, but I continue to enjoy my students, as they are primarily 26+ year olds, employed in the financial services industry, and not the typical college student of today. I have "walked in their shoes," so I am able to be a part of training "the next generation" of financial professionals. Over the years, I have actually had a number of wonderful students who were Vanguard employees.

I recently started receiving my Social Security benefits, at age 70. As I reviewed my Social Security statement, I made an interesting observation. When I added up the 35 years that the SS Administrations uses for determining your PIA, my income earned in the last 10 years totals more than I earned in my first 25 years of employment. Over the years, I made a number of money mistakes and had never heard of Vanguard or John Bogle. I discovered him in 2005. At that time, I had less than $100,00 in savings/retirement funds. In the 16 years since, the numbers mentioned above have been achieved.

So while you are to be congratulated for getting off to a great start, for those newer BH's who aren't there yet, its never too late to start, and early retirement is NOT everyone's goal. I think of it more along the lines of the philosophy often quoted in the blog by JCollinsnh.com...Freedom. And he defines freedom as having [offensive term removed -- mod oldcomputerguy] money. Once you do, you are in charge of your future...and no one else can tell you what you must do next, or when.

Continued success in your teaching career and your financial accomplishments.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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:sharebeer
Last edited by novemberrain on Mon Oct 31, 2022 1:29 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Raymond
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Raymond »

novemberrain wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:43 pm Hit 1M in tax-advantaged (401k IRA) accounts (combined with spouse) a month back. Felt like that was a round number. 40 year old (both me and spouse)

NW is a few millions, but felt good to have 1M in tax advantaged alone.
Nice! :sharebeer
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Doc7 »

novemberrain wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 5:43 pm Hit 1M in tax-advantaged (401k IRA) accounts (combined with spouse) a month back. Felt like that was a round number. 40 year old (both me and spouse)

NW is a few millions, but felt good to have 1M in tax advantaged alone.

Just curious. It seems unusual to me that a couple at 40 would have a net worth at a “few millions” and just now hit 1M in tax advantages accounts. My “Non-529 account” net worth including home equity is $802K with $720K in tax advantaged accounts. You have followed a different path to wealth. Care to share anything about this? Real estate investing maybe?
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by jeremyl »

We are 44 & 43 and hit the $500k+ in investments as of today. We owe a great deal of this to Bogleheads for the great advice on how to invest simply, our savings rate & a nice market run considering we started with just about $60k or so invested when we started with Bogleheads knowledge in 2015.

I didn't fully understand how impactful one's saving rate was until we saved about 50% of my gross income last year. Hoping to get close to that this year.

Hoping to be a FIRE teacher within 8-10 years. Sooner if the markets keep rolling!
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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jeremyl wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 8:27 am We are 44 & 43 and hit the $500k+ in investments as of today. We owe a great deal of this to Bogleheads for the great advice on how to invest simply, our savings rate & a nice market run considering we started with just about $60k or so invested when we started with Bogleheads knowledge in 2015.

I didn't fully understand how impactful one's saving rate was until we saved about 50% of my gross income last year. Hoping to get close to that this year.

Hoping to be a FIRE teacher within 8-10 years. Sooner if the markets keep rolling!
Congratulations on reaching a real milestone!

Saving 50% of gross income is very impressive. If you can keep doing anything close to that, you’ll be in great shape as you approach retirement.

Please keep reading and posting here.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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Raymond wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 9:11 pm Nice! :sharebeer
Thank you !
Last edited by novemberrain on Mon May 03, 2021 2:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Quirkz
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Quirkz »

Checked our net worth and realized we just added another digit to it, if only barely. Still a long way to go, but the wife and I took a moment to appreciate the progress.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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we have three kids, we wrote our last college check this month.
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Stinky
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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gips wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 8:34 pm we have three kids, we wrote our last college check this month.
Been there, done that. We had all three of our kids in college at once. When we finally wrote that last check about 15 years ago, we were able to really step up our retirement savings.

Congratulations on getting your kids out of college! You should have a lot stronger cash flow going forward.
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gips
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by gips »

Stinky wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 9:13 pm
gips wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 8:34 pm we have three kids, we wrote our last college check this month.
Been there, done that. We had all three of our kids in college at once. When we finally wrote that last check about 15 years ago, we were able to really step up our retirement savings.

Congratulations on getting your kids out of college! You should have a lot stronger cash flow going forward.
wow, 3 kids at once in college! we had two at the same time for four years, so about $100k per year flowing the wrong way. we’re mostly retired so money will continue to flow the wrong way albeit at a slower rate.
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Stinky
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Stinky »

gips wrote: Sun May 02, 2021 8:52 am
Stinky wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 9:13 pm
gips wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 8:34 pm we have three kids, we wrote our last college check this month.
Been there, done that. We had all three of our kids in college at once. When we finally wrote that last check about 15 years ago, we were able to really step up our retirement savings.

Congratulations on getting your kids out of college! You should have a lot stronger cash flow going forward.
wow, 3 kids at once in college! we had two at the same time for four years, so about $100k per year flowing the wrong way. we’re mostly retired so money will continue to flow the wrong way albeit at a slower rate.
For those years when we had three kids in college, our checking account experienced (to quote the late great Ross Perot) “a giant sucking sound” every time tuition and fees were due.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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gips wrote: Sat May 01, 2021 8:34 pm we have three kids, we wrote our last college check this month.
Congratulations, that's outstanding :D .

We have four children, and put them through college without loans. I remember the wonderful feeling, it felt like I had just received a huge pay raise.
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SundayMorning
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by SundayMorning »

Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Darth Xanadu »

SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
Nicely done, that's a big one! :sharebeer
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Stinky
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
That is a huge milestone. Congratulations!

(Tell your wife that Boglehead Nation celebrates your accomplishment) :D
Retired life insurance company financial executive who sincerely believes that ”It’s a GREAT day to be alive!”
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life in slices
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Post by life in slices »

SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
Magnificent!!!
:sharebeer
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Wannaretireearly »

SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
Dude! Huge. We'll done. You get 👏 from all of us.
I'm getting close to this milestone. Cannot wait
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Post by StevieG72 »

SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
Good job, now direct that monthly payment towards investments!
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

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SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
Congrats! :beer That's one of the big milestones. Ours has been gone for about 15 months now, and we don't even have a shadow of a regret.
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Post by ruralavalon »

SundayMorning wrote: Wed May 05, 2021 2:04 pm Mortgage is paid off as of today! No one to share this with and my wife is rather pedestrian in her reaction.
So, I figured I would post it here. :D
Outstanding :) .

Do something to celebrate.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by SundayMorning »

Thanks for all the replies on my post that my Mortgage is paid! I guess my wife does not share the same enthusiasm on this milestone. She must think I will now want to run out and buy a Corvette, lol. In reality, I am just looking forward to filling the taxable brokerage account more. Since the 401K and Roth IRAs are fully contributed to annually.

:sharebeer Thanks fellow Bogleheads!
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by LadyGeek »

The art of compromise: Look for a cool car that's half the price of a Corvette. Then, tell your wife she can spend the other half on something she wants. Works fine. :) (The technique works for anything, not just a car. Find something nice to buy and tell her to do the same.)

Next step: Change your homeowners insurance to remove the mortgage company as the loss payee. If anything bad happens, the insurance company will then pay you, not the mortgage company. You can usually do this with a phone call.

You will eventually receive a letter / mail package that contains a legal confirmation that the mortgage was paid. The county where the deed was recorded should also send you a notification that the mortgage was paid. This process could take a few weeks or months. Check with the mortgage company.

If you have an online account, it's a very good feeling to see that balance as 0.00.
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goodenyou
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by goodenyou »

SundayMorning wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 1:01 pm Thanks for all the replies on my post that my Mortgage is paid! I guess my wife does not share the same enthusiasm on this milestone. She must think I will now want to run out and buy a Corvette, lol. In reality, I am just looking forward to filling the taxable brokerage account more. Since the 401K and Roth IRAs are fully contributed to annually.

:sharebeer Thanks fellow Bogleheads!
I remember the great feeling of paying off my mortgage 10 years ago. I just got another great feeling a few days ago. I sold my house and have cash. I am renting, but it will be a much smaller place and a lot less expensive! Congratulations on the milestone. :sharebeer
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge" | “At 50, everyone has the face he deserves”
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theRoCK
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by theRoCK »

I just finished paying off the mortgage last month too!! :)
Now to start ramping up the 529 contributions for my daughter.
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Stinky
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Stinky »

theRoCK wrote: Thu May 06, 2021 5:08 pm I just finished paying off the mortgage last month too!! :)
Now to start ramping up the 529 contributions for my daughter.
Excellent! It’s a tremendously liberating feeling to not have that monthly payment.

Congratulations.
Retired life insurance company financial executive who sincerely believes that ”It’s a GREAT day to be alive!”
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VAslim16
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Re: Milestone #2 250K

Post by VAslim16 »

HENRYGRUGER wrote: Fri Apr 30, 2021 4:31 pm
VAslim16 wrote: Wed May 17, 2017 6:42 am Hi everybody,

Just wanted to post because I hit a mini milestone today. Checked my Vanguard account and my stock holdings were just over 100K. I know this is small for most people on here, but considering I started investing in March 2013 and don't make a huge salary (I'm a teacher) it's something I'm happy about. I will keep my overall portfolio at about 70/30 stock to bond and keep using VTI/VXUS at a 50/50 ratio. Really appreciate all your guys' help on here and hope the next milestone, 200K for the whole portfolio, occurs by summer 2K18.

Thanks again guys. Now I probably jinxed things and will be back under 100K in a few hours when the market opens.
Congratulations VAslim16! One $100k at a time! Great Job.

You started a neat thread with this subject. Lot's of great Milestones reported on. I am considerably older than you are, but I noticed this afternoon, at Market Close, I am $9,000 from having $1M in my Vanguard Portfolio.. If I add my 403b and my brokerage accounts to the total, I am at $1,111,389...A Member of the Two Comma Club. (Never heard of that, before this thread!). FYI, I am an educator as well, at the college level.

I was considering retirement last year, before the March Meltdown. My primary reason for considering retirement was due to my extensive travel requirements. (2018 - 22 of 52 weeks on the road. 2019 - 26 of 52 weeks in the road.) With the COVID shutdown of the country, traveling became a non-issue, as today, 100% of my classes are online. I decided to stay on the job and continue to enjoy my well above average income, health care benefits and my 403b. I have cut back slightly, on my teaching load, but I continue to enjoy my students, as they are primarily 26+ year olds, employed in the financial services industry, and not the typical college student of today. I have "walked in their shoes," so I am able to be a part of training "the next generation" of financial professionals. Over the years, I have actually had a number of wonderful students who were Vanguard employees.

I recently started receiving my Social Security benefits, at age 70. As I reviewed my Social Security statement, I made an interesting observation. When I added up the 35 years that the SS Administrations uses for determining your PIA, my income earned in the last 10 years totals more than I earned in my first 25 years of employment. Over the years, I made a number of money mistakes and had never heard of Vanguard or John Bogle. I discovered him in 2005. At that time, I had less than $100,00 in savings/retirement funds. In the 16 years since, the numbers mentioned above have been achieved.

So while you are to be congratulated for getting off to a great start, for those newer BH's who aren't there yet, its never too late to start, and early retirement is NOT everyone's goal. I think of it more along the lines of the philosophy often quoted in the blog by JCollinsnh.com...Freedom. And he defines freedom as having [offensive term removed -- mod oldcomputerguy] money. Once you do, you are in charge of your future...and no one else can tell you what you must do next, or when.

Continued success in your teaching career and your financial accomplishments.
Hi Henry. Thanks for your story and info. I wanna be where you are someday. This past year hasn't been the best for me as, although the market has been great...my expenses went way up for 7 or 8 months. My portfolio is still growing but not as much as I had hoped. Anyways, I'll keep doing my best to keep things simple. 70/30 stock to bond with 50/50 VTI to VXUS :). I have decided to add in some crypto (70/30 BTC to ETH) and am slowly working that in up to a 5% max. Best of luck to you and all the new BHs. This stuff works! I think DaVinci said simplicity is the ultimate sophistication and for me, this investing style is the way to go.
uwbadgers
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2 Comma Club!

Post by uwbadgers »

[Thread merged into here --admin LadyGeek]

I've seen these posts here but never thought it'd be a reality anytime soon for me, but, here we are, 2 commas (hit this about a week ago) in investments!

As is posted often here, things like this are hard to celebrate/share with non-anonymous people :)

I thought I'd lay out where we are, how we got here, and how a "domino effect" of choices ended up helping us a lot over the years....it's kind of wild to think back at certain choices, 6-7 years ago, that made such a huge impact on things now.

I don't quite recall how it started/why but I've now tracked expenses/income/investments since 2013.....pretty cool to see the numbers then vs. now. Of course, it's been a good 8 years which I realize but still, cool to see!

My actions from here as this ramped up quickly is to re-assess our overall finances, clean up a few things investment wise to simplify even more, and stay the course we are on.
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Him 36, Her 37
2 kids (5 and 7)

Household Income:
Notes here......fairly steady from 2015 to 2019 but 2020 was a huge increase (my wife is a mortgage loan originator) and her income was ~225k of the 2020 income. It can be pretty variable year to year in that world but 2020, and 2021, have really helped the ramp up of income which most of the extra has gone into investing, thus, helping with the 2 commas.
2013: $113,806
2014: $109,748
2015: $166,313
2016: $169,624
2017: $173,281
2018: $172,749
2019: $192,500
2020: $275,872
2021 Projected: $275k
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Investments

$1,013,000

375k Brokerage Accounts/Cash
638k IRA/401k Accounts

Planned Yearly Savings: ~64k/year
Note, with the variable income we get over the years we've done big "chunks" of savings....a 30k month for my wife, a few times a year, and we take 10-12k and put into the brokerage accounts or if it's early in the year we super fund the 401k to fill it up early in the year.

401k---$19,500
SEP IRA---$6,000 (I own my own (just me) personal training business and will use this bucket moving forward)
ROTH/Trad IRA---$12,000
Brokerage---$14,000 (~1,200/month)

"Free Money" Given to us :)
Cash Pension---$5,000
401k Match---$8,000
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Right now current ratio is:
85% Stocks
15% Bonds

Rebalancing is new to me and not something I've really ever worried about. The majority of funds are in VTSAX.....and the bonds come from various target retirement vanguard funds we hold.

While it might not be the most efficient, right now, we have a few, the 2015, 2035, and 2050 target funds.

I did this to choose the target funds that had more/less bonds, to, over time, balance our stocks/bonds a bit lower. Note, I'm no super pro with this so in my mind this was the easiest way. Open to some thoughts on this though.

The target date funds are held in ROTH's and 401k......brokerage accounts have VTSAX only.....so I think that's the proper placement/way to have things, right?
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Retirement Savings Tracking:
These are all as of May 1st of the particular year
2013: 108k
2014: 142k
2015: 175k
2016: 211k
2017: 289k
2018: 403k
2019: 425k
2020: 476k
2021: 1,013,000!!!

The over 500k jump is suprising to me as well. Below I'll list a few "lucky" events that we've used over the years to get ahead quickly. I say lucky because, well, it feels lucky. If we made a different choice things may have went down an entirely different path. Some bigger highlights below:

Lucky Events

1. In 2013 we bought our first home, the LOWEST priced home in the new subdivision :) However, we owned a condo at the time and chose not to sell as the complex had too many builder owned units thus traditional financing would be tough = tough to sell. LUCKILY we could afford to quality with both mortgages so we RENTED the condo.

Fast forward, 7 years later, we had the SAME renters the entire time. We cash flowed every single month AND my wife and I aggressively payed down the mortgage. If we put that money in the market back then I'm sure it would've been more, but this focused us big time.

The condo mortgage was 137k in 2013 when we bought our first home and was ZERO 4 years later. So, from mid-2017 on there was no mortgage......so when then took that extra ~$1,000 from the renter and pushed that into retirement savings.

2. The second lucky thing was that lowest priced house in the old subdivison appreciated nicely from 2013 to 2017.....which is when we moved to the hosue we are in now. I enjoy landscaping work and a lot of sweat equity really helped us sell home #1 for a great profit. We built a deck, a patio, and put in lots of nice landscaping. We purchased for 309k in 2013 and sold for 444k in 2017.....of course, the mortgage was down to ~200k at that time so we then took that large cash chunk and used to buy home #2....ALSO the lowest priced home in the new neighborhood :) Notice a theme?!?!? We've cleaned this house up nicely as well.


3. Event 3......in 2020, right after the pandemic started, of course, we sold the condo. We had decided in 2019 to sell in spring 2020, so, interesting timing how it all worked out. BUT, it worked out well. We had 0 mortage on the condo and sold for 245k, thus, a pretty hefty cash check we got.

As you can see from the large savings jump in 2021, we put almost all of that into the market back in July 2020 (~180k). It grew nicely and we also kept a nice cash buffer.

Now, don't tell the people in the kids playset post but we did spend 30k (yes, not a typo) on a mega ultra playset for our kids in the backyard LOL. It is awesome though! Don't worry, the 30k includes the playset AND landscaping.....but I did the landscaping myself!


I recognize that these lucky events like what we purchased, when, the renters, etc., all helped significantly, especially in the last year.....but it is good to reflect

A few other things

I'd call these things we do SMART over lucky and having been on these boards, reading mostly, for years, has helped immensely.

1. We carry 0 debt. CC (just have 1) is paid off every month. We sold our 10 and 13 year old cars ~2 years ago and purchased 2 gently used (18k and 11k miles upon purchase) Toyota Rav 4's......about 18k each. Paid cash for one and while we took a loan for the second, we paid it off with cash in a few months.

2. We have cash to pay for large purchases (like the playset!). Going to Disneyworld? We have a bank account we save so the cash is there. Putting a new deck railing on our deck, the cash is on hand before doing the project. I think this mentality works well as we never get behind and are always "ahead" of things.

3. Tracked income/expenses monthly. This applies to us moreso as our incomes can have some high variability month over month. Since 2013 I can look and see each months NET income vs Expenses. For me, I like to track NET income which is purely the straight money we get each month in our accounts from work. I don't like using gross to compare to expenses as gross isn't cashflow. In addition, I don't track money we put into brokerage/roth/etc into expenses. Those can be stopped so I purely use expenses as, well, expenses to life, not savings "expenses." So, overall, we have a pretty consistent savings rate over the years even as income has changed. Yes, expenses have gone up a fair amount but in balance with income.

Only current debt in expenses currently is home mortgage......414k mortgage remaining (29 years, refi this year) with estimated value ~800k....plan is to stay in current home a loooong time though. Mortage is 1,800/month but Property TAXES are ~12k/year, OUCH! We have an account we save that 12k in so each year we can pay it off in one burst so it doesn't sneak up on us :)

INCOME EXPENSES SAVINGS RATE
$7,259 $4,583 37%
$7,056 $6,132 13%
$9,137 $5,315 42%
$9,355 $6,353 32%
$9,967 $6,806 32%
$10,721 $9,113 15%
$11,523 $8,611 25%
$15,587 $12,183 22%
$12,301 $9,474 23%
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Well, if you made it this far, thanks for reading :) Honestly I think it's helpful for me just to lay things out and "see" it all out here. Hope you may have found this useful and happy to answer any questions you may have.....although I'm mostly an ask the questions person here :)

Thanks to all here for strong and effective advice over the years.
Savermom
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Re: 2 Comma Club!

Post by Savermom »

Wow, congratulations!
Carguy85
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Re: 2 Comma Club!

Post by Carguy85 »

Congratulations for choosing to live like no one else so you can live and give like no one else as Dave Ramsey puts it. I still laugh about some of the crap we did at the start of our real world adult lives...bought a Harley on a credit card, seriously contemplated cashing in a 401k to put it down on a new car. Of course needed a boat we couldn’t afford and rarely used. All while paying minimum student loan payments. Maxing out leverage for consumer stuff and no emergency fund.....you know...just living like most. We’re about your age...anyhow congrats once again for figuring out a lot of the stuff you spoke about sooner than later.
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by LadyGeek »

I merged uwbadgers's thread into the ongoing discussion. The combined thread is in the US Chapters (community) forum.

Congrats! :beer
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uwbadgers
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by uwbadgers »

LadyGeek wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 6:51 am I merged uwbadgers's thread into the ongoing discussion. The combined thread is in the US Chapters (community) forum.

Congrats! :beer
No problem, thank you!
Dottie57
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Dottie57 »

Hit over 2.1mm in net worth - including modest condo.
Normchad
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Normchad »

Dottie57 wrote: Sat May 08, 2021 2:57 pm Hit over 2.1mm in net worth - including modest condo.
Congratulations! And a big Thank you for your great contributions to this forum!
Slacker
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by Slacker »

Using the VPW spreadsheet, we are now FI for bare bones expenses in the "after a loss" section.

We will still be working to cover our discretionary expenses in the"loss" section of the spreadsheet, but at least we can perpetually sustain ourselves in the event of a job loss.

Using VPW spreadsheet as an easy method to account for our small pensions.
ArtsyProf
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Re: Post your Financial Milestone Announcements Here

Post by ArtsyProf »

My net worth reached $250,000 for the first time! I am a quarter-millionaire! This is a big deal because I spent my 20s in grad school w loans (in the arts), my 30s working in contingent faculty positions (underpaid, but managed to save a few thousand in whatever plan was offered even in part time gigs) in VHCOL locations but/and paid off grad school loans, persisted with my career goals, and hit my stride w a full time job in my 40s. As a result, I started a 403b 7 years ago and then a 457 about 2 years ago. I increased my contributions during 2020 when expenses declined due to work from home and moving into share housing to save money. Luckily, I kept my job during the pandemic, found BH, made sure I had low ER choices picked when I had the options, and even started a brokerage account and a Roth IRA. Along the way, I invested in a very modest rental property that is paying for itself and has $90,000 equity in it now. No debt. The recent stock market gains and increasing my savings rate increased my balances. So.. $250,000 net worth in retirement accounts/savings/brokerage plus $90,000 equity invested in a rental condo. I am sooo proud of myself! :moneybag :sharebeer
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