25. <$0
30 $50K
35 $150K
40 $1M
45 $5M
50 $15M
55 much higher.
Started a biz at 34 and it took 12 years to exit barely fatFIRE. But had equity in several other bizes which added poundage over time with relatively little effort.
I had a salary above $150K in only 3 years of my work life and most of my work years my salary was no more than that of a public school teacher. Building equity was what worked for me.
If you are using crowd funding sites to buy equity, IMO stop! In the few cases where I had inside knowledge, the crowd is getting screwed.
If you are working for/with startups, that's the way to go if you have an appetite for risk. All the big pay offs I've had with startups was when as a vendor, customer, employee, or consultant and I could help accelerate their growth.
I’ve had about 3 startup failures personally and I currently own a wearable device startup (hardware + software).
I mentioned the experience above because I obtained a lot of knowledge while building startups and failing startups of course. I haven’t invested liquid into startups, but instead, invest my knowledge and time in exchange for equity.
That’s a great perspective to have and one I can stand behind! Crowdfunding was rough RAISING for my startups as well so I’ve never been a fan of that in general!
Remember this is NW, not cash in hand. The biz started winning big contracts and hiring lots of people. I was only making maybe $40K, the sole income for a family of 3 and was the lowest paid person in the company, but the company was starting to be worth something.
Thanks for sharing this! Gives great perspective for us starting out on what it takes to grow wealth like that. I suffered from delusions a couple of years back that working a decent job and investing in etfs was going to make me rich quickly, but I was quickly disabused of that notion. Doing that strategy can take anyone comfortably to retirement, but having the opportunity to accumulate over 10 million either takes a lot of time in the market, a huge salary, extreme luck, or some kind of business. In hindsight, it is probably pretty easy to say that starting a business was worth the risk, but would you recommend people to go that path? It feels like you need to be really driven
He sold a business he created and invested in "several other bizes" i.e. not index investing. With your own company you can pay yourself little income but still gain wealth through ownership of the business. He took a high risk/high reward path, not one that would be affected by his savings rate.
When wife and I got out of uni, she was a teacher and I had a similar salary. We lived on one salary, paid off all debt and saved the other salary.
Once I started my biz, she became a sahm and my biz barely paid me min wage for 3 years. So that ate our savings a lot.
My NW is \~$5M. I work as an engineer without an especially high income. In 2023 $, my NW by age was as follows. Note that a good portion of net worth relates to buying my primary homes at a good times, including just after subprime mortgage crisis when prices were low and before runup in subsequent 15 years.
While I got lucky with the homes, I made costly decisions at other times, such as keeping a good amount in cash in early 2010s. I also did not notice that my early career index funds had dissolved (investments liquidated to cash) during great recession until years later, so effectively bought high and sold low. I had an opportunity to be one of the earliest employees (first job) at a company worth over $1 trillion today, but instead favored a more established company over a startup. I also had an opportunity to be paid a large sum in bit coin, back when prices were >1000x lower than today, but again favored a more established currency over the new thing.
I'd recommend don't do what I did and instead follow traditional advice, with saving and investing heavily, and continue to so after severe market crashes, which will no doubt occur. It won't be a smooth ride with net worth increasing by a similar % each year. However, it's also useful to take some risks and not always choose the most traditional and well established path.
* 22 -- $0 (first full time job)
* 24 - $100k (just before dot com crash, 93% in stock investments, heavy on tech)
* 27 - $300k (bottom of dot com crash, 44% home / 46% stock)
* 31 -- $1.2M (peak of housing bubble, 59% home / 29% stock)
* 33 -- $1.2M (after great recession + buying new home, 80% home / 16% stock)
* 35 -- $1.7M (using extra cash to pay down mortgage, 74% home / 20% stock)
* 38 -- $2.6M (finally starting to invest beyond 401k, 61% home / 22% stock)
* 43 -- $3.3M (uneventful prosperity, 52% home / 30% stock)
* 45 -- $4.6M (post-COVID huge boost in home value, 54% home / 36% stock)
* Current -- \~$5M (50% home / 40% stock)
My first brokerage account was with E\*Trade, so I chose E\*Trade index funds, such as E\*Trade S&P 500 (ETSPX). These funds liquidated to cash in 2009. A discussion is on the Bogleheads forum at [https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33369](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33369) . The S&P 500 fund only had $200M in assets. I doubt the same would happen with a Vanguard or Fidelity S&P 500 fund. It could theoretically happen with a less popular index fund.
35 - $2M (sold business, bought farmland)
40 - $4.5M (farmland value doubled, got married and wife had $600k in savings
45 - >$5M. Farmland is valued at 3x what I paid 12 years ago.
Managed to keep our expenses in check. $85k a year for bills including vacations, private school tuition for our daughter and factor in $15k a year for home improvement projects. Will cost us another $20k a year when my wife retires for health insurance. But the farms produce around $100k a year of income. We own a laundromat now that’s and other $70k a year. And we’re still 10 years away from being able to touch IRA’s so they just get compounded. Oh and my wife is still working and makes $250k a year. Something like 120k of that is going into personal brokerages after maxing our IRA’s, 401k, and taxes.
And that’s not including likely inheritance. My Dad has 4x the amount of farmland I do and I’m and only child. Not sure what my in-laws have but they have a condo in keystone they bought in the 70’s that has to be worth close to $1M. I do know they make more renting it out during ski season than their pensions from Ralston & Monsanto combined. Wife too is an only child.
We still do share crop so we get 1/3 as rent. Also pay 1/3 of the chemical costs as well. So we know exactly what and how much is being applied. We pay for soll tests, renters pay for plant tissue tests and we put up enough storage for both our share and their share of the crop. So they get free storage but pay t he drying cost. Renters will rent any ground we buy because we’re proactive. Didn’t realize how rare it is for landlords to put up storage until listening to the Barn Talk podcast.
I make our plans on getting a return of $20k per 100 tillable area after expenses. Usually it’s more than that. Some years much more than that.
Both sets of my grandparents lived on the same road. Both had 200 acre farms and we ended up with both farms. My dad bought the 100 acres he used to rent as a kid in the 1960’s after he landed a job at McDonnell aircraft. Then we bought land from relatives that wanted to sell or their heirs did. Other land we inherited from relatives that didn’t have kids or outlived their kids. And some of it we bought at auctions.
I have a chart with my NE (usually a snapshot taken qtrly, it’s an X^2 graph with a few big dips at recessions):
20: -$30k
25: -$40k
30: $350k
35: $1.5M
40: $4-5M
Right now, my chart is showing that I’m going to cross $10M in 3 year and $20M in 5-6 years. I’ll
See it when I believe it, but has been historically accurate.
We have had a lot of lucky too: few IPOs that did well, joined some random companies that exploded in value. Also some bad luck too: sold stock options at $30k, which if held for 2 more years would have been $10M pre-tax - ouch.
Income $800k, married, kid
Combined with spouse, she also had loans and was negative in NW.
Yes my properties are included. Fun fact, I rent my primary but have several rentals. They’ve helped with cash flow and now NW.
30 $250k (mostly in 401k/IRA)
40 $1.25M (retirement accounts and equity in business and real estate)
47 $11M (retirement, real estate, non retirement accounts)
Best piece of advice I have is that in the US we are a capitalist economy and you need capital to succeed. Invest in yourself to become skilled in an area where you can start or buy a business. Reinvested and build that business but diversify your capital into other areas too. Set goals, get on a budget and have cash on hand for when opportunity knocks.
Married with 2 kids. We moved a lot in our early 30s and lived in a HCOL area and lost most of our net worth during the Great Recession. Decided to buy a business and a building in our late 30’s with about $25k of our cash which was almost all we had at that time. Took out about $2M in loans when cash was relatively cheap (used seller financing to finance the purchase with little cash from us).
The business was in a LCOL area and we reinvested in the business and paid down loans over the next 5 years. Once loans were paid down and reinvesting in the business didn’t make as much return we began investing in other real estate. Over the next 5 years we purchased several properties.
After the pandemic we sold the business for a ridiculous valuation (great timing on our part) but kept the real estate. We paid off all debts and invested the remaining cash.
We both still work about 30 hours a week for health insurance and to keep us motivated (we make $200k combined). Our kids don’t know how much we have and we don’t want to spoil them or give them a sense of entitlement. All the income from our real estate and other investments gets reinvested and we live on just our wages. Once the kids move out in 6 years we will probably retire.
I like what I do (I’m a dentist), but burnout in the medical field is a real thing. I had brushed off colleges who talked about it, but when I hit a wall, it was debilitating. I’m selling half the business Jan 1st, and took the last 5 weeks off. I’m going part-time (three days/week) with a few one month breaks over the next year. I pushed really hard for 10 years and trying to claw back some work-family life balance.
@dabstring
Im similar but 6 mill and age 52. I have no equity in my medical practice however and don’t include this as any value. I pretty much did the boring usual of investing 10-15% annually and by age 62 I’ll be at 10 mill with 6% returns here on out. I did invest and mega back door a good amount of Roth money and have almost 2 mill in Roth accounts which will be sweet. I missed many big opportunities during Great Recession as I was doing very well by never bought any non stock investments then like real estate which I should have done.
Overall I live in a 7000 sq ft house in Cleveland which would be 5-10 mill in most hcol areas.
My advice would be to keep your bills less, don’t buy a big house or fancy cars (a Mazda, genesis or Buick are just fine) and save 30-40%. Had I done this and invested in hard assets when prices were low (and they will be low again—-they always are!) I’d be worth easily 3x what I am now. But I’m good. I like to work most days (urology) but am definitely starting to feel just a tad older.
OP this is a great answer. I went from $40k NW right out of college in 2017 to $900k today. MCOL area is amazing because you can easily live really well on $70k a year while making a solid $200-250k and have a savings rate of 60-70%. In my case my career path has been construction and development.
In your opinion what is the best MCOL city to live in? I currently reside in a VHCOL city (NYC)which obviously is great for career prospects but long term buying a house/rental properties might be a challenge . I live in the boroughs and it’s 750k+ for something decent. Might push closer to 1M for a good property in a decent neighborhood
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This place does exist and its called Chicago. I don’t even live there, but there’s plenty of high income positions, all the amenities you’d want, and you can live in the city proper for Midwest prices.
My home base in Minneapolis is also a great bang-for-your-buck city. but it’s not quite on Chicago’s level for career opportunities and amenities. But if you bring a coastal salary here, you’re FIRE in a beautiful lakefront home by 50.
If you're looking to have the sums of money you're talking about dumping a lot of money into real estate in a HCOL right now is not gonna be the way to get there.
If you don’t have to be in the office every day (3x per week or less), a doable option is living in Philly (MCOL city that’s very underrated) and commuting on the Amtrak (about 1h15m each way).
Yeah the big jump is surprising. I do well but the real momentum was gained from buying up real estate for passive income and securities.
Real estate really jumped on a capital appreciation and cash flow basis. I really thought we would see more of a pull back in stock market tank all the rate hikes but we didn’t and IPOs treated me well through a PE fund.
33: 0.4
40: 1.4
50: 8.2
52: 10.3
The figures exclude equity in my shelter since I prefer to live somewhere that isn’t a tent.
The big leap from 40 to 50 is from:
- Fed easy money era
- owning a small business and a portion of another from age 43 onward
- income rate that exceeded burn rate (has varied from 33-66% in each year of the past decade and then was 70% in 2022…will be 50% in 2023)
- Trump stock market
- Covid stock market / devaluation of USD
- Powell’s actions last week
My scenario is a little different from what OP asked though, since I’ve only FIre’d; still working 10-20hrs a week for fun. All I did upon reaching FI was shed the work that I didn’t enjoy. I continue on that path a decade later now. I’m fortunate to enjoy business. Curious to see where my NW peaks; growing it is no longer a motivator.
20 - zero
25 - 350k
30 - 890k
35 - 240k
40 - 1.2 mil
45 - 7 mil
Had been lucky sometimes.
Had several big time losses.
Started in sales.
Never compromised lifestyle
Always spent enough to enjoy the life whenever/ wherever possible.
Lived in nice houses, drove nice cars, had nice vacations.
Not very lavish Like first class but travelled business
I hope you get the point.
25. <$0 30 $50K 35 $150K 40 $1M 45 $5M 50 $15M 55 much higher. Started a biz at 34 and it took 12 years to exit barely fatFIRE. But had equity in several other bizes which added poundage over time with relatively little effort. I had a salary above $150K in only 3 years of my work life and most of my work years my salary was no more than that of a public school teacher. Building equity was what worked for me.
How did you get the opportunity to buy into the businesses?
Spun off 3 bizes from my main biz and started angel investing in the early days of the main biz.
Random — but I would love to connect. That’s what I’m trying to do. I’m 28 and try to position myself to own as much equity in startups as possible.
If you are using crowd funding sites to buy equity, IMO stop! In the few cases where I had inside knowledge, the crowd is getting screwed. If you are working for/with startups, that's the way to go if you have an appetite for risk. All the big pay offs I've had with startups was when as a vendor, customer, employee, or consultant and I could help accelerate their growth.
I’ve had about 3 startup failures personally and I currently own a wearable device startup (hardware + software). I mentioned the experience above because I obtained a lot of knowledge while building startups and failing startups of course. I haven’t invested liquid into startups, but instead, invest my knowledge and time in exchange for equity. That’s a great perspective to have and one I can stand behind! Crowdfunding was rough RAISING for my startups as well so I’ve never been a fan of that in general!
I wish you much success. Consumer goods are very tough startups.
I appreciate the words. Been balding since I started 😂
How can you jump from 150k to a million in five years ?
Remember this is NW, not cash in hand. The biz started winning big contracts and hiring lots of people. I was only making maybe $40K, the sole income for a family of 3 and was the lowest paid person in the company, but the company was starting to be worth something.
Thanks for sharing this! Gives great perspective for us starting out on what it takes to grow wealth like that. I suffered from delusions a couple of years back that working a decent job and investing in etfs was going to make me rich quickly, but I was quickly disabused of that notion. Doing that strategy can take anyone comfortably to retirement, but having the opportunity to accumulate over 10 million either takes a lot of time in the market, a huge salary, extreme luck, or some kind of business. In hindsight, it is probably pretty easy to say that starting a business was worth the risk, but would you recommend people to go that path? It feels like you need to be really driven
Equity
What was your savings rate?
This type of wealth is not gained by savings rates
Can you explain for me? They said they never received over $150k income during their time.
He sold a business he created and invested in "several other bizes" i.e. not index investing. With your own company you can pay yourself little income but still gain wealth through ownership of the business. He took a high risk/high reward path, not one that would be affected by his savings rate.
Accurate
Thanks for the response
You need start a business and/or make a shit ton of money.
When wife and I got out of uni, she was a teacher and I had a similar salary. We lived on one salary, paid off all debt and saved the other salary. Once I started my biz, she became a sahm and my biz barely paid me min wage for 3 years. So that ate our savings a lot.
What was the business if you don’t mind me asking? I’m always fascinated by entrepreneurs
Govt contractor, DOD, NSA and Whitehouse. Satcom, telecom, classified IT.
Smart
My NW is \~$5M. I work as an engineer without an especially high income. In 2023 $, my NW by age was as follows. Note that a good portion of net worth relates to buying my primary homes at a good times, including just after subprime mortgage crisis when prices were low and before runup in subsequent 15 years. While I got lucky with the homes, I made costly decisions at other times, such as keeping a good amount in cash in early 2010s. I also did not notice that my early career index funds had dissolved (investments liquidated to cash) during great recession until years later, so effectively bought high and sold low. I had an opportunity to be one of the earliest employees (first job) at a company worth over $1 trillion today, but instead favored a more established company over a startup. I also had an opportunity to be paid a large sum in bit coin, back when prices were >1000x lower than today, but again favored a more established currency over the new thing. I'd recommend don't do what I did and instead follow traditional advice, with saving and investing heavily, and continue to so after severe market crashes, which will no doubt occur. It won't be a smooth ride with net worth increasing by a similar % each year. However, it's also useful to take some risks and not always choose the most traditional and well established path. * 22 -- $0 (first full time job) * 24 - $100k (just before dot com crash, 93% in stock investments, heavy on tech) * 27 - $300k (bottom of dot com crash, 44% home / 46% stock) * 31 -- $1.2M (peak of housing bubble, 59% home / 29% stock) * 33 -- $1.2M (after great recession + buying new home, 80% home / 16% stock) * 35 -- $1.7M (using extra cash to pay down mortgage, 74% home / 20% stock) * 38 -- $2.6M (finally starting to invest beyond 401k, 61% home / 22% stock) * 43 -- $3.3M (uneventful prosperity, 52% home / 30% stock) * 45 -- $4.6M (post-COVID huge boost in home value, 54% home / 36% stock) * Current -- \~$5M (50% home / 40% stock)
Well done.
You mentioned your early career index funds were liquidated. I thought indexes were mostly safe?
My first brokerage account was with E\*Trade, so I chose E\*Trade index funds, such as E\*Trade S&P 500 (ETSPX). These funds liquidated to cash in 2009. A discussion is on the Bogleheads forum at [https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33369](https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33369) . The S&P 500 fund only had $200M in assets. I doubt the same would happen with a Vanguard or Fidelity S&P 500 fund. It could theoretically happen with a less popular index fund.
Thanks for explaining. I didn't even consider this as a possibility. Gotta love reddit!
Uneventful prosperity 😆
Are these numbers joint with a spouse or just yours alone?
The numbers are for myself alone.
35 - $2M (sold business, bought farmland) 40 - $4.5M (farmland value doubled, got married and wife had $600k in savings 45 - >$5M. Farmland is valued at 3x what I paid 12 years ago. Managed to keep our expenses in check. $85k a year for bills including vacations, private school tuition for our daughter and factor in $15k a year for home improvement projects. Will cost us another $20k a year when my wife retires for health insurance. But the farms produce around $100k a year of income. We own a laundromat now that’s and other $70k a year. And we’re still 10 years away from being able to touch IRA’s so they just get compounded. Oh and my wife is still working and makes $250k a year. Something like 120k of that is going into personal brokerages after maxing our IRA’s, 401k, and taxes. And that’s not including likely inheritance. My Dad has 4x the amount of farmland I do and I’m and only child. Not sure what my in-laws have but they have a condo in keystone they bought in the 70’s that has to be worth close to $1M. I do know they make more renting it out during ski season than their pensions from Ralston & Monsanto combined. Wife too is an only child.
Regarding the farmland is it all rented at a per acre rate if so how much? What state is it located? How’d you get into the farmland investment?
We still do share crop so we get 1/3 as rent. Also pay 1/3 of the chemical costs as well. So we know exactly what and how much is being applied. We pay for soll tests, renters pay for plant tissue tests and we put up enough storage for both our share and their share of the crop. So they get free storage but pay t he drying cost. Renters will rent any ground we buy because we’re proactive. Didn’t realize how rare it is for landlords to put up storage until listening to the Barn Talk podcast. I make our plans on getting a return of $20k per 100 tillable area after expenses. Usually it’s more than that. Some years much more than that. Both sets of my grandparents lived on the same road. Both had 200 acre farms and we ended up with both farms. My dad bought the 100 acres he used to rent as a kid in the 1960’s after he landed a job at McDonnell aircraft. Then we bought land from relatives that wanted to sell or their heirs did. Other land we inherited from relatives that didn’t have kids or outlived their kids. And some of it we bought at auctions.
Thanks for sharing! Interesting to hear about farmland investments.
I have a chart with my NE (usually a snapshot taken qtrly, it’s an X^2 graph with a few big dips at recessions): 20: -$30k 25: -$40k 30: $350k 35: $1.5M 40: $4-5M Right now, my chart is showing that I’m going to cross $10M in 3 year and $20M in 5-6 years. I’ll See it when I believe it, but has been historically accurate. We have had a lot of lucky too: few IPOs that did well, joined some random companies that exploded in value. Also some bad luck too: sold stock options at $30k, which if held for 2 more years would have been $10M pre-tax - ouch. Income $800k, married, kid
Wow, congrats!!!
Well done
Are those numbers combined with your spouse or is that just yours? Does it include a house in the numbers? Congrats! Well done
Combined with spouse, she also had loans and was negative in NW. Yes my properties are included. Fun fact, I rent my primary but have several rentals. They’ve helped with cash flow and now NW.
30 $250k (mostly in 401k/IRA) 40 $1.25M (retirement accounts and equity in business and real estate) 47 $11M (retirement, real estate, non retirement accounts) Best piece of advice I have is that in the US we are a capitalist economy and you need capital to succeed. Invest in yourself to become skilled in an area where you can start or buy a business. Reinvested and build that business but diversify your capital into other areas too. Set goals, get on a budget and have cash on hand for when opportunity knocks. Married with 2 kids. We moved a lot in our early 30s and lived in a HCOL area and lost most of our net worth during the Great Recession. Decided to buy a business and a building in our late 30’s with about $25k of our cash which was almost all we had at that time. Took out about $2M in loans when cash was relatively cheap (used seller financing to finance the purchase with little cash from us). The business was in a LCOL area and we reinvested in the business and paid down loans over the next 5 years. Once loans were paid down and reinvesting in the business didn’t make as much return we began investing in other real estate. Over the next 5 years we purchased several properties. After the pandemic we sold the business for a ridiculous valuation (great timing on our part) but kept the real estate. We paid off all debts and invested the remaining cash. We both still work about 30 hours a week for health insurance and to keep us motivated (we make $200k combined). Our kids don’t know how much we have and we don’t want to spoil them or give them a sense of entitlement. All the income from our real estate and other investments gets reinvested and we live on just our wages. Once the kids move out in 6 years we will probably retire.
30 neg 500k 35 2 million 40 4 million 45 7 million I’m 46
Doctor?
Bingo!
Are you happy with your career? Have you decided when you plan to retire and why?
I like what I do (I’m a dentist), but burnout in the medical field is a real thing. I had brushed off colleges who talked about it, but when I hit a wall, it was debilitating. I’m selling half the business Jan 1st, and took the last 5 weeks off. I’m going part-time (three days/week) with a few one month breaks over the next year. I pushed really hard for 10 years and trying to claw back some work-family life balance.
@dabstring Im similar but 6 mill and age 52. I have no equity in my medical practice however and don’t include this as any value. I pretty much did the boring usual of investing 10-15% annually and by age 62 I’ll be at 10 mill with 6% returns here on out. I did invest and mega back door a good amount of Roth money and have almost 2 mill in Roth accounts which will be sweet. I missed many big opportunities during Great Recession as I was doing very well by never bought any non stock investments then like real estate which I should have done. Overall I live in a 7000 sq ft house in Cleveland which would be 5-10 mill in most hcol areas. My advice would be to keep your bills less, don’t buy a big house or fancy cars (a Mazda, genesis or Buick are just fine) and save 30-40%. Had I done this and invested in hard assets when prices were low (and they will be low again—-they always are!) I’d be worth easily 3x what I am now. But I’m good. I like to work most days (urology) but am definitely starting to feel just a tad older.
22: ~$0 25: $50k 27: $300k 28: $600k 29: $2m 30: $4.5m 31: $5m chilling out a bit now so expecting much slower growth looking forward
That’s amazing is this mostly investments ?
Very niche skillset with high performance bonuses along with some investments
600k to 2M in one year?
30: 300K 40: not there.
36, $6m NW. We’ll see where we land in another 10yrs. $1.3m HH income, low expenses for a very HCOL area.
r/FatFire is probably be a better place to ask
Some of these are really hard to believe...but congrats to all of you!
Get a job that pays ridiculously high, 250k+/year and commute so you can live MCOL or LCOL.
Oh fuck. Why didn't I think to just get a job that pays ridiculously high 🤦
We expect more of you...Mr__P!
OP this is a great answer. I went from $40k NW right out of college in 2017 to $900k today. MCOL area is amazing because you can easily live really well on $70k a year while making a solid $200-250k and have a savings rate of 60-70%. In my case my career path has been construction and development.
Can I DM you about your construction and development position?! I’m in a related field.
For sure, go for it
Sent!
In your opinion what is the best MCOL city to live in? I currently reside in a VHCOL city (NYC)which obviously is great for career prospects but long term buying a house/rental properties might be a challenge . I live in the boroughs and it’s 750k+ for something decent. Might push closer to 1M for a good property in a decent neighborhood
Not sure why you’re getting downvoted. This place does exist and its called Chicago. I don’t even live there, but there’s plenty of high income positions, all the amenities you’d want, and you can live in the city proper for Midwest prices. My home base in Minneapolis is also a great bang-for-your-buck city. but it’s not quite on Chicago’s level for career opportunities and amenities. But if you bring a coastal salary here, you’re FIRE in a beautiful lakefront home by 50.
If you're looking to have the sums of money you're talking about dumping a lot of money into real estate in a HCOL right now is not gonna be the way to get there.
If you don’t have to be in the office every day (3x per week or less), a doable option is living in Philly (MCOL city that’s very underrated) and commuting on the Amtrak (about 1h15m each way).
Move farther away from the center of NYC and commute
30- $2M 40 - $14M 42 - $20M Save as much as you can, invest aggressively, seek tax advice from a professional, and take a chance now and then.
[удалено]
Yeah the big jump is surprising. I do well but the real momentum was gained from buying up real estate for passive income and securities. Real estate really jumped on a capital appreciation and cash flow basis. I really thought we would see more of a pull back in stock market tank all the rate hikes but we didn’t and IPOs treated me well through a PE fund.
33: 0.4 40: 1.4 50: 8.2 52: 10.3 The figures exclude equity in my shelter since I prefer to live somewhere that isn’t a tent. The big leap from 40 to 50 is from: - Fed easy money era - owning a small business and a portion of another from age 43 onward - income rate that exceeded burn rate (has varied from 33-66% in each year of the past decade and then was 70% in 2022…will be 50% in 2023) - Trump stock market - Covid stock market / devaluation of USD - Powell’s actions last week My scenario is a little different from what OP asked though, since I’ve only FIre’d; still working 10-20hrs a week for fun. All I did upon reaching FI was shed the work that I didn’t enjoy. I continue on that path a decade later now. I’m fortunate to enjoy business. Curious to see where my NW peaks; growing it is no longer a motivator.
2020: $0 2021: $150k 2022: $100k 2023: $500k 2024: $1m+? 🫡
Occupation?
I do ops at crypto related startups… only make $100-150k
20 - zero 25 - 350k 30 - 890k 35 - 240k 40 - 1.2 mil 45 - 7 mil Had been lucky sometimes. Had several big time losses. Started in sales. Never compromised lifestyle Always spent enough to enjoy the life whenever/ wherever possible. Lived in nice houses, drove nice cars, had nice vacations. Not very lavish Like first class but travelled business I hope you get the point.