Tag Archives: wealth

From Now to Rich in 3 Years.

What does “rich” mean? There was a huge debate on if having $1M makes you rich in one of my Facebook groups the other week. My argument was — no, $1M does not make you rich. It certainly doesn’t make you poor either, but it’s not what I’d consider wealthy.

Wealth, to me, is having enough in savings that with reasonable diversification and YoY growth, you never have to save another dime to support your future lifestyle. Your income, which can be passive or active if you feel confident you can maintain active employment and want to maintain active employment, should cover all of your bills and expenses until you age into one of your retirement buckets. You may only have one retirement bucket (i.e. age 67) or you may have multiple buckets (I have an early retirement bucket set for age 45, and another bucket at normal retirement age.

Wealth, to me, is being able to buy things like… a minivan… new… and a trip to Hawaii with a stay at a non-budget hotel… without worrying about it impacting my retirement goals. It’s flying my sister and mom to Hawaii and getting them their own room at the hotel for a week. It’s being able to pay to get my mother an in-home aide (or at least contribute to it) when she needs it, maybe even moving her across the country when she’s older, to be closer to us so she isn’t alone (if that’s what she wants.) It’s being able to spend like my father did–always offering to pay for meals for friends and family and tipping generously–but with the actual life savings that can withstand such spending, a life savings that accounts for potential fluctuations of the market and future healthcare and long-term care costs.

While I could do a better job honing these estimates, I feel good about my FAT Fire number. It seems to align with what I’ve seen others say — around $10M — to really reach the kind of wealth where your money continuously works for you. I figure if I ever get to $5M that’s when I can start dabbling in more complex investments like real estate. For now, it’s heads down with (mostly) index funds and a few individual stocks. This year is really the make-or-break year for my plan (though there may be future make-or-break years, but it will be difficult to encounter one in the near future where I have the chance to earn close to $1M in income for the year.)

Below, is a table on my current estimates per savings bucket. I am estimating a 6% YoY growth over time, which may be too high or too low, but as I get closer to retirement I can adjust down for more safety once I see how the years go. The current value column is approximately how much was saved in each bucket at the end of 2020. With 6% YoY until each bucket is accessed, I note the GAP in total amount needed for my final goal (ie retirement goal is $5M, if I didn’t touch my money at all and got 6% YoY now, I’d be $1.6M short. The cool thing is I’d have $3.3M, which doesn’t account for my taxable funds, and also is at age 65-ish, which doesn’t account for additional growth after age 65 since I won’t pull all the money out up front and will hopefully live much longer.

My “pre retirement” FIRE bucket is more or less my “Coast FIRE” bucket, which gets me to career freedom by 45. if I have $3M by 45 I can move into a lower-paid career (and/or take a few years off) and maintain the lifestyle I would like to have. If growth is stronger than 6% year over year we can also invest in building on to our current home, or move to a city that I prefer that we couldn’t currently afford.

2020 Goal Yrs Current Value Growth Rate “Real Value” GAP
Retirement $5,000,000 28 $651,000 1.06 $3,327,708 $1,672,292
Pre-Retirement $3,000,000 13 $833,074 1.06 $1,776,887 $1,223,113
College $600,000 17 $133,607 1.06 $359,773 $240,227
Home $2,000,000 28 $195,483 1.03 $447,251 $1,552,749
$1,813,164 total: $5,911,619 $4,688,381

2021, which is now THIS YEAR, represents a huge opportunity to get much closer to my goals. Even if I have failed to tap into the actual earnings potential I should have had at this company (my raises and refreshes have not kept up with my market value or initial grant offer), I’m still in a very, very good place if I can just hold out and remain employed until the end of this year. While anything can happen, and my mental health post baby may get the best of me, I’m really focused on surviving this year. (*note, the above doesn’t count total home value, which would be higher in 28 years since the mortgage would mostly be paid off then.)

This is why:

2021 Goal Yrs 2021 Value Growth Rate “Real Value” GAP
Retirement $5,000,000 27 $786,060 1.06 $3,790,653 $1,209,347
Pre-Retirement $3,000,000 12 $1,140,598 1.06 $2,295,108 $704,892
College $600,000 16 $261,623 1.06 $664,615 -$64,615
Home $2,000,000 27 $231,212 1.03 $513,589 $1,486,411
$2,419,494 total: $7,263,966 $3,336,034

 

By the end of 2021, if I can keep my job, and the stock markets don’t tank (ie we don’t have a civil war this year), I get much closer to my goals. Not 100%, but close enough that I really am already approaching Fat FIRE territory if I didn’t have such aggressive savings plans.

2022 I plan to switch jobs, so my income will go down quite a bit. At the moment I’m thinking I will try my best to stay until I get get the full $58k into my retirement for the year as well as max out the first ESPP period for the year, which ends in March. I’ll have to leave some money on the table at some point (unless I leave in March/April which is probably the ideal time to move to a new role), but I’m now looking at a transition around June. This assumes I make $200k total in 2022, including expected bonus that comes in February before I leave my current job. I’m kind of considering this part of 2021 plan, but since the actual receipt of income falls in 2022 it hits my 2022 goal plan:

2022 Goal Yrs 2022 Value Growth Rate Value GAP
Retirement $5,000,000 26 $929,224 1.06 $4,227,394 $772,606
Pre-Retirement $3,000,000 11 $1,314,116 1.06 $2,494,584 $505,416
College $600,000 15 $277,321 1.06 $664,615 -$64,615
Home $2,000,000 26 $269,085 1.03 $580,306 $1,419,694
$2,789,745 $7,966,899 $2,633,101

As you can see from the numbers above, with 6% YoY return expected, by the end of 2022 I’m SO CLOSE to my FIRE goals. I’m close enough that if I needed to I could stop working and probably be fine.

If I adjust to 10% YoY returns (unlikely but an easy switch in my spreadsheet), things start looking pretty crazy good. Fun to dream, right? If 10% YoY is in the cards, by 2022 I’m set.

2022 Goal Yrs 2022 Value Growth Rate Value GAP
Retirement $5,000,000 26 $989,310 1.10 $11,790,771 -$6,790,771
Pre-Retirement $3,000,000 11 $1,396,395 1.10 $3,984,077 -$984,077
College $600,000 15 $293,664 1.10 $1,226,709 -$626,709
Home $2,000,000 26 $286,934 1.03 $618,800 $1,381,200
$2,966,304 $17,620,358 -$7,020,358

 

Actually, things look really good already… with 10% YoY the total value of my current assets is $13.3M at time of use. Not bad.

2020 Goal Yrs Current Value Growth Rate Value GAP
Retirement $5,000,000 28 $651,000 1.10 $9,388,067 -$4,388,067
Pre-Retirement $3,000,000 13 $833,074 1.10 $2,875,997 $124,003
College $600,000 17 $133,607 1.10 $675,313 -$75,313
Home $2,000,000 28 $195,483 1.03 $447,251 $1,552,749
$1,813,164 $13,386,628 -$2,786,628

 

Of course I’m not going to bank on seeing 10% YoY. I probably should stick to 4-5% to be conservative and leave room for unexpected growth, versus the other way around. Either way, I’m really getting excited about these next 14 months. The next 14 months to a whole different level of living. I’m not going to change my spending immediately, and I don’t plan to ever actually stop working, but I can stop forcing myself into roles that aren’t a fit and that make me miserable. I can maybe start my own company or work for a non-profit or just do work that matters.

Even with 4% YoY growth the numbers don’t look horrible in 2022 if I hold fort. Sure, I don’t have $5M in retirement or $3M in pre-retirement at 45, but I’m at $1.9M in pre-retirement and $2.5M in retirement and nearly $500k in college for my kids. So this is all great news, if I can just survive a year with two kids, including a newborn and given lack of sleep, and a company that seems to want to set me up to fail and to get rid of me. 

2022 Goal Yrs 2022 Value Growth Rate Value GAP
Retirement $5,000,000 26 $899,962 1.04 $2,495,116 $2,504,884
Pre-Retirement $3,000,000 11 $1,273,976 1.04 $1,961,227 $1,038,773
College $600,000 15 $269,309 1.04 $485,011 $114,989
Home $2,000,000 26 $260,394 1.03 $561,564 $1,438,436
$2,703,641 $5,502,919 $5,097,081

This year is everything.

Is $2.5M next year realistic?

When I think about numbers like $2M (or look at my family personal capital net worth tracker and see it show $1.9M in net worth) I get a strange feeling. Just 17 years ago, I was a fresh-out-of-college gal with pretty much nothing to my name, struggling to pay $400 a month for a tiny room in a Bay Area apartment (it was more like a closet) and afford gas for my car to get to my internship, where I earned $50 an article the newspaper published.

I didn’t know what I was doing with my life (spoiler alert: I still don’t!) but I knew I couldn’t fail. I couldn’t ask my parents for help. My father had quite an interesting financial philosophy of being overly giving through college but then you’re cut off. I’m grateful for the no college loans, but in hindsight find the strategy unwise overall versus instilling a sense of understanding the value of money.

I had to learn that on my own.

But I’m also glad I did. It worked out for me, while my younger sister is still struggling. I made a choice to be self sustaining. I realized than meant no kids until a decent nest egg was built (I loosely set a goal of $500k in savings before kid #1.) I didn’t want to marry for money and I didn’t feel comfortable dating career-minded men. Due to my mental health challenges it was important to find a partner who would be emotionally there for me and our family. I wanted a guy who I could see being a dad to my children. Granted, when I fell in love with my now husband at 22, I thought he may eventually be motivated to earn more income. It turns out people don’t change. But I’m ok with that. It works for us.

Sometimes I realize that lots of my peers at work (especially women) are married to partners who make equal to what they do, or more. Men overall tend to make more, so those married to SAHMs or “business owners” who barely break even are generally in a more stable boat overall, with earnings of at least 300k per year if not much more. But I also exist in a bubble, where you have a bunch of people who make 500k a year per household and then the rest of everyone who is making like 100-200k (as a family) and actually struggling to get by. We exist in this weird in between.

Saving and investing is the only reason we can stay here and make this work. I’m working with my husband to have him catch up on his retirement accounts (since he is self employed he can put a good chunk into his 401k each year.) I am trying my best to max out my own tax advantaged accounts, which now include 57k with a backdoor Roth through work. As we approach $2M, I feel little sense of stability or satisfaction. It’s a HUGE number, but it didn’t financial security. It’s better than the 10k I had 17 years ago or 100k 5 or so years after that. But it doesn’t make me feel good—yet.

My whole money mentality is broken, though, due to growing up with parents who earned enough for a good life but failed to budget or save effectively (case in point a $200k HELOC on a $500k home that was basically paid off when they were in mid 50s and empty nesters to ADD on to their home—my mom at 67 is just beginning to pay that down.) There were other bad choices and sad errors that led to losing about 100k overall. I’ll write about them one day.

But I grew up not worrying about money. We didn’t have a luxurious lifestyle by any means, but we were solidly middle class. And while I definitely do not expect or want any further money from my family, it is terrifying to me to lose that sense of security, however false or ill-conceived it was. I want to get to a point where I can send my kids to summer camp… or take the family on a nice vacation… without worrying I ought to put that money in the stock market instead. I want to get to the point where I don’t feel like every $1 I spend today is $20 30 years from now invested. Where I can step back and say, ok, we have enough and we just don’t need more even if we can save more.

Right now that number seems to be $5M. The sooner I get to that, the better. Again, it’s another arbitrary number I’ve picked out of thin-ish air, but it just seems right. My goal is to be able to focus on working to pay annual expenses but no longer having to save at that point. If I can no longer work for some reason, the $5M, spent and invested wisely, can last quite a while. I don’t have any desire to keep going and make $10M or whatever—what is the point? Who needs that much money? At $5M I could help my mom out, pay my expense, help my sister, pass on enough to my kids, and even comfortably pay down my 30 year fixed mortgage.

I just really want to get to the point where I can work because I enjoy it. To say fruck you to the golden handcuffs and do my own thing. Start a business. Start a non-profit. Build a company that helps people. Write books or screenplays or direct documentary films or who knows what else. Spend time with my kids because clearly they grow up way too fast. Spend time with my family because they won’t be around forever.

I am not quite sure how we get to $5M. In 10 years at 10% YoY if I don’t touch the 2M that’s 5 right there. I don’t know if 5 will feel enough then, but it will be close. Imagine, $5M when my kids are 12, 10, (and 8??)—what that would mean for the rest on my life. And their lives. I’ll be 46, which is old in that is likely half of my life if not more than that, sadly, but still if I am at 46 with $5M my family is in a really, really good spot. My mom, hopefully healthy and well, will be 76. I can finally feel like I am in a financially safe enough place to pay her back for college and my wedding, through helping her out if she needs it or treating her to massages and other gifts on the regular. I can help my sister buy a house, or buy one and rent it to her at below market (in her lower cost area.) I can finally be free of worry (almost—I’m sure I’ll fear total market collapse and never truly feel secure.) I can donate chunks of money and also buy some frivolous things just because. Like nice furniture. And lots of experiences to create the most valuable asset of all—memories.

This next year will be life-altering for me, and yet even with its income potential it still feels like baby steps towards my goal. I’m so impatient. But next year, as long as the market doesn’t totally crash and I keep my job, I should make $650,000 at a minimum. My husband will bring in about $100k on top of that. So after tax we will be bringing home about $350k, or nearly 30k a month. We should easily be able to save $20k a month for the year, which adds $250k to our net worth. It’s kind of crazy how big the income seems and how many people would kill to be able to save $250k per year and yet that’s just one year. If we could make $650k consistently for 10 years and save $2.5M on that alone, that would be one thing. But this is a special year. After that we go back to about $300k in income, and likely $2k-$3k  a month or so in savings. Back to reality.

So the trick is figuring out how to obtain a series of high-paid (due to stock) jobs for the next 10 years. If I can make 300k per year on my own and my husband can reliably do 100k we will be in a pretty good place. Of course that’s not easy — before this job my highest income was 190 and before that 170. It may be impossible to find another job that pays well. And staying in my current role doesn’t help—due to minimal stock refreshes, by 2022 my annual income will be around 200k WITH bonus. So I’ll need to move on (target date April 1, 2022) in order to have a shot at hitting my goal. April 1, 2022 is actually very soon! But right now I’m trying not to think about that. I have to keep my current job for 18 more months. That’s 3 months of work, 5 months maternity leave, and another 10 months of kicking ass and taking names (or, you know, just meeting deadlines and following through on plans) to remain gainfully employed and win the lottery where I am already holding a winning ticket.

So I can’t focus on $5M now. I have to focus on $2M and really $2.5M. How fast can we get to $2.5? Well, my husband promised me if we have 2.5 we can try for a 3rd kid. Given I’ll be 37 this month(!!!) I don’t have a lot of time left to make that happen. And I’m more than incentivized. It will happen. Somehow.

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

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?

 

Why I want to be rich

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!

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

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.

My downsized goals: chasing the miniature American Dream

The baby (singular or plural) may – or may not – happen. But, I’m turning 34 NEXT FUCKING WEEK and I feel like I need to have some new goals in my life. Some new goals that involve not living like a just-graduated-from-college person for the rest of my life.

I was absolutely fine living my 20s in shared living situations to save money, and my early 30s were completely acceptable sharing a 1 bedroom apartment with my husband. But – as I’ve taken home $160k+ per year, minus taxes, for the last 3 years – I wonder what on earth am I doing this for if I can’t have some semblance of the adult life I want.

All the east coast dreams of the grande house with the huge backyard are gone. I’ve downsized my objectives – but I still have them. I’d like to own a house on not-the-crappiest street. I’d like to be able to take time off in the future (in health or in sickness) and not worrying about running out of money. I’ve made progress, but I still have a long way to go.

=======================

The plan (with flat stocks):

2017 – close the year with ~$525k networth
2018 – savings = $45k investments + $30k after-tax bonus = $600k
2019 – savings = $45k investments + $40k after-tax bonus = $685k
2020 – savings = $45k investments + $40k after-tax bonus = $770k
2021 – savings = $45k investments + $40k after-tax bonus = $885k

OR

The plan (with ~5% growth):

2017 – close the year with ~$525k networth
2018 – savings = $45k investments + $30k after-tax bonus = $625k
2019 – savings = $45k investments + $40k after-tax bonus = $740k
2020 – savings = $45k investments + $40k after-tax bonus = $862k
2021 – savings = $45k investments + $40k after-tax bonus = $990k

===========================

This all assumes I can perform well in my current job for the next four years, age 34-38, and not take significant time off, all while (hopefully) having two children.

My goal has always been to have $500k in the bank before having children. I have obtained that goal. My next goal is to have $1M in the bank before 40. Ideally well before 40. I’d like $1M in the back as my emergency fund and retirement fund and the fund which I do not touch. Over this same time, my husband will be doing what he does and not investing his money because he’s very risk averse. This is fine, because he will be saving up for the down payment on our (not in this part of the country) house.

Assuming I have one child in 2018/19 (age 34-35); and one in 2020/21 (36-37); by the time I have achieved this plan, I have one child who is ~3 and one who is ~1. This will enable us to, before we have to think about putting the kids into school, move to a part of the country where housing is more affordable. My husband can continue his career as a teacher in a region it is more cost effective, and I can perhaps pursue an entirely new career – or take time to spend at home with the kids.

I realize $1M is NOT “early retirement.” This is step two in my… however many step, not very well thought out plan…

Step 1: $500k before having children (age 30-35)
Step 2: $1M before 40 / + $200k cash downpayment (husband)
Step 3: $2M before 50 / + home 33% paid off (or more)
Step 4: $3M before 60 / + home 66% paid off
Step 5: $4M before 70 / + home 100% paid off / retirement

I’m not sure if any of that makes sense. So far steps 1 was achieved (woohoo) and step 2 seems like it might be achievable, if I can hold on to this job for the full four years. I am going to hold on to it with all my might. The having kids things definitely may throw a wrench in this plan regardless, but I’m hopeful I can take minimal time off for my kids when they’re really young (and/or work remote and still do my job, which might be possible)… then, after four years, we leave. We have to leave. We will never be able to afford a house here. I don’t know why that’s so important to me – I realize homeownership is a horrible financial decision – but it is. I can’t shake it. I want to design my own bathroom and kitchen… I’d like a backyard I can sit in and enjoy the sun without feeling the prying eyes of others all over me. I want a place for my children to grow up and a home to know.

So, that’s the plan. It suddenly seems all so very short term. I feel quite old. 34 is no joke. 34 is just a few years away from 40. And 40 is no longer fake adulthood. It’s serious, full-on, you’re an adult – and you’re only going to get MORE adult until you’re PAST that… and, I’m trying not to freak out about that, because I know life is so very short, and I need to just enjoy the moments and try to achieve some semblance of both freedom and control before I’m too old to enjoy it.

 

What amount of money makes you feel free?

Wealth does not = happiness, but at some point one obtains enough money that unless it’s frivolously spent, there are many doors open for the remainder of her life. Perhaps she loves her current career and decides too stay in it today and long past retirement. Or, she is set free of the confines of taking jobs that pay well and instead tries sometimes entirely new, without concern that the investment in education may not “pay off.” Or, she decides to create art or travel the world or just sit and study the sunset over the same ocean every day while doing half-assed yoga on a beach.

In reality, my goal in life is to generate enough wealth to feel this sense of freedom. Yes, that likely means I would be in the 1%, and it is not necessary to be happy at all. Most people will never achieve anywhere close to this. I don’t know what the number is, exactly, but it’s certainly more than I’ll ever be able to obtain, especially given my proclivity for purchasing too many shoes. Yet, it’s what keeps me going – that hope that one day I’ll not only be able to afford a house, but also to decorate it, and to invite friends over for reasonably-lavish dinner parties featuring fine wines and whiskies that my husband and I have prepared in our gourmet kitchen.

When I look at my net worth, now a touch over $500k, I feel both thrilled and disheartened. I realize that most people in the US retire with a networth much lower than that – that most people in the world would be ecstatic to have this amount in savings and stocks. But, then I also spend too much time exploring housing options on Zillow.com and see that 2 bedroom, 1 bath houses in the area are now selling for $1.3M or more, and my dream of purchasing a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home with a private backyard goes poof in the night. I look around at my decent 1 bedroom apartment with its sterile white walls — my bicycle parked so elegantly in the living room filled with a Craiglisted, 10-year-old couch, broken IKEA coffee table, and two Target bookshelves that are about to crumble, and I know even at this stage of my mid-30s life I can do better.

I wish I was at a point where spending $100k on IVF wouldn’t put a dent in my savings, or that I felt I could have children and provide for them a life that is comparable to my own middle class upbringing in the suburbs of an east coast city, where housing is much more affordable. I keep wondering what that number is… even as I obtain jobs which provide greater potential for income growth, there is a giant gap between my life today and this concept of wealth I have in my head, that I haven’t fully quantified yet.

Wealth.

What is it?

  • $2M per adult in retirement (so, $4M for a married couple)
  • Ownership of 4br, 3ba home outright (additional $2M – or $1.5M for 3br)
  • 50 years of $50k / year for house fixing as needed, taxes, other fees ($2.5M)
  • 50 years of $100k /  year for eating/travel/shopping ($5M)
  • College tuition for 2-3 kids ($500k)

This is, of course, well exaggerating what is needed for financial freedom, but to put a number on the amount I’d want in the bank account to feel financially free (for family), that would be….

$14,000,000

Now, even if I get more realistic here and half that…

  • $1.5M per adult in retirement ($3M)
  • $1.5M house (can’t reduce this / basic house cost here)
  • 50 years of $20k / year for house fixes (~$1M)
  • $50k / year of food and fun ($2.5M)
  • College Tuition (assuming some scholarships) – $200k

$7,000,000 is the minimum amount of wealth for financial freedom if we continue to live in this area.

Is $7M obtainable?

Maybe. But only via compound interest, and with that one wouldn’t know if she met her goals until she was in her 80s… plenty time past when purchasing a home would make sense. So she must have blind faith in the stock market OR figure out a way to expedite the growth of her portfolio. In short, how fast can I get to $7M from $500k?

My goal at this point is to have $1M by the time I turn 40. That will only be obtainable if I maintain my current job for the next four years, perform extremely well (no pressure), and we keep our cost of living low for this time.

Contributing $50k per year for the next 6 years, if my portfolio grows at an average of 5% per year, I will have a net worth of $1M by 40. This requires maintaining my job and living in a 1 bedroom apartment for the next six years, living rather frugally, all during the time in my life when – if I’m going to have kids – I will be having children (hopefully, two, within the next six years.)

If I don’t end up having children, the numbers change significantly – but I definitely want kids and I definitely want to pay for infertility treatments as needed to have them. Which, ultimately means that I won’t likely get to $1M by 40. But I’ll be close, as long as I keep this job for 6 years (or keep this job for 4 and obtain a similar one with equal or greater salary for the remaining 2).

At that point, if I have $1M by 40, I will have 20-ish more years of prime earning, if I work full time for those 20 years. BUT I am convinced that I want to go back to school at 40 to change careers to a lower-paid job such as counseling, not to maintain my position in a role that I’m fighting day and night to pretend to be good at. So, the $1M mark is my first taste of freedom…

This is truly a recognizable moment of freedom because if I invest $1M for 20 years at 5% rate of return, I will have $2.6M by 60, and $3.38M by 65. My husband doesn’t need as much as I do in retirement, so The $3.38M by 65 is basically my half of the $7M goal. What I would be focused on then, at 40, after the $1M is hit, is obtaining a position that I can maintain for 25 years that I enjoy which enables paying annual costs, so we don’t touch the $1M in the bank.

I’d like to own a 3br, 2ba home by the time my first child is 4. At this point, I should know if I’m having 2 children or just one (or none at all.) So – some of my net worth will have to be put into the down payment of a house. I go back and forth on buying a house but I think at this point I’m diversified enough in stocks that I can afford to own real estate, even if its growth does not keep up with the stock market (and I have the liquidity in stocks to pay for mortgage should we have any bad years in the job market.) So, I’d need $300,000 for a downpayment on a $1.5M starter home, in ~5 years.

But – I need to invest for the next 5 years to hit the $1M goal… and then in 5 years, at age 39, I’d have to take $300M out of my stocks (well $366M with 20% tax) for the downpayment. My husband may be able to contribute to this a bit – probably $100k of it in 5 years, but for simplicity (and explaining to husband) we both need to provide $150k in 5 years for our down payment.  That’s a more reasonable $180k stock sale in 5 years, leaving $748k to grow in stocks…

Annually, for the $1.5M house, costs would be…

  • $90k mortgage (approx)
  • $20k taxes (approx)
  • $1k insurance
  • $15k maintenance
  • = $126k / year ($63k per person per year for 30 years …
    $5.25k / month or $10.5k per month for 30 years)
  • Which means, for our $1.5M house, all in 30 years later, it will cost $4.08M. (Is my math right?)

Ok, so, if the numbers above are right, we cannot afford a $1.5M house in 5 years. Which, basically means we cannot afford a house, unless we can put down a much larger down payment.

In 5 years, unless there’s a housing bubble burst, I doubt there will be any real estate around here that’s less than $1.5M. My take home income is $7,000 per month and my husband’s will be about $3,000…. so, even if I keep my job and he keeps his, we can’t pay $10.5k/month when we’re only taking home $10k per month.

Really, the only potential route to wealth for us is to rent. So, maybe I’ll never own a house. Even if that’s one of our financial goals. But, it’s just so much cheaper to rent an apartment than to own a house.

Maybe, one day when we can afford to put down a 50% down payment buying a house will be worth it. But by then, a basic home will cost $2M… so… I don’t think we’ll ever have enough money to own a home.

This is why I feel so hopeless… even if we have so much more than so many people right now… I just don’t know how to have the life I want, or anything close to it. I don’t need a home today, but I want to feel like I’m making progress towards not living in a 1 bedroom apartment (and a condo won’t help much, if we were to buy one since it’s slightly more affordable, because we’d still have shared walls and annoying neighbors… might as well just rent!)

I am hoping my math is wrong…

 

 

Waking Up from The American Dream

Today, we received notice for our annual lease renewal. Our rent will be increasing $170 a month to a total steal of $2465 for a one bedroom apartment, not including any utilities. If we lived in the city the same apartment would be at least $1000 more. That’s life in the most expensive area in the country — no matter how much you make, you’re still not making enough to afford the life you thought you’d have at this point. You just have to wake up from the American Dream and realize it’s just that – a dream.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be one of the few who is making a high salary — more than I could ever had imagined making and more than I believe I deserve. At the same time, I acknowledge that in order to afford a house here you pretty much need to be taking home $400k (as a couple) which isn’t in the cards for our future, despite my relatively very high income – even if I manage to find success and stability in my job. I realize that many others will never even make as much as I do, and I feel I make too much, but it’s a loop of relativity when I try to comprehend how much I’d really need to make in order to purchase a 3 bedroom house with a tiny backyard.

Do I need a 3 bedroom house with a tiny backyard? Even if I don’t, soon our rent, for a one bedroom apartment, will creep up to $3000 a month, even in the suburbs. We won’t exactly be priced out but we’ll be able to save less and less each year. At some point, I think we’ll have to accept that it’s time to leave. And with a total income of about $250k, we’re doing much better off than a lot of people who live here. It’s just not enough and it will only get worse as we attempt to start our lives together.

If kids end up not in the cards, maybe it’s doable. We can stay in a one bedroom apartment, no need to pay for extra space when it’s just us. We can live in a one bedroom for the rest of our lives. This isn’t at all the life I had imagined, but we can survive easily without that much space. If we do have children that changes the story quite a bit. I don’t see how we can have children and remain here, especially if I need to take time off for any reason. The pressure of being the breadwinner, especially suffering from severe anxiety, is too much. If I am responsible for me, myself and I — that’s no big deal, I can roll with the punches, live cheaply when needed, and just weather any storm that comes my way. With children, we need a much bigger security net. We’ll have to move. We will have no choice.

I write this at a time when many entry-level workers here are seriously struggling, unable to feed themselves or pay rent on minimum wage. I feel embarrassed to look at my quite high income and still feel so hopeless, because if I feel hopeless, how on earth is the rest of everyone supposed to feel?

I’ve come to accept that if I’m going to have children we can’t stay here. I don’t have a solution yet or an answer to “where to do we go,” but sooner than later we have to get out. I’ll very much miss the beautiful scenery and sunshine. I’ll look back on my 20s and be glad I had the opportunity to live in such a glorious part of the world. But it’s time to grow up and move out. Or, at least it will be soon.

People say to not worry about the future and to just live in the moment. I find it very hard to do that. We now face the choice of staying in our current apartment and paying an extra $2000 to do so next year (and continuing my 3 hour a day commute) or finding a place closer to work that will either be more expensive or less livable or both. We’ll probably just stay here for another year – neither of us wants to deal with moving, and $2000 doesn’t seem like that much compared with the inconvenience of finding a new apartment and lugging our stuff to it… moving isn’t free either. So we’ll probably give it on more year here and hopefully by the end of the next lease I’ll be pregnant and we can then figure out where on earth we’re going to live in the future (aka not California.)

I had hoped that I’d be at a point in my career where I’d feel so distraught over losing my job / career in order to have a family… but while I appreciate my job for what it is now, and really admire my colleagues and am so grateful for this opportunity… I have no personal investment in this career. I feel no sense of pride in my progress or role. In five years, to continue on this path, I end up in a leadership role were I will never fit. I acknowledge it’s soon time to leave. Right now, the best I can do is hold on for dear life, do the best I can, and try to save money by living relatively frugally and bringing in a good income where most of it goes straight into the stock market / my savings accounts. This may be my last significant savings opportunity in my life, given I plan to move to an area with a lower cost of living and obtain a job which pays significantly less in my next career move. My goal is still to get to $500k in savings before I make this move, and the goal is becoming much more dire given that I’m rounding the corner of my mid 30s and I know I can’t handle this life for much longer. If I can just hold out until $500k — I can completely shift my lifestyle to one of lower income and greater flexibility in another part of the country. We can live off of, say, $100k total across both of our incomes and still live a decent life. If we make more than that, great, but we don’t have to (or, in the case of staying here, I’d likely have to earn over $300k in order for us to hit the $400k mark and afford a small home.)

What was once kind of this running silent joke in my head about how one day I couldn’t afford to live here and that I’d move away is proving true. I guess what has changed is that I’m more ok with that than I was before. I used to think that I didn’t want to trade my career for a simpler life. I didn’t want to be one of those women who had kids and no longer had her own identity, especially a professional identity. But now, I don’t know, my professional identity is not who I am. Despite not making it to Hollywood or Broadway I’m an actress nonetheless, everyday portraying someone who I’ll never be. I’m over this obsession with what I thought was success. I have nothing to prove, no one to impress, no game to win. I have maybe 60 good years left on this earth if I’m lucky, and many fewer with all of my loved ones in good health. I hope to make the most of them, and it doesn’t matter if that occurs within a tiny apartment or a giant house. It feels good to finally accept that… to embrace the loss of this embedded classism my parents have taught me, to stop feeling like if I can’t maintain the level of comfort and luxury from my childhood that I am a failure. The only true way to fail is to lock myself into a life where I no longer have any reasonable options for escape.

Is Income Inequality Necessary?

As we get into the thick of election season, it becomes apparent we have two Americas — the Trump ‘merica, and the Sanders America. Everyone else falls somewhere in between. Trump’s success stems from his “I don’t give a shit” mentality, offering solace to those angry over years of political correctness getting them nowhere – he wants to “make America great again.” Sanders offers a voice to those who see corruption – legal or not – causing greater inequality and the downfall of our country.

Who’s right?

I’m bi-economical. I’m a socialist and a capitalist – but neither at the same time. Socialism sounds great, until you realize how that limits the opportunity to work hard and get ahead. Capitalism, however, requires inequality. It provides the opportunity to get rich, but that opportunity is light years away for those who didn’t inherit wealth, or work hard and due to a mix of luck and tenacity and good timing make enough money to catapult them into the upper echelons of society. Old money versus new money.

There is no right, persay, but we can look at which countries are happier than others, and how that relates to inequality across their residents. In this Gallup Poll and the World Top Incomes Database, the point is made that in countries with the biggest income gaps between rich and poor, the middle class find themselves unable to afford some simple luxuries like private schools and a house in a good neighborhood.

 

Obama decried income inequality this week in his final State of the Union address. The standard Democrat message — support a thriving middle class  — was front-and-center in the speech.

“Companies have less loyalty to their communities. And more and more wealth and income is concentrated at the very top,” he said. These trends have “made it harder for a hardworking family to pull itself out of poverty, harder for young people to start on their careers, and tougher for workers to retire when they want to.”

Many blame Silicon Valley as a leading source of furthering income inequality. A 330-page report by the World Bank released on January 14 notes that “the economics of the internet favor natural monopolies, the absence of a competitive business environment can result in more concentrated markets, benefiting incumbent firms. Not surprisingly, the better educated, well connected, and more capable have received most of the benefits – circumscribing the gains from the digital revolution.”

I know that income inequality is at play in America because I’m in the top 5th of income earners and am in the fourth quintile (of five) of all U.S. households in terms of my networth, and still I am unable to afford a home in a good neighborhood or to send my “future” children to private school, should I want to. If I feel this way, I can only imagine how the rest of America feels, outside of the .01%.

Paul Graham, a prominent super-rich Venture Capitalist went on recently about how we need income inequality. “You can’t prevent great variations in wealth without preventing people from getting rich,” he wrote in an essay that went viral online last week, “and you can’t do that without preventing them from starting startups.”

Starting in the 1980s, a gap has been widening between what the best-paid Americans earn and what everyone else in the country earns. Economists Barry Z. Cynamon and Steven M. Fazzari shared in a new paper that “Rising income inequality is now a significant barrier to economic growth and full employment.”

I’m worried. I’m worried about the future of America. History has proven that income inequality, when let go for a long time, causes big problems, even civil wars. And in 2016, lower pay for the poor is causing an even wider income gap.

Since the late ‘70s, most of the growth in workers’ earnings has gone to the people who have made the most money. To be precise, the wages of the top 1 percent of workers have grown 138 percent since 1979, while the wages for the bottom 90 percent grew only 15 percent during that period. Yikes. This especially hurts our social security system, which underestimated income inequality, making higher income earners pay a much smaller percentage of their income in social security tax than lower income earners.

This is a huge problem since the number of seniors will double by 2060. If we think income inequality is bad now, it will only continue to get worse.

I find my idealistic side wishing we could get rid of money altogether, but my realistic side worried about creating a decent life for my future family. Where I live, it certainly feels like the only way to do this is to have a household income in the 1% ($400k+) per year, and even that is really just “upper middle class” here. Achieving that is very challenging. It’s much more likely that I’ll be priced out of Silicon Valley as I decide to have a family, and I’ll drop into a lower household income level to be able to afford a middle class lifestyle somewhere else.

 

The Secret to Happiness: Value Time Over Money

Money. We need it to pay for our basis needs and all the other things we want. But can money buy happiness? It can’t, at least according to a recent survey of 4600 participants.

New research that was collected over a year and a half and published by the Society of Personality and Social Psychology suggests valuing your time rather than pursuing money may be linked to greater happiness.

Time is highly valuable, yet hard to put a figure on. Adults who are employed full time work on average 47 hours per week, according to Gallup. That’s an hour and a half more than a decade ago. Americans also tended to take fewer vacation days than their international peers, according to a 2014 Expedia.com survey.

In fact, American’s work more hours than anyone in the industrialized world. And we take less vacation, work longer days and retire later.Like any American child who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I was told that America was the best country in the world. I just accepted that. Sure, Europe had some really exciting history and culture, and other countries had some beautiful untouched landscapes, but America was far and beyond the best place to live. I won the lottery in terms of being born in the land of the free and home of the brave. I lived in the greatest place on earth, likely during the greatest time on earth. How lucky I was!

Many economics and futurists had dreamed up a world when, filled with wealth and technology, we wouldn’t have to work so much. Meanwhile, some studies claim the typical modern workday should start around 7am and end at 7pm — a 12 hour workday.

Of course, these are American companies — Sweden, on the other hand, just introduced the concept of a 6 hour workday.We’ve become such a work-focused culture that we leave little time to actually live our lives. For those earning minimum wage, this isn’t at all a choice. In many parts of the country, it’s necessary to work an 86-Hour work week to afford basic rent for a one-bedroom apartment. And for those earning higher salaries, working less hours means risking those jobs. Workers are expected to be on call at all times, many cases including weekends, holidays and evenings, and have golden handcuffs where they’re worked to poor health in order to maintain their jobs and support their families.

What if we were able to opt for time as part of pay, and this was acceptable. To ask for three months off a year as part of a compensation package, to be spread across the year, to be able to experience life — to take three-week vacations to see the world — to spend time with our families and loved ones before it’s too late. What if we were able to negotiate time just as we negotiate money, and not be seen as lazy or a poor worker. If time has a dollar value, what would that be?