SoCal Will Journal

[SoCal Will]

I understand, it does feel like the wealth accumulation is slow for a long, long time. That's why I called it the grind, for so long it just feels like you're working so hard to scrimp and save and the payoff is agonizingly slow.

You just have to get into a routine, don't be dogmatic or over the top with the deprivation, and stop thinking about the FIRE/ERE stuff all the time. Or I had to do that anyway. I found that a constant focus on it, long after I'd sort of optimized my strategies for balancing financial security and savings with a reasonable level of comfort and safety, weren't helpful because it kept a focus on the hardship and suffering side of reaching the goal. After a few years of just doing my thing and not focusing on FIRE or reading any books, website, etc about it anymore (even though I maintained the habits), I look up and am suddenly adding 100k+ a year and it feels like the payoff has arrived. It's just another form of compound interest curve, right? That old cliche that "the first million is the hardest".

For you, I think you're well ahead of your peers of the same age, and that should provide some comfort.

I'm fortunate to have a good paying job, not huge money, but more than 90% of my country (literally, my salary falls between the 90th-91st percentile on US individual income stats). So I'm able to save a relatively large portion of my income. My annual expenses run in the $32-36k range and take-home after tax pay is about $62k. When you're adding 30k from cash savings, 25k from 401k additions, another 20-30k pension addition/growth, plus the growth of your existing assets, it starts to add up quickly. On track for millionaire by 48. That was a long term milestone, and one that I'll actually celebrate (even though "millionaire" doesn't mean what it used to).

[thrifty++]

Thanks, that's good advice.

Yes it can easily become a bit of an obsession, at times I have entered a strange ironic paradox where I feel guilty and like a failure because I don't live in a van lol

[SoCal Will]

Closing in on the million net worth. Watch, we'll probably have a 10% stock market pullback now that I wrote that, and I won't get there until mid-summer or something, lol. I have a chunk of Alibaba stock, and it's been on a run, that combined with overall gains in 401k index fund mean I'm about a year ahead of where I expected to be. Today's net worth reading says:

$993,000.

But hang on a second.
That doesn't include any personal belongings (car, tools, musical instruments, art), just real estate, 401k, brokerage account, NPV pension, and cash. I easily have 7k liquidation value in personal stuff at lowball prices, and have purposely under-valued the real estate by 30k in my NW calcs, valued it as if I'd have to sell it in an emergency/auction, applying a liquidity discount to the actual market value/appraisal. In a case where I could wait a reasonable time for it to sell (say, 6 mo), it would go at least 30k higher than my under-valuation, and the comparables in the immediate area are selling (not listing, actually selling) at 40k higher.

So in reality, I've already made it. A true, all assets NW calc would be around $1,030,000.
It still seems bizarrely unreal, millionaire at 46. Like I can't quite get my head around the idea that the "Millionaire Next Door" is now - me?

Happy new year indeed, got a small raise at work and I've been interviewing for promotion opportunities lately, hoping this new year brings a new job and new location.

[thrifty++]

CONGRATULATIONS!!! Wow hitting one million. In USD. That's such a good start to the year!\\

Any plans to resign from your full time job? Or continue in the same ?

[SoCal Will]

Thanks, it was a 12 year plan, completed 3 years ahead of schedule. The NW ticked past the 1M mark earlier this week using my normal conservative calculation method, the one that yielded 993k in my prior post, so I guess it's "official" now.

No imminent plans to resign. However,

I'm attempting to promote from my current position, staying within my org. It's not working out so well thus far, and I have a few more chances in the next 3-4 months, openings I know are there or imminent due to retirements. If those don't come through, I may reconsider.