Tag Archives: networth

Networth, Real Estate & Rent

Cash Needed for Buying a Million Dollar Home

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We just purchased a $1.6M home. That isn’t a huge home here in the Bay Area, but it’s also not the cheapest home we could buy–especially of the 3 bedroom / 2 bath variety. But it was large in terms of square footage and with an oversized lot in a neighborhood we wanted to buy in (or, well, a block away) I ran all the variables in my head and decided while this isn’t the one now it definitely can be with some work. It’s also in an up-and-coming area and I think the value will hold in 5-10 years time, if we do decide to sell.

Rules for Buying a Million Dollar Home

I have a few home buying rules that are a little nutty but they work for my oddly conservative financial brain.

  • 20% down + 3% closing costs
  • 6 Months of home and rent expenses (we will have 1-2 months overlap on rent and house to make the move smooth)
  • 6 months of basic living expenses outside of housing
  • Any taxes due within the next 6 months
  • $50k-$100k “first year fixes” fund (try not to spend all of this, but have available if needed esp when buying an older house)
  • 6 months additional in emergency fund (all monthly costs)

My one additional rule that I am going to stick to (but will be harder) is:

  • No more than 20% of networth in equity at any one time.

Home Equity =

+ Downpayment
+ Principal Paid
+ Any Realistic Gain on Home Value (if sold today)
– Any Realistic Loss on Home Value (if sold today)
– 10% current value of home (cost to sell)
– .30% of any gain over $500k+home maintenance fees

This means that right now, my home equity is worth:

+ $322k
+ $0
+ $0
– $0
– $161k
– $0k
=======
$161k

This means that my remaining AFTER TAX cash & investments should be $805k to have 20% of my networth in my home.

Buying a Million Dollar Home Doesn’t Have to be That Scary

This is what makes buying a $1.6M home less scary, but it also means that before buying a $1.6M home you not only should save a large downpayment, but also an additional $1.1M. Not everyone can do this, or wants to do this before buying a house. It’s possible I should have purchased a house 10 years ago for $800k, where now my mortgage would be $3500 a month, vs $7000 a month (give or take) and I’d have 20 years left to pay it off. But then I wouldn’t have the $1.1M, and I would have definitely gone into home ownership with way too much of my networth in home equity.

I prefer to build up that larger cushion and know that a chunk of my money still has access to the markets, which will likely outperform my house after you factor in lost opportunity cost with the downpayment, etc.

How much of your networth is in home equity?

Networth

Journey to FIRE: 2021 Networth Goals By Account Type

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Quick “after tax value goals” post for Jan 1, 2022

  • Home Equity: $456k
  • Cash: $311.8k
  • Stock: $811k
  • IRA: $201.5k
  • Roth: $147.1k
  • Husband’s Retirement: $108k
  • 529 (2 kids): $138.3k

NEW TOTAL AFTER TAX NETWORTH GOAL:
$2,065,832 (age 38)

I’ll be tracking this closely as this is a significant growth in networth, as well as assuming we own a $1.6-$1.8M home… if we ever buy one.

Networth

My Journey to $2,000,000 — A Quick FIRE Check-In

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2020 is weird. Remember when our stocks dropped about 30%, then bounced right back? I made some not-so-wise money when the market was down, but also made a few good ones. And maybe the bad ones weren’t so bad after all.

My asset allocation is all out of whack. Still. It’s worse, because I admit I’m a wee lil addicted to individual stock buying and those individual stocks are primarily US tech stocks. I do not recommend this to anyone, this is me being dumb and seeing investing as a hobby outside of my actual diversified index fund investments. It was fun when I had about $50k in my old Sharebuilder account and I could see if I could beat the market, for kicks. Now I have about $300k in that account (moved to another broker but nonetheless), it’s getting a little, well, scary.

Right now, my networth (after tax*) looks like this:

  • Cash: $318,937 (downpayment fund + emergency fund)
  • US Large Cap: $546,150 (65.5%, target 43%)
  • US Small Cap: $31,810 (3.8%, target 5%)
  • International Developed: $183,258 (21.9%, target 27%)
  • Emerging Markets: $28,546 (3.4%, target 5%)
  • US Bonds: $0(0%, target 12%)
  • Int Bonds: $45,142 (5.4%, target 8%)

TOTAL: $1,154,954

(*why after tax? I count my networth based on after tax value, not including any penalties or fines for early withdrawals, so I have a full picture of my actual savings and asset allocation)

As you can see above, I’m wayyyy overweight in US Large Cap.

This doesn’t tell the whole picture, because:

  • it doesn’t include my husband’s savings or investments (~$200k which help the diversification but not much, total ratios look like 65/3.9/21.8/3.7/.4/5.3 %)
  • it has $0 in bonds because I sold US bonds for downpayment, and need to rebuild my bond fund
  • the above does not include my potential RSU earnings in the next 16 months, which after tax = ~ $536,896 if I can keep this job for another 16 months, which I hope I can! (total networth including 16 month RSU vested and taxed = $1,691,850)

At this point, for my goal of $2M after tax networth by 40 (solo, not including husband’s savings/investments), I think I’m making good progress. The next 16 months will be key. If the stock market crashes, given how heavily I am invested in stocks, the $2M goal could be far off. If it goes up, then I could be closer than I think.

$2M isn’t a substantial goal for me. I won’t feel good about my personal finance progress until I get to $5M. I want to do that by the time I’m 50, so I have enough money to raise a family in a very HCOL area and help my mother and sister out, so they don’t have to worry. My mother will be 76 then, and I expect that to be the age she is running out of money. When I hit $5M, I plan to pay her back for my college education and wedding (if she really needs the money before then, I will definitely help her out and I already pay for her trips to visit my family, etc.)

$5M seems like a long way off, but if I can find another company growing at anywhere near a similar rate to my current company and get an equivalent or larger RSU grant, maybe 2-3 more times, it’s somewhat possible.  I didn’t think $100k was possible just 15 years ago, so who is to say adding $3.5M in 10 years isn’t possible? With my current funds growing at 5% a year, that will add about $1M in 10 years, so I just have to makeup for $2.5M, which is saving $250k a year. That’s going to be rough, maybe impossible. It depends what kind of salary and total comp growth I see in the next 10 years. It’s probably impossible… but I always pick impossible targets, why not this one?

 

Networth, Wealth

How I Grew My Networth from $15k to $1M in 15 Years

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In 2005, I had about $5k to my name. By 2010, I had increased that amount to $88k while living in high cost of living (HCOL) area and earning an average salary of $56k for those first years out of college. Five years later, my networth hit a respectable $342.4k. I kept working at startups with decent-but-not-great pay (stock options are worthless) and lived relatively frugally over the years.

By 2017, I achieved my first goal of $500k — a bit milestone, as I wanted to have $500k in the bank before having my first child–and I made it! Thanks to finally switching to work in a public company (and that company performing stronger than the market), I’ve been able to dramatically increase my networth in a short amount of time… doubling it in under 2 years. I haven’t really spent time to appreciate that I actually doubled my networth in two years.

Do I think anyone can do this? No. I got lucky. Some of this lucky has to do with my working at a lot of different startups and building up a reputation for being good at one thing that ultimately got me the job I have now. Will I continue to make such a high salary? No — probably not. My income is largely dependent on my RSUs and after I vest the remaining two years of stock, I’ll be back to a lower (but still good) salary. I’ll need to leave my company and find a new job for a chance at making close to the same income. Hopefully by then my experience at this company will get me the ticket in the door at another company that pays well and will offer me a good compensation package.

I know a lot of people look at my income now and think–well, I’ll never make that much. And that’s probably true if you work in a different industry that doesn’t offer RSUs as part of your compensation package and you aren’t a highly skilled employee. But you can see you can still save quite a bit on a lower salary in your 20s if you are single and don’t have kids. Now, I admit I did not have college loans to pay pack (thanks to mom & dad) so you can fairly say that my total networth should be about $200k less than is now, or even less than that since I would have lost out on compound interest repaying a loan. So comparably to others who have loans, my networth today is about $800k and by the end of this year will be $1M or more.

I still have a long way to go to achieve my goals. I want to get to $2M before having my third child (whether or not I have a third child is dependent on achieving this milestone by the time I’m 38 or 39) and I want to buy a $1.7M house. Below, you can see my income, networth, and YoY growth for the last 15 years. I plan to continue tracking this for the rest of my career — subscribe to my blog to get updates and learn more about my path towards wealth. If it inspires you to save a little more each month — awesome! Remember, I live in a 800 square foot apartment with my 22 month old and husband and drive a used car built in 2011.

Year Income Networth $ Growth % Growth
2005 $15k n/a n/a n/a
2006 $35k n/a n/a n/a
2007 $50k $24.9k n/a n/a
2008 $60k $15.8k -$9.1k -37%
2009 $60k $32.7k  $16.9k 206%
2010 $120k $88.6k $55.9k 270%
2011 $90k $145k $56.4k 64%
2012 $100k $200k $55k 38%
2013 $110k $253k $53k 26%
2014 $125k $299.5k $46.5k 18%
2015 $160k $342.4k $42.9k 14%
2016 $190k $416k $73.6k 22%
2017 $130k $551.3k $135.3k 32%
 2018  $300k  $625k  $73.7k  13.3%
 2019  $400k  $1.05M  $425k  99.83%
 2020  $500k $1.3M Goal  $250k goal  23% goal
Real Estate & Rent

Should We Buy a Home or Rent a Home in the Bay Area?

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East Bay. North Bay. South Bay. Peninsula (Bay). So many–unaffordable–options where to live!

Sane people would take this pandemic situation and pack their bags and head to any reasonably blue part of the country that doesn’t cost $1000 per square foot.

But we’re crazy and want to stay. And there is no reasonable way to calculate how much house we can afford because our income is SO variable. This year we might make $700k (yes that’s crazy and like double our best year ever)! Two years from now, we might be lucky if we make $200k. How on earth do we figure out what we can afford?

28% of Lowest Income Earner After Tax
The safest way to figure out how much you can afford is to plan on spending 28% of the lowest income earner’s income after tax. My husband makes $90,000 but since that doesn’t include benefits I’m going to say that’s $75,000. If we as a family made $90,000, our taxes would be lower. That would be $7500 a month pre tax or maybe $6000 after tax. We could afford $1680 on rent or mortgage per month.

Well, that’s not going to work… we’re already spending too much at $2600 per month on renting our one bedroom. I guess we can’t plan based on this conservative model.

28% of dual income assuming minimum earning potential
If I assume my husband can keep his $90k a year job even and I can manage to make $150k on average, that gets us to $240k a year. I think I can probably make more than $150k but I don’t feel comfortable committing to more than that (my base is now $170k.) So At $240k a year that’s $20k a month pre-tax, or $10k after tax. So we should spend $2800 on housing a month.

That’s about what we spend now. :/

36% pre-tax dual income minimum earning potential
Same numbers as above, but I’ve read some more risky plans suggest 36% of pre-tax income. That gets us to $3600–still not going to buy us a house in the Bay Area!

Ok, so none of these models work. So how do we figure out what we can really afford?

  • Downpayment & Emergency Fund: $380k
  • Pre-Tax Taxable: $197k ($98k after tax)
  • Taxable Accounts: $294k ($205k after tax)
  • Retirement Accounts Pre Tax: $346.5k ($242k after tax)
  • Retirement Accounts Post Tax: $70k
  • 529 College Fund: $52k
  • TOTAL NETWORTH AFTER TAX = $1M
  • Potential earnings next 1.5 years = $710k pre-tax ($355 post tax) + ~$100k savings from bonus and income (if we stay in our current apartment)
  • TOTAL NETWORTH AFTER TAX IN 1.5 years = ~$1.45M

So if I can maintain employment until January 2022, and my husband keeps his job, and the stock market doesn’t totally tank (which it could) we will have about $1.45M after tax, with $1M of that being in non-retirement and non-529 accounts (or maybe little less if we put more into 529 which we probably will.)

So let’s say in 1.5 years we have $1M in cash and after-tax taxable funds. But our income ratios say we cannot afford a home that costs more than $2800 a month.

Do we put down a large downpayment?

One way to reduce the monthly cost of a home is to put down a giant downpayment. Do we wait until we put down 50% or more on a $1.7M home? Does that work…

$1.7M home
55% downpayment = $935k!
$3875 monthly payment

Ok, so we put down almost $1M and we still have a $3875 monthly payment, which according to above calculations is still more than we should be spending on a mortgage based on our income!!!

And I don’t think we should $1M into a house probably, but it seems to be the only way to get our monthly costs down to something within a reasonable range.

How does anyone afford a house here?

Even though my income is good now, I cannot assume this will go on forever. I already know I need to change jobs in two years to get another stock grant, and it’s highly unlikely my next job will see growth at the same rate my current company has over my tenure here. I’ve been very fortunate to be part of this growth, but that’s not the reality of my future jobs. I already want to take on less stressful roles so I can actually see my children grow up. This shelter in place situation has made me realize just how important that is.

Before you say WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE THE BAY AREA just know that my husband refuses to. I don’t WANT to but every time I run these numbers I think what we need to do is rent here for another 1.5 years so I can vest my stock and then we need to GTFO of this HCOL area and live a slower, better life somewhere else. We’ve talked about moving to maybe Seattle, but I’m not a fan of the Pacific Northwest. I’m not sure where we’d move. He likes rain and grey skies, I like sun and heat. I like oceans. He likes being close to the Bay Area because his family is here. My family is in PA and FL. I feel comfortable with the job situation here–I don’t know if I could get a job or have job stability elsewhere. Maybe New York. I’d move to New York, not sure he would.

So we’re kind of stuck in this dilemma. I want to buy a house because to me that feels like I’ve made it. I want to settle down and meet the neighbors and really feel like we have a place for our kids to grow up. It also feels so not worth being in a career I don’t love and being so stressed (though less so not having to go into the office) and making $600k a year right now to not be able to afford a house because that $600k is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. And I know I sound like I should be thrown in the looney bin because $600k is a fucking lot of money–especially when a huge chunk of the country isn’t even getting a paycheck right now. I know it. It doesn’t change the math. We can’t afford a house. Not here. Not if we’re being remotely risk averse about it.

It is more challenging in that my husband is requiring us to live with his father-in-law. His father-in-law does provide part-time childcare, so I am supportive of this–and he can contribute to the monthly mortgage–but it makes it even harder to find a house that  is within the ballpark of reasonable for our projected income levels. I can’t expect my husband to get raises as he never asks for them. I got a shitty 1.7% raise last year so I’m just estimating I’ll stay flat for the foreseeable future, esp given the state the world is in today. We really need to find a $1.5M house with an ADU and put 50% down ($750,000) and then his father can contribute $2k a month and we’d be ok.

I don’t know what to do. I feel like until I have $5M in networth, I won’t feel like we’re in a good place to buy a house. But with one toddler and a kid on the way, I feel like it’s the right time to buy. What do we do?

Networth

Saving for a Two Million Dollar Networth by March 2022

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Life has been busy these days. I’ve been busy saving 2 million dollars. Well, not yet. But I’m shockingly well on the way to a family networth of $2M before I turn 40. This number seems ridiciously large AND small at the same time. It’s obviously large. If $1M seemed large, $2M seems much larger. It is an amount many people would consider “rich” — although not in the Bay Area.

I also don’t really consider my networth close to $2M, since I actually track everything on a post-tax basis. I map my investments to an allocation plan that my former CFP provided. I also have a chunk in cash (not seen below) because that’s for the downpayment of the house I will be buying soon (hopefully, house TBD.)

Screen Shot 2020-05-10 at 7.48.24 AM

The orange are areas where I’m underinvested. I’m quite over in large cap but that’s because of my probably too high concentration in company stock. My company has performed quite well (so well that I do kick myself for selling my RSUs at a fraction of the price it is today.) I’m glad I held on to a good chunk of my ESPPs (for now) as it is unwise to do this financially speaking (you get a discount up front you’re supposed to sell immediately and not take a risk on that money) but I decided to hold a little under 1000 shares and it definitely is helping get me closer to achieving my goal. I still have a significant chunk of RSUs and ESPP coming in the next two years… so that’s where I’m estimating my family will achieve $2M PRE TAX by the time I’m 38. Maybe we’ll get there post tax by the time I’m 40.

Do I feel rich? NO. But I do feel INCREDIBLY LUCKY to have a job that pays well, let alone a job at all right now. It feels weird and I’m looking for ways to give back. I donated $100 to a local food bank but that’s not enough, so I’m considering how to give more while also still staying on track to our goals. My donation plan was always to save as much during life, invest well, and then in your will put a % of your savings towards charity. That way if times get tough later in life you have the money if you need it, but you still have a plan to give back to the world. But right now the world clearly needs it, and I’m overwhelmed by trying to figure out where to give and how much. It is definitely on my mind — but so is buying a house and having a 12 month emergency fund and hopefully being able to work part time in a few years because…

I’m apparently pregnant.

Shh, don’t tell anyone. It is top secret. It’s super early and only my husband knows. We started trying this month and thought it would take a while because last time I needed infertility treatment to get pregnant. Low and behold, boom, happened right away. I’m excited and scared and will write more about this later but clearly it shifts our financial picture. Before I was considering moving further from my office to have more space in case I had another kid, now I definitely am thinking about this option. We’re still talking about $1.5M homes, but they are much bigger and right now we want space and with another kid we will def want that space. We could still rent for a few years but I want to settle down in a neighborhood where my son can make friends  and we can meet other parents and just feel at home. I’ve been living semi frugally my whole life (we’re still in a 1 bedroom apartment even though we can clearly afford more) and I guess I’m ready to take the plunge.

I did run some numbers based on a more conservative house buying formula and found that we need the following amount in savings/cash before we buy a home for the following prices:

House Cost Cash Savings
$1.5M $436,542
$1.7M $494,000

I also determined that to have 30% of our networth be in home equity (and emergency fund) that we’d need approximately $1.95M in networth to buy a $1.6M home. (My gap analysis below) but clearly we’re not going to get there before we buy a home now, so I’m going to do my best to try to reduce the home cost while also buying something we can grow into. More on that later.

30.0% 43.0% 5.0% 27.0% 5.0% 12.0% 8.0%
23.1% 33.1% 3.8% 20.8% 3.8% 9.2% 6.2%
43.00% 5.00% 27.00% 5.00% 12.00% 8.00%
goal $450,000 $645,000 $75,000 $405,000 $75,000 $180,000 $120,000
gap $450,000 $284,705 $47,142 $252,465 $47,525 $160,066 $89,103

 

Right now my estimates have us at about $1.96M pre tax in March 2022. That’s so soon! If I can do this, it will be pretty incredible. I just have to keep my job. Through a pandemic. And a pregnancy. How hard can it be?

But the reality is I’m scared. Yes I have a lot in stocks I could sell to cover the mortgage for a while… and right now I have a job. But will I have a job in a year? Who knows. My company may need to have layoffs at some point. I really don’t understand how they would decide that and who would be laid off, but I definitely am not “safe.” So I have to assume that at any time I could lose my job, and at that point it would be hard to find a new one. I will just hold my breath through my vesting periods and pray (even though I don’t pray) that I can get through the next 19 months until I get most of my stock. That’s 8 months of pregnancy, 3 months of maternity leave, and 8 months of being exhausted and holding on for dear life.

Please, wish me luck. I’ll need it!

Networth

Networth Check-In Before End of Year

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I just ran my numbers for the year and realized that I crossed the $1M threshold on my own (not counting my husband’s smaller nest egg) and I feel like I should celebrate somehow. (Blows a party horn alone.)

I have a fairly unique way of calculating networth so I consider this a false victory… my before tax total account value is $1,127,789 BUT after I factor in probable taxes (conservatively) my total networth is $845,052. Wah, wah.

Still, $845,052  AFTER TAX in networth isn’t so bad at 36. With my husband’s savings, we’re close to $1M total.

I’ll feel much better when I get to $2M after tax networth, but that will take a while. However, right now I’m on track to hit $1,869,286 before tax (solo) in two years and $1,215,801 or more AFTER TAX in two years as long as my company stock holds close to its current value (TBD.)

I will do a more formal breakdown at some point but just pausing to smell the fiscal roses and celebrate with my fellow readers who have been following my blog for many years (and new readers as well.) When I was 22 and had less than $10k in my bank I thought $1M was an impossible feat to accumulate let alone $100k. That was a long time ago, but on my worst days when I feel hopeless and like I’m a total failure, I just need to remember where I came from and how I’ve somehow held it together to build some sort of stability in my life, at least to cover a few mental breakdowns. Go me. (Blows party horn again.)

The after-tax breakdown is as follows:

  • Cash – $144k
  • Debt – $3k
  • Investment (Taxable) – $457,951
  • Retirement (Roth) – $69,355
  • Retirement (IRA) – $144,580 (assuming 50% tax rate)
  • College Savings – $32,455
  • FUTURE RSU AFTER TAX Next 2 Yrs – $370,749

Trying to feel accomplished because I feel like a big ‘ol failure these days.

Networth

Sept Check-In: HOME STRETCH!!! $920k of $1M Goal

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It looks like I will be coming very close to my $1M goal this year.

Current breakdown*:

Cash: $2,915
Debts: $0
Down Payment: $100,000
529: $27,354
Taxable Invest: $435,521
IRA (Roth): $60,930
IRA (Trad/401k): $254,101
Company Stock (after tax est): $40,500
(*does not include husband’s savings of $55k)

Expected Oct-Dec Income: $67,296
Expected Oct-Dec Expenses: $24,000
TOTAL EXPECTED SAVINGS: $43,296
TOTAL EXPECTED NETWORTH EOY: $964,617
TOTAL EOY GOAL: $1,000,000
DIFFERENCE: $35,383

So that $1M goal looks unlikely… but it could happen! I should get close.

Wealth

Why I want to be rich

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When I was younger, being “rich” equated to buying stuff. Now that I’m older and wiser, I still want to be rich, but for different reasons. Sure, I still want to buy things, but the things I want to buy have changed substantially.

Having just hit the $1M milestone with my husband (with almost 90% of it being my savings), I am not rich yet, but feel finally on our way. Rich, to me, is having $10M in assets. This is what I would do if I was rich:

  • own a home outright and be able to comfortably afford taxes and maintenance on investments/interest (i.e. in Bay Area a $2M home)
  • easily afford college for all kids in full and leftover $ to help them get started out (but not to the point where they become lazy)
  • pass down some wealth to my children–enough to help them but not enough so they do not know the value of a dollar
  • “treat” friends and family to meals out, buy them nice gifts, even take them on vacations and pay for the trip
  • donate to causes that matter and/or put $ into trust for later donation after it grows to more substantial amount.
  • take time off to spend with family and travel
  • afford IVF if needed to have 2nd + 3rd kid
  • pay for kid’s extracurriculars, camps, pre college programs, etc, without worrying about $
  • have enough financial stability to start my own business (or non-profit) and it not impacting long term financial goals
  • not worry about retirement or long-term care or unexpected disability
  • hire household help to cook healthy meals, clean, personal trainer, etc, esp while working
  • buy my mother a home and make sure her financial future is stable
  • help future grandkids out as needed
  • take classes in art and photography, focus some time on my hobbies and see if I can get any better at them
  • write books or at least have the time to write them

I don’t think I’ll be “rich” ever but if I do get to $10M it will be after many years of working and I’ll likely be on my deathbed! But it’s good to have goals!

Networth

Will this be my $1M year? One million is just the start.

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Screen Shot 2019-07-04 at 8.51.32 AM

It’s crazy how one turn of good luck (or perhaps a series of turns) can make such a huge difference in your net worth. As you can see from the chart above, my net worth has been gaining steadily since 2007 — but suddenly in the last year it has jumped from $625k in Dec 2018 to $884k in July 2019. That’s kind of insane.

How did my networth increase $259k in 6 months?

Well, it’s mostly paper gains at this point — and given we’re likely headed to a recession, I see the blip up evening out over time. Still, $259k in 6 months — seems impossible, except I have the data to prove it actually happened.

Between the stock market doing well overall and my company stock doing even better, I’m achieving some major milestones faster than I ever though I would. My goal of reaching $1M by 40 now seems like it might be achieved THIS YEAR. It’s possible, depending on when a recession hits. I estimate by the end of the year, I should have another $100k in my various workplace stock plans, which, if the market doesn’t drop, gets me to $984k. That’s close enough that I could hit $1M by the end of 2019 or even before my 36th birthday.

If you add in my husband’s accounts, our overall networth looks even better. Currently, our total net worth (we do not own real estate so this is cash/stocks/bonds only) is 130k (his) + 884k (mine) = $1.01M!!!

So, while I don’t count my husband’s $ in my net worth, if I did, this actually IS the month we crossed the $1M threshold. I feel like I should celebrate or something. I wish my husband was as excited as I am.

It’s funny because when I was 21, I thought $1M was completely unachievable. I also haven’t increased my lifestyle that much. After all, I’m still living in a one bedroom apartment with my husband and 1 year old.

Once my own networth hits $1M, I think I might be willing to move into a larger space. I’d like to get to $1.5M (doable in the next 3 years) before I purchase property. This way if I own a home worth $1.8M, I know I have the $ to pay it off (mostly) if I had to… that’s what financial security is to me. I don’t mind debt, as long as I have the money to cover it available and the debt has very low interest rates. Or, maybe we’ll buy sooner. I think once I get pregnant with #2 it will speed up the process. For now, we like our apartment a lot, and it’s hard to think about moving. Maybe an extra room would give us more quality of life, but it probably would just become a storage room (however, I would like if my husband moved his office/gaming computer out of our bedroom!)

Anyway, I’m celebrating our $1M here because my husband doesn’t care and it’s a pretty big deal. I certainly don’t feel rich at all, but I feel like we’ve achieved the first major milestone to wealth. Wealth to me is not buying things you don’t need or designer crap, but it is being able to spend freely on your friends and family without worrying about running out of money now or in retirement. I think about $10M is the amount needed for true wealth based on what I could ever want to spend in life (assuming its invested and about $2M of it is in a home and another $1M or so is paying for my mother’s home and life, since I do want to pay her back for all my parents gave me in my life and hoping I can do this before she gets too old!)

Well, we’re a long way off from $10M, but I finally feel like we’re on our way.