Hi....one more lurker to new member

[Love This Community]

View attachment 2022-01-12_20-36-19.bmpThanks Exit...let's see if this format works.

 

[street]

^ I think you are doing a great job for your age. Outstanding!!!

 

[Love This Community]

^ I think you are doing a great job for your age. Outstanding!!!

Thanks Street!

 

[Exit 2024]

Moving the goal post a bit to target #3mil total NW excluding kids education.

It worked! and as you know I love table formats

If you are targeting $3mil excluding kids education I would separate 529s and other designated accounts for that purpose with their own subtotals. Is there a target for college savings?

 

[Love This Community]

It worked! and as you know I love table formats

If you are targeting $3mil excluding kids education I would separate 529s and other designated accounts for that purpose with their own subtotals. Is there a target for college savings?

Makes sense. I am thinking 200K for each kid.

 

[Love This Community]

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Here's a quick 2022 update. Thankful that we are still in the accumulation phase and thankful for the family, employment and good health. Like most people, our overall NW dropped this year but we contributed max allowed limits for pre-tax contributions. Converted my voluntary pension account into tIRA (new line item). Also, simplified my 401K balance from previous employer by transfering everything into 2055 target date fund. I wanted to be heavy on stocks so chose this fund. Brokerage account took a big beating (invested in individual stocks. Got burnt a bit by Covid stocks. Also bought AMZN, GOOGL at peak. Holding on to non-Covid positions for long term). After buying and holding (not trading) individual stocks, I decided to put new money into SPY or VOO on DCA basis for the long run. Have 9 months expenses in cash. Will bring it down to 6 months by diverting to equities in 2023. On track to continue ploghing money into pre and after tax accounts. Buckled down and ready for the ride. Happy investing everyone and thank you so much for all your help and guidance!

 

[Exit 2024]

Great Quarter for you, LTC!
Investments are slightly down, but they are down for everyone right now.
I see your US RE equity is UP, is it due to paying off mortgages? or pure appreciation in prices? If later - how do you calculate it?

 

[Love This Community]

Thanks exit. About 13K in equity and rest in appreciation for RE. I have been very conservative in my calculation earlier and am now more aligned with the market prices. Planning on paying off the remaining loan by mid 2025.

 

[Bigdawg]

Great job. Stay the course. This to shall pass. Only one piece of advice on the equities, stay away from the individual stocks and go with ETF's. Maybe have a small play fund for a few individuals. Most of the successful RE folks on here will tell you about their failures in individual stocks. I have a few. I have been moving to almost exclusively market wide ETF's. SPY, VTI, etc... Once again, great job.

 

[kgtest]

Great job. Stay the course. This to shall pass. Only one piece of advice on the equities, stay away from the individual stocks and go with ETF's. Maybe have a small play fund for a few individuals. Most of the successful RE folks on here will tell you about their failures in individual stocks. I have a few. I have been moving to almost exclusively market wide ETF's. SPY, VTI, etc... Once again, great job.

Here are a few war stories.

Bought TASR and then it was acquired by Axis Body Cam and the stock tanked. I lost a few thousand. Could be worse.

Bought XOM too high, and sold too low. Lost another few thousand dollars.

Bought DAL and realized airlines are horrible stocks to buy. Lots of winter weather events and bad management the year I bought and lost a few thousand dollars.

CASY bought this stock and it did okay, but it was outpaced by the market by quite a bit so I limited my earning potential holding it longer than I should. Didn't own a ton of shares no big deal.

Bought AAPL. Still hold about 20% in my portfolio with 10+yrs to FIRE. Its been one of my best performing holdings over time so I can't complain about this one...but that could change someday and maybe I will regret that play. It's split 2x since I bought it back at like $96 a share, and I added some more along the way during rebalancing, but still up quite a bit compared to the market and other ETFs I own.

YMMV

 

[Love This Community]

Great job. Stay the course. This to shall pass. Only one piece of advice on the equities, stay away from the individual stocks and go with ETF's. Maybe have a small play fund for a few individuals. Most of the successful RE folks on here will tell you about their failures in individual stocks. I have a few. I have been moving to almost exclusively market wide ETF's. SPY, VTI, etc... Once again, great job.

Thanks Bigdawg. Point well taken. Will grow the SPY bucket so individual positions look like play money [emoji383].

 

[Bigdawg]

Will grow the SPY bucket so individual positions look like play money [emoji383].

^Now that's confidence.

 

[Montecfo]

BigDawg, come on my friend . Lots of people retire investing in individual stocks. I have done this.

Now you want to be smart as in all things. Know what you own, diversify, do your homework, etc.

Let's face it, ETFs are relatively new. Retirement is not.

 

[Bigdawg]

BigDawg, come on my friend . Lots of people retire investing in individual stocks. I have done this.

Now you want to be smart as in all things. Know what you own, diversify, do your homework, etc.

Let's face it, ETFs are relatively new. Retirement is not.

Haha, recency bias. I've been getting my butt kicked (VNDA, Thanks Fermion-lol).

 

[Love This Community]

2023 update

Hi All,

Happy New Year! Been traveling during the holidays and just got to posting 2023 update. 2023 has been a good year for us. Thanks to good income and market gods. Contributed max allowed limits for pre-tax contributions and did an in-plan distribution to bump up Roth IRA balance. Still holding to high cash position in high yield savings and glad I did as it gives me a good comfort level. Especially during times like these where we will loose one income starting next week. Hopefully job market will be strong and we'll be able to bounce restart the second income stream. We're officially in the 401k millionaires club (one of those articles that I used to read in the early days and think is it even possible). Goal for this year is to maximize pre-tax accounts, fund 529 and boost after tax savings depending on second income situation. Overall, very thankful for the journey and thank you all for your guidance and support to me and many others like me. It pays to be a sponge.

 

[pacergal]

Looks like you are doing well, congratulations.

 

[Koolau]

Heh, heh, you've already noticed that the "second million" is always easier than the first. Congratulations on your steady progress.

IIRC, I retired with considerably LESS than your current stash, though that was in 2005. Thankfully, my stash has grown as well - obviously through growth and not through additions.

Keep up the great progress. Perhaps it's time to set a (very) tentative Early Retirement date but YMMV.

 

[Love This Community]

Heh, heh, you've already noticed that the "second million" is always easier than the first. Congratulations on your steady progress.

IIRC, I retired with considerably LESS than your current stash, though that was in 2005. Thankfully, my stash has grown as well - obviously through growth and not through additions.

Keep up the great progress. Perhaps it's time to set a (very) tentative Early Retirement date but YMMV.

Thanks Koolau. Agree, second million in my case was way faster than the first one. Will start thinking about a date maybe in a couple of years when my oldest starts college. Will keep plugging away and focusing on the FI part. ah, now that you planted this in my head...