Welcome to week #2 of the new year! Woop woop!
My apologies for being a bit late publishing this net worth here, but honestly I’ve been kinda nervous to share it, just because there really isn’t a good way of doing it without coming across as an asshat, haha… Who gets an increase of $90,000 in a month and then broadcasts it to the world??
But hopefully y’all know by now that boasting isn’t my style, and we share both the goods and the bads here no matter what goes down in my financial world as part of our super-transparency mission here at the site. So while I am proud of how far we’ve come over the 10 years doing this, please know this is all for informational purposes and to hopefully inspire others to keep on hustling their hearts out too as it really does pay off in the long run!
So with that, let’s get started! But first, a look at how the past 12 months have gone overall to put things in perspective more:
And then here’s a breakdown per month, along with links to each report if you want to dive into any further. All of which shows just how powerful consistency (and a great market run!) can be towards the growth of your wealth… And most of the returns come from your MONEY doing all the work for you as you go about your life! It’s a wonderful thing.
- Dec: $802,949.84 (+$93,000)
- Nov: $709,372.08 (+$21,000)
- Oct: $688,210.30 (+$12,000)
- Sep: $675,681.17 (+$16,000)
- Aug: $659,786.34 (-$600)
- July: $660,442.69 (+$12,000)
- June: $648,316.94 (+$5,000)
- May: $643,155.75 (+$6,000)
- Apr: $636,893.40 (+$4,000)
- Mar: $632,301.91 (+$700)
- Feb: $631,547.73 (+ $20,000)
- Jan: $610,770.25 (+ $10,000)
A total increase of $190,000, or 30%. Not too bad at all… And doing my best to soak it up as I know it’ll be one of the only times I’ll see something like this, haha… To think we had a total of $50,000 banked just 10 years ago is crazy! And really a testament to this *community* here as there’s no way I’d be close to any of this had I never stumbled across it.
Now to December’s Numbers!
(Net Worth Report #110)
CASH SAVINGS (+$61,908.38): This is the biggie right here – at least in terms of dollar amounts – and is where I parked a bulk of our profit from last month’s website sale just to enjoy it a little before we start spreading it around. Though as you’ll see in the areas below, I have already made a few moves just because I couldn’t help myself :) And keep in mind this is all profit after taxes and paying out my team @ Rockstar, etc too… If only you could keep 100% of your gains!
SPAVINGS FUND! (+$2,078.42): A record percentage increase right there! 1,619.21%!! Haha… Though this has nothing to do with the sale of the site or any hustling at all. In fact, it’s actually something pretty embarrassing!! I forgot about a $2,000 tax refund owed to me – FROM LAST YEAR! – and it magically appeared in my account last month??! Apparently one of my quarterly payments never made it over to the great state of Virginia, and therefore they held onto my refund until I guess they were tired of holding onto it and wanted to close up the books. So basically I completely forgot about TWO GRAND and woudn’t have ever missed it had they never sent it over – wow…
That being said, it was a pretty nice surprise to see when it hit my account, and of course the first thing I had to do was xfer it over into my Spavings Account to make sure it really counts as saved money :) Not the same as spaving a $0.50 coupon, but hey – this is my game and my rules! And now the shot at hitting $5,500 by the end of the year to max out next year’s IRA is looking even better – woohoo.
(Other spavings from the month totaled $5.39 – everything from discounts off at coffee shops to spare change found on the ground… Even found a quarter the other week! And had to be sly about it as it was laying in a pretty precarious position :)
THRIFT SAVINGS PLAN (TSP) (+$588.80): Another nice increase from my wife’s automated contributions every month… Nothing too special going on outside of that yet (one day we want to up her %, but not until she’s more settled with her career, as well as our living situation as we’ve decided to move this Summer but not quit sure *where* yet…. Turns out her gov’t job may not be as secure as we had thought with this administration!!)
ROTH IRAs (+$12,590.57): This one we DID add too, and a total of $11,000 at that ($5,500 into my Roth IRA, and then $5,500 into my wife’s IRA to max out the year for the both of us). Felt good to utilize some of the profit this way to get a quick rush :)
SEP IRA (+$6,318.56): Nothing new added in the SEP as yet, but once we settle up our taxes over the next month or so I’ll be taking a big chunk of the new money to max out this puppy as well… And initial estimations point it to being around $20,000’ish (SEPs are based on total profit from your business over the year, vs a flat maxing # like 401(k)s and the like).
Here’s how our investments have fared though since going “all in” with Vanguard three years ago (It’s 100% invested in VTSAX – my favorite “lazy” portfolio!):
CAR VALUES (-$1,577.00): A big drop here, but mainly because I lowered the “condition” of our cars on KBB to get a little more conservative… And also because KBB changed the way they present their values now, so I just went with the *lowest* in the range they provided and called it a day ;)
Here are the present values of them now:
- Lexus RX350: $10,084.00
- Toyota Corolla: $3,493.00
CAR LOAN: (-$11,670.03): On the flip side of the equation, we’re now completely debt-free as I wiped it all away last month! Woo! The very FIRST thing I did with the site’s profit :) And still cracking myself up with what I was going to send over to those guys when asked “why” I wanted to get it all paid off, jeez… Is the only way to do it these days by picking up another loan??
(I didn’t send that, of course, as tempted as I was ;))
We’ll see what we end up doing when it’s Minivan time, but for the time being we’re 100% debt-free since being a teenager! Pretty wild to think about!
And that’s it for December! And the whole 2017 year, for that matter…
Here’s an even broader picture covering all 110 net worth reports since publicly publishing it in 2008:
Again, this stuff isn’t fast, but if you put in the time and hustle you do eventually get there! And now we move on to the ultimate milestone – the $1 Milly mark :) Though something tells me this is still quite far away as I’m running out of websites to sell, haha…
Oh, and then here are the kiddos’ updated net worths too. We threw in an extra $100/each into their 529 accounts that they got from grandma (God bless her soul), but looks like our $50 monthly deposits hadn’t hit yet. I don’t plan on jacking any of this up with our profits, but I have set aside $5,000 for Baby Dime when he/she finally comes… Gotta keep things fair, right?
Lastly, a Life Update!
This is the part where I usually sign off and ask you how YOUR month/year went financially, but last month I was asked if I could share some updates on our *lives* too to help balance out all the $$$$ talk with these reports, and I loved the idea so that’s what we’ll do here real quick :) After all, money is worthless if you’re miserable every single day, right? So this is for you, Lily!
- Baby Dime continues to bake nicely and is healthy all around, as well as mom!, and the due date is still set for May 3rd. Though we predict a 1-2 week early departure due to complications that came around with the last pregnancy.
- My other kids are doing great too and really loving school!! Baby Penny rides the bus all by himself and doesn’t even need me in the least (*tear*) and his younger brother, Baby Nickel (this is starting to get confusing – the coins are going in the opposite direction?!), is flourishing as well and getting more adult-like by the day. God help me though if I have another boy – they are such a handful together!
- Speaking of… my wife still very much knows the sex and I still very much don’t ;) Although it’s getting harder and harder to enjoy the days knowing she’s fully ready to start planning now and slowly losing patience with my antics, haha… I fear it’s either find out by my own accord, or “accidentally” find out when she slips by design – womp womp.
- In work/life balance news – so far so peaceful! It’s amazing what happens when you quit filling every nook and cranny of your time with something to do, haha… it’s like my brain can finally just “be.” And I’m finding I spend much more time looking for areas to *improve* upon in my life/work vs always just *adding to it*. It’s been pretty eerie seeing Rockstar Finance live on without me, but I can’t say I’m missing any of the thousands of decisions that came along with it!
- In hobby world, my love of coin collecting still roars on! In fact, I just published my first post in months over at CoinThrill.com and it felt great! I stumbled across this new “coin box” subscription where for $X/mo they’ll send you a new box of coins right to your door step and now I fear for my wallet, haha… Super clever though, and I even did some of those “unboxing” videos like the wannabe millennial that I am ;)
- Lastly, I’ve been building out JMoney.biz more. It’s really only a “portfolio” site right now, but I’m tinkering with the idea of sharing thoughts on life and blogging/entrepreneurship and such things over time… I’ve never really brain dumped all my thoughts/advice on blogging before, and thinking it may prove pretty helpful for others to just lay it all out there? The goods and the bads? I’ve never done it here because I don’t want to annoy anyone who couldn’t care less about blogging, but I am interested in hearing your thoughts on it if you have any :)
So that’s life! Should we make this a new section each month here, or are you already tired of hearing me talk??
Either way, we’re wrapping it up now and I turn it over to you to hear how your $$$ has been going :) Anyone else have a banner year? Anyone cross into that glorious Million Dollar Mark??
As always, you can catch all the net worth reports we’ve done over the years here, or you can continue your financial voyeurism and scan the reports of 300+ other bloggers who share here. Whether you have $10.00 banked or $10,000,000 though, I hope you are indeed tracking it as it’s one of the best moves you can make for your money! “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest!” (Benny Franklin)
See ya back in a couple days :)
Questions, comments, concerns – drop them in the comments and we shall chat!
PS: If you’re just getting started in your journey, here are a few good resources to help track your money. Doesn’t matter which route you go, just that it ends up sticking!
- The "Budget/Net Worth" spreadsheet - the colorful Excel template I personally use.
- The "Money Snapshot" spreadsheet - a simple Excel template I created for my former $$$ clients
If you're not a spreadsheet guy like me and prefer something more automated (which is fine, whatever gets you to take action!), you can try your hand with a free Empower account instead (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower is a cool tool that connects with your bank & investment accounts to give you an automated way to track your net worth. You'll get a crystal clear picture of how your spending and investments affect your financial goals (early retirement?), and it's super easy to use.
It only takes a couple minutes to set up and you can grab your free account here. They also do a lot of other cool stuff as well which my early retired friend Justin covers in our full review of Empower - check it out here: Why I Use Empower Almost Every Single Day.
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Congratulations again on the sale. I’m sure it has brought a much needed balance back to your life! Especially with the new baby on the way :-)
We did much better than I thought we would. Up 60k and that was with two parental leaves! Baby 2 is teething (5 teeth and only 7 months old. Hence why I am awake at 5am.) :'(
Can’t wait to see what the new year brings.
oh man, I remember those days! and soon will be hitting them again, haha…
def. enjoy my few months of peace here :)
(and congrats on the increase!! That’s a “free” year of salary right there!)
YAYS! I fully endorse this new section of life updates!! Thanks for the shout-out too C:
At the off chance Baby Penny’s due date turns out to be May 4th you get to crack the “May the Forth Be With You” line every single time like our dorky family.
The coin subscription box sounds so fun! Oh that reminds me…we found out over Xmas that Jared’s tooth fairy money were big old silver dollars. That was the going rate back then! *Tweets you a picture because why not*
We also found some rare pennies that are worth 100x it’s value…so you know…a buck XD!!!
Now you’re talking my language!!
glad I made you proud here too – it def. felt better talking about the *more important* things at the end here than just straight up hardcore $$$ :) it’s so easy to just get so sucked into it all the time!
Congrats J, you should start planning your milly net worth celebration now. I suspect it’ll come sooner than you think. When you’re on a roll things tend to happen that way!
Congratulations on such huge increase in NW. Btw, you’re not bragging, you’re inspiring and motivating us.
A blog about blogging is a great idea. Such blogs seem to be doing really well.
Glad to hear wifey, baby Dime, and the rest of the family are doing great.
Okay good – glad it came out okay!
Yay for well baking babies. Can’t wait to see if baby dime is a boy or girl. And personally I’m hoping you stick with the name Dime when it comes time to sign the birth certificate. 90s-00s hip-hop and R&B music would be honored. The life updates are cool. They should stick around.
I track my net worth on both Mint and Personal Capital. I was shocked to see that it more than doubled in 2017. It’s true that once you it $100k in investable assets the money really takes off on its own.
Sweet!! Good job!! And glad you liked the life updates :)
Congrats on the new little one! I’m glad to hear everyone is doing well. :)
And woohoo on crushing that car loan! We just slammed $15k onto Mr. Picky Pincher’s student loan and holy cow, does it feel good. :)
that’s like an entire car loan right there! :)
Dude you’re catching up on me! Way to go! Now to find me own websites to sell off, har….
I was fortunate to cross into the big money this past year but honestly it didn’t change a damn thing. Part of me thinks the market can’t sustain this growth – stocks and Minneapolis real estate alike. Either way, becoming a millionaire on paper is better than a stick in your eye, I always say…
Haha yes – I would imagine so :)
And it’s true, even with this extra $200k life doesn’t change much. Just a little more confidence and pep in the step perhaps. It would hurt a lot more *losing* money than gaining it! Like a 50x feeling differential haha..
Congrats J! So great to be part of your journey to $1M every week.
.Biz needs to be developed further. Can’t get enough!
Oh good!! okay! one vote to growing jmoney.biz – thank you!
Thanks for sharing this J.!
I am a big fan of when personal finance bloggers aren’t afraid to show their own finances. After all, why would someone read a personal finance blog that is written by someone who is broke!?
Congratulations on a FANTASTIC financial growth year in 2017, and I look forward to seeing you get closer to that millionaire mark! I am also a lover of VTSAX;) I opened my sister’s Roth IRA last year, and she has been great in MAXING her contributions for 3 consecutive tax years (2016-2018). I put ALL her contribution $$$ into VTSAX.
NICE!!! She’s lucky to have someone like you to egg her on!! Most brothers just give their sis’ hard times, haha…
Great month to finish our a great year – congrats on your progress, J – very powerful.
On the original $50k you mentioned, your net worth has increased over 1500 percent in 10 years – not bad at all!
Congrats again. – Mike
HAH! never calculated it that way – pretty wild :)
Wow congrats on the fantastic net worth! I totally love the life update. It breathes less feel into the numbers.
I’m glad baby and mom are doing well. 4 more months to go!
How does it feel to be totally debt free?
As Braveheart would say: “FREEEEDOOOOOMMMMMM”
But in the end we don’t die. We live.
Congrats! A fan from Portugal.
Yes – much better ending here haha…
190k increased year over year is awesome. My goal every year is to increase by 100k or 10% over the previous year. I am happy to know that my net worth increased by 16.8% last year. If the market cooperate this year and next year, you will definitely hit the $1M mark. I will be happy to welcome you to the double comma club. All the best for 2018.
Nice! Save me a seat please – I’m working on it! :)
I loved the life update with the net worth update! And I did not sense any bragging. Lots of hard work went into the big increase in net worth! Congrats on the great year.
Thank you for saying so :) I can get really into my head at times with this stuff and never sure if I’m over analyzing or totally fine with things.
You realize before the end of this decade you’ll be officially in your million dollar club?
I love this time of year because I sit down with my accountant and plan out payroll, taxes, i401k contributions etc… I’m not nearly as far along but as it stands this next year I should be able to contribute around 70K (combined) to both my wife and my i401(k)s and the max out Roth so low 80k range… Just need to keep this up for at least 5 years or so and i’ll be able to coast. I just hit $200k total in just my retirement accounts. and 115k in my i401k. Just need a little more time for it to grow… If can get 400-500k (which is very optimistic) in there by the time I’m 40 I should be good to coast to retirement. I’ll still contribute but if I couldn’t for whatever reason at least I know id be in the 1.5 – 2 mill range by 60. thats just for me, not including wife. If she can get to 250k by 40 thats about another mil by 60… Next 5-10 years will probably set us up for our lives if things play out as they have been.
Yup yup – all about dumping in what you can and then letting time do its thing! I still remember hitting $50k like it was yesterday and it was almost 10 years ago now!! If there’s one thing that will keep happening no matter what, it’s the continuation of time haha…
My hair line agrees with this statement
That is so awesome and amazing to see that 10 year progress! We are certainly in the first few years of building our net worth since getting rid of debt and have made great progress this year. It is inspiring to see your success though as it does show how hard work really pays off in a short amount of time. Congrats!
Okay, I am going to do it. This post was the FIRE I needed to get my act together and do a Net Worth calculation myself. PC does a great job of it, but it would be nice to have something I can reference on a monthly basis to see that general up trend! Congrats on the site sale, I have always loved ESI. His talk with the ChooseFI crew was exceptional.
https://www.choosefi.com/023-career-hacking-esi-money/
GOOD! Glad to hear it… There’s something special about manually tracking it too – even if in combination w/ using more automated apps. It’s nice to be able to customize things and make your own graphs as well :)
Not sure how you guys are managing with one of you knowing what sex baby#3 is and not the other! Can’t be easy.
congrats on the $93K increase
Congratulations! You did great last year. 30% increase is ridiculous.
I’m sure you’ll break a million this year. It’s going to be a good year for investors.
Don’t forget to take your wife out on a date before the baby arrives. It’s going to be super crazy with 3 kids in the house. Good luck!
Haha yup – we’ll actually be celebrating our 10 year anniversary around then, but unfort the plans to travel somewhere exotic just got killed haha… still – I’ll take just a couple of hours to ourselves!
I can’t wait to get more content on jmoney.biz. I’m glad you’ll be using that to voice your entrepreneurial side. That will provide a lot of value.
Rock on, thanks! Def. feeling more motivated to do so hearing y’all chime in – thank you.
I’ve been on vacation in December and ended up getting promoted while on vacation. I was nervous when my boss called me while I was on vacation.
So, I upped my Wealthfront contributions, and we’ll see how the first three months of the year goes. They are usually crazy for me with tax refund, incentive payouts, and a third paycheck in March.
I’m up 33% in 2017 to $379,000. My round number bias actually hates that I missed $380,000.
Well it’s safe to assume you have $1,000 in assets you could sell around our house if you needed to, so technically you ARE over $380k :)
I’ll be looking forward to your tips and tricks about blogging.
Congrats on all the changes, and good luck with the new baby on the way.
Love the chart! That’s wonderful the baby and the Mrs. are doing well and that the other two kids are enjoying school. That’s what it’s really all about.
What do you plan to do with your cash hoard?
Sam
Put it all on black, baby!!
Or just sit on it all/invest some – we’ll see ;)
Easiest way to double your net worth fo sho! No guts no glory!
Gosh, I wish you wouldn’t feel bad about having a good month. You worked hard for it! And I know it inspires me to think bigger when I see other “real” people accomplishing things like this. :)
And your memo line made me literally LOL. I dream about the memo lines I’ll put on the bottom of all of my debts…
Congratulations on everything! So happy you’ve had a great month.
Thanks Jamie – glad you’re enjoying these (and my humor! I’ve already had some people unsubscribe due to it – hah).
Haha asshat.. I don’t think people would think that- at least I don’t! I think it’s inspiring.
Amazing!! So great that baby number 3 is doing well, enjoy your sleep while you can for the next few months. Congrats on the awesome increase, you’re going to be in the double comma club very soon!
Congrats man! Inspires me to keep going.
I forgot to mention. Since you’ll max out SEP and Roth IRA’s, will you have a bunch of cash leftover? After we max everything the leftover goes into VTSAX in a taxable brokerage account at Vanguard. VTSAX is very tax efficient.
I know it!
Honestly I’ve never had much leftover after maxing out the SEP an IRA over the years, but this time around we’ll def. have some to play with… I’m not sure if we’ll invest some of it right away or wait until after we move to see where we are, but either way – yes. If we were to have to put $$ somewhere it would be in Vanguard brokerage and right into more VTSAX :) That’s one area we haven’t done a great job with over the years – diversifying our taxable accounts more.
That’s a nice and really inspiring looking chart and 30% increased is such an amazing achievement. I’m sure the stock market rally helped with your wife’s TSP. You are definitely getting close to that 1m goal. Congrats again on the website sale and for such a great year.
Congrats on becoming debt free AND on the huge increase! I too am finally debt free for the first time since I was 18 and applied for a Montgomery Ward (remember them?) Credit Card. I tried really hard to achieve that before the close of 2017, but I just couln’t make the last $393 until January 5, 2018. It’s a huge accomplishment for anyone who has ever attempted it, so congrats again on doing it. – Brian
Montgomery Ward – hah!!! But it’s no Woolworth – that’s where all my money went back in the day :) (well, there and baseball card shops – which is worse!)
Congrats on the cash infusion! Hard work pays off.
My new NW is $811k, up $5.8k for the month and up $134k for the year!
Best year yet! :)
Finally – I’m catching up to you! :)
Dude, I’ve been working so hard to keep ahead. :)
I know it won’t last, but it gives me something to shoot for.
With Mrs. Money just recently coming online (fiscally speaking) you guys are going to lap me!
Gene
Haha yeah – that def. speeds up the process a bit.
But hey – I gave you an 8 year head start! She’s only just recently joined the fun! :)
Congrats on the nice net worth increase, 30% is great! You’ll be a millionaire before you know it!
We only managed a 22% net worth increase this year, but then again we just broke the $3 million mark.
Retired life is *rough* I tell you! ;)
mannn that’s crazy! i bet million two and three went a lot easier/lazier than million #1, huh?
It took 10 years to make the first million, only 5 years to get to the second million, and only 2 years to reach the third.
It gets WAY easier! I didn’t even work the last two years!
Congrats on NW bump. These are memorable times and a banner of a year in 2017.
How comfortable are you sitting on your cash that recently realized a major increase?
How long does one typically wait to “spread it around”?
Would you consider just dumping it all into the college fund to fill up that pool and then let ride the markets for the next 15 years? (After you’ve topped off your IRAs of course.)
What’s the percentage of Net Worth is Cash for those in the FI community?
How comfortable are you sitting on your cash that recently realized a major increase?
I don’t mind holding onto it at all, though we’ll unload some of it over the next few months into my SEP IRA as well as some other places probably. But I never feel the need to maximize every last dollar of mine as they all serve their own purpose :)
https://budgetsaresexy.com/each-dollar-serves-a-purpose/
How long does one typically wait to “spread it around”?
I always recommend at least a month or two, which is plenty time for the initial excitement and rush of emotions to wear off a bit. Though it’s not the worst thing to start paying off debts as you really can’t go wrong doing that.
Would you consider just dumping it all into the college fund to fill up that pool and then let ride the markets for the next 15 years? (After you’ve topped off your IRAs of course.)
Haha… probably not just because it would be too boring for me and I like having cash reserves around as life changes pretty fast at times, however statistically it would be a pretty bad ass move :)
What’s the percentage of Net Worth in Cash for those in the FI community?
Good question! I reckon it’s a pretty small amount since most FIREd people are super efficient, but would make for a great polling question indeed :)
Wowsers, what a nice increase to end the year! You’ll be hitting $1M in no time. Well except for the inevitable market crash that’s coming soon, haha.
Any plans for the cash? I’d probably sit on 50k of it and invest the rest, but curious what you’ll end up doing with it.
Probably something similar to that :) I have $20k set aside for my SEP and $5k set aside to start Baby Dime’s 529 account, but other than that it’s still to be determined… I do want to finally have a taxable brokerage account again though which I can continually add to as life allows.
You pulled ahead of me, friend! Congrats. Finally updated mine, and we are at about 750k. Mostly thanks to insane housing markets. =) So, yeah, probably won’t see that kind of growth again for a while! Maybe we will stay neck and neck and can have a joint million dollar party. =)
I would like that a lot :)
Congrats on the banner year, J! I hope to see you join the double comma club by the end of the year. It’s only about a 25% increase from where you’re at right now. :D
And I too will throw in an upvote for the life updates.
Thanks man – it’s nice hearing that people like the life stuff :)
Congrats on the huge net worth increase will the Rockstar sale and you were able to pay off your car with it. That’s funny that the car loan site was asking the reasoning behind you paying it off. You could have said that ‘I don’t want anymore stupid car payments’….hahaha.
Congrats mate! Nice jump in net worth. I thought it must have come from stock valuations … was shocked to see it in savings account :-) Nicely done sir.
Very nice! 80% of the way to being a Milly!
BTW I love my Corolla. Bought a 2004 in 2007 for less than $10k. Hasn’t given me any problems yet!
Best to you and your fam in 2018!
Sweet! It’s almost an antique! :)
Nice way to wrap up the year. :) Like the life update and would like to see it stay. Your thoughts and advice on blogging/business? Yes, please.
Thanks friend, I always appreciate your thoughts :)
Congrats on the website sale and awesome month! Inching on closer to the milly I see… Been following along on your blog for a while but first time commenting. It’s always amazing seeing the compounding returns on the big numbers (like your SEP IRA). I’ll be there one day! Just need to let time take it’s course and follow along with the FIRE principles!
That’s it! Gotta get the ball started and then it all gets easier from there :)
Your last question???
I did.
:)
You crossed over the glorious Million Dollar Mark??
CONGRATS!!! HOW does it feel??? :)
Congrats on the sale and “right-sizing” your life. It’s interesting that y’all are moving again. I hope that your wife’s job is as stable as she’d like it to be. This town feels so very different right now and folks’ assumed job stability is just gone. It’s been amazing to see, but not in the good way.
You got that right! Stuff is being shaken up like crazy here…
When I get a windfall, I give a little chunk to the kids 529s. I know my personal psyche though, and I’m gonna cover a 4 year public college for them regardless of how much I have to hustle. Just a suggestion.
Yup yup – already set aside $5k to set up Baby Dime’s 529 account once he/she makes an appearance :) I’ll keep investing in the others’ too, but probably gradually over time vs big chunks.
A few hundred bucks a month surprisingly adds up
J.
Killing life. Reducing debt, building assets, collecting coins. Loving it. Like the .biz site as well, keep doing things that interest you, obviously it’s paying off.
-Lanny
That’s my motto! haha… “Killing life. Reducing debt, building assets, collecting coins.”
Sir. The day you get a $90k bump and DON’T share that from the rafters, I’m gonna be forced to call you a punk to your face. You worked your butt off for that, don’t make it awkward for both of us. ;)
That said, NICE WORK.
Also I am 100% into the life updates section. I started doing that a year or two with my monthly updates and I feel like it’s way better. Of course I don’t get to judge that, right? :)
Speaking of work life balance, I’m still up waiting to fix something gone wrong at work but it’s been about 3 years since that was last a regular occurrence so we’re doing pretty well there.
Happy new year!
Happy new year indeed, friend – you’re always watching out for me and I appreciate that so much :) I enjoy you in my life!
Very nice increase! I thought my $15k increase was impressive, but yours is waaaaay better! haha Can’t wait until you hit $1 mill. Shall we start a baby pool and a $1 mill pool?
As long as there’s free beer involved please!! I will need it for the baby one! :)
Great job mate! I was right behind you with my networth and now I have some catching up to do! must be a nice boost to have the funds from the sale of your website, all that work has paid off.
Good luck getting to 1 million.
Thanks man, you too! Even more motivation to beat me to the finish line :) Because if you can overcome a $90k bump there’s no catching up to you! Haha…
I know you don’t want to up your wife’s TSP overall but because of the sale of rockstar, would the tax savings be worth it for just this year?
Probably :)
Everything is certainly back on the table now with this new $$$…. I’ll probably wait another month of just sitting on everything and enjoying, but then will get right back to optimizing things again as It’s been a wild few months (years, even!).
I love your net worth statements. They have been inspiring for our family. Our 2017 net worth was $524,000. Also in 2017 we paid off a car and our mortgage! In 2018 my entire pay is going into my 401k ((I can contribute$24,000 since I just turned 50) My husband will also max out his 401k and our HSA account. We will double our car payments this year on our remaining car loan. Only 16 grand and ,we are completely debt free! (I know car loans should probably be paid off before a mortgage, but it makes me worry less Since my husband has his own business). We have a fully funded emergency fund, and It feels good. Thanks for your blog. You’re doing great!
BOOM!!! Half-a-millionaires and the nice 401k bump! A good thing to look forward to at 50 :) Which is really the new 30s anyways, right?
Looks like an awesome year to me. And 100% debt free, what a feeling it must be. Congrats!! Looking forward to see what 2018 brings for you.
Hey J – I’m just starting in PF blogging (after sitting on the sidelines way to long). Would love to hear any wisdom/knowledge on blogging you’d care to dump.
Good!!! Welcome aboard!
I’ve decided that I’m very much going to start brain dumping it all down for people, so look for that out soon, but in the mean time i will tell you three main things that if you follow there’s no way for you NOT to be successful
1) Write your heart out whenever you’re *in the mood*!! The words and ideas flow much better when it’s all hitting you, and even more so when you’re super excited or even angry at something haha… People love and appreciate RAWness so the more you can infuse it the better.
2) Keep some sort of publishing schedule – it can be every monday or ever mon, wed, fri or whatever you want. But just make sure you HIT IT EVERY TIME which not only keeps you accountable to yourself and goals, but tells everyone else you’re in it for the long haul too, as well as knowing when to expect your juicy stuff… If it wasn’t for following this alone I would have quite over 9 years ago… You fail once and it’ll soon be twice and then thrice and then you’re done. (and these days you can pre-schedule which was not the case in my day!! haha… that’s how old i am!!)
3) Guest post at least once a month on anotther $$$ blog. A post on another blog is worth 10x more than on your own in the beginning as it gets you in front of another audience as well as gives you links back to your blog which is like Gold in the online world… the more links pointing back to your site from relevant and legitimate places, the better your rankings and the more traffic will come organically from Google et al. There’s literally no way it can’t help you, even if you write something horrible! It’s all free traffic!! haha…
You do all three of those for 6 months and you’re good :)
Congrats on the increased networth. Actually, I have been looking forward to this. I can see the effects of the sales of your website here.
However, it seems you have started another project again. You can hardly see a retired blogger.
I like to think of it more as “tweaking” current projects for the better, but you’re right – it’s very hard to sit still when your brain is given time to think and create :)
Amazing year end numbers those. For some of us who have been following along since 2008, it is amazing to see all these updates from you.
i am sure you did not think of hitting these numbers by 2017 when you left your job back then :)
Congrats !
– Desi Guy.
of course not! haha…. i can’t believe i’m still even blogging! longest thing i’ve ever done in my life outside of breathing! :)
so cool that you’ve been along for the ride… I hope YOUR money has blossomed too or else I really suck at my job! haha….
thanks for making my day man, this was fun to read.
now, you like trump? unemployment rates across the board are the lowest they’ve been in so long! oprah might give you a car, but trump will have you buy your own car! he’s deregulating business -let them do their thing (why else does 1 get into business? to make money!) &in the consensual relationship, consumers choose to consume or, hopefully SAVE IN THEIR 401K!! quite encouraging to see that I can earn more than 1.2% (&that’s good) in a measly savings account. finally maxing out my 401k this yr! been following for years, j money. thanks for the inspiration. we’re proud of you!
I will only comment on the maxing of our 401k part and tell you congrats :)
Congrats on your amazing year!
This just goes to show that slow and steady wins the race. Getting to the ‘Milly” (ha ha love that term) isn’t about hitting a home run, it’s about not shooting yourself in the foot and consistently adding to the stash over time.
I see you getting up there in dollars with the Joneses or maybe the Rockafellers? haha one of those familes. That is great you finally went back to the coin hobbie now that you freed up a ton of time with the website sale. Good luck reaching a milly.
Thanks @FIRECracker and @EL – y’all have always been so good and supportive of me over the years. Really appreciate that :)
That’s two-year employee salary you gained in a single month. Although I know that there’s lots of hard work you must have put into Rockstar to make that work. You reaped what you sowed. Congratulations!
Fun way to look at it for sure :)
Hi J, do you mind sharing your VTSAX acc portfolio allocation?
Here you go :)
https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/investments/portfoliodetails?fundId=0585
J$,
I downloaded your Net Worth template in 2016 and it has quite honestly changed my life.
Since then my net worth has tripled, my savings have skyrocketed, the template has grown into a massive beast of my own creation, and I actually know where my money is coming from, where it goes, and how much it makes.
Watching your journey and growth is so inspiring; I just want to say thank you.
<3 $tickyWicket
P.S. When I showed the NW file to my CPA he turned giddy and said, "Oh yay!! You're my favorite kind of client!"
HAH!! Awesome!!
So glad it’s kick started a lifetime of happiness and wealth now ;)
Would love to see how you tweaked it if you ever want to share?!
Here’s to financial peace!
Hi J,
Net worth calculation is always one of the most interesting things for me. I like to see how my net worth is growing and which factors are making the major contribution.
It is inspiring to check how your net worth has grown in 12 months.
Thanks for sharing!
Rock on man…
Shoot us a link if you post up your #’s too! :)