My Financial Journey

Well 2017 sure was a banner year for my nestegg. It grew by over $187,000 this year and $156,000 of that were investment gains. It is very likely my portfolio brought in more wealth than our day to day jobs this year despite our incomes being at an all-time high as well.

It was another banner year for the stock market and my investments outperformed the market which led to these outsized returns. This was nice given my relative underperformance in 2016.

On area that was disappointing was my retirement contributions were significantly lower than the previous 3 years despite having the highest income we’ve ever had by a significant margin. Basically we’ve been spending like drunken sailors on our new house and our savings our savings rate has plummeted. Looking at plans for 2018 this might be in for more of the same as there are a number of large projects on the docket. Basically we’ve put off financial independence to work for this monstrocity of a house of ours which kind of stinks.

That being said my portfolio is large enough to provide over $34,000 in additional income forever. Also if my wife continues to work I will actually look at pulling back from working 100% as soon as this year to ideally not work during the summer months. Basically while maybe not the smartest move – the need to save for retirement is not nearly as high as it used to be and in theory I can afford to live the drunken sailor life, reduce my income by not working 100%, and still be setup very well for financial independence in a few years.

One other random item of note is my wife is now working and has contributed and been matches a chunk of money in her retirement account so she probably has $3k or more in there, but I have no way to look up her retirement account and she has yet to get access to her pay stubs through work so that is something I have either figure out how to track or just forget about and have it be a small surprise some day.

Overall despite my attempts to shoot myself in the foot – 2017 was a pretty amazing year financially.

Taxable Account- $48,074.83 (+1.51%)
Private Stock $63,100 (+0.00%)
Traditional Rollover IRA – $28,443.45 (+2.14%)
My Roth IRA – $192,960.86 (+1.05%)
Wife Roth IRA – $119,683.98 (+1.11%)
Traditional 401k – $405,281.49 (+1.73%)

Roth/Traditional % = 36.46% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $857,544.61 (+1.36%)
Retirement Salary (4%) $34,302

Monthly Contributions $2,754.29 (401k)
SP500 Performance +0.98%
My Monthly Investment Performance +1.04% (+0.06% vs SP500)
My Monthly Individual Stocks Performance +1.20% (+0.22% vs SP500)

My retirement contributions for 2017 $30,787.56
401k $18,000.00
401k matching $12,787.56
My Roth IRA $0
Wife Roth IRA $0
Taxable Account $0
Wife Retirement Account ??

SP500 Performance for 2017 +18.42%
Investment Performance for 2017 +23.31% (+4.89% vs SP500)
Individual Stock Performance for 2017 +27.49% (-14.11% vs SP500)
Total Investment Return 2017 +$156,291.84

Another all time high for my nestegg and I honestly don’t know what else to say as this is a broken record every month. Big numbers keep getting bigger. Big numbers are fun.

Taxable Account- $47,357.73 (+1.51%)
Private Stock $63,100 (+0.00%)
Traditional Rollover IRA – $27,847.19 (+11.92%)
My Roth IRA – $190,958.18 (+3.56%)
Wife Roth IRA – $118,368.95(+0.87%)
Traditional 401k – $398,398.59 (+3.37%)

Roth/Traditional % = 36.56% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $846,030.64 (+2.95%)
Retirement Salary (4%) $33,841

Monthly Contributions $1,873.92 (401k)
SP500 Performance +2.81%
My Monthly Investment Performance +2.72% (-0.09% vs SP500)
My Monthly Individual Stocks Performance +3.01% (+0.20% vs SP500)

Another month and another all-time high. Starting to sound like a broken record. My actual investment performance hasn’t been too hot the last few months, but I’ve still added $30,000 to my nestegg. I don’t anticipate the market to continue like it has, but I am currently 5 months ahead of the pace that I need to be to hit my $1M by age 40 goal

Taxable Account- $46,653.20 (-2.20%)
Private Stock $63,100 (+0.00%)
Traditional Rollover IRA – $24,882.10 (+2.21%)
My Roth IRA – $184,403.31 (+3.98%)
Wife Roth IRA – $117,349.78(+1.15%)
Traditional 401k – $385,396.30 (+2.49%)

Roth/Traditional % = 36.46% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $821,784.69 (+2.15%)
Retirement Salary (4%) $32,871

Monthly Contributions $1,873.92 (401k)
SP500 Performance +2.22%
My Monthly Investment Performance +1.91% (-0.31% vs SP500)
My Monthly Individual Stocks Performance +2.16% (-0.66% vs SP500)

Not a great month for my investing performance, but another all-time new high for my retirement nestegg report. As I mentioned in my last report my wife is now working so not only do we have two incomes but she also has some sort of teacher retirement account that I will have to add to this report at some point. I believe we only get to see it’s value like once a year and there is no way to view it online so maybe it will be easier to pretend it does not exist.

Taxable Account- $47,700.66 (-1.44%)
Private Stock $63,100 (+0.00%)
Traditional Rollover IRA – $24,343.02 (+0.03%)
My Roth IRA – $177,349.89 (+0.24%)
Wife Roth IRA – $116,012.44(+0.39%)
Traditional 401k – $376,020.05 (+3.49%)

Roth/Traditional % = 36.46% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $804,526.06 (0.75%)
Retirement Salary (4%) $31,666

Monthly Contributions $1686.53 (401k)
SP500 Performance +1.93%
My Monthly Investment Performance +1.41% (-0.52% vs SP500)
My Monthly Individual Stocks Performance +0.05% (-1.88% vs SP500)

Well a pretty boring month for my nestegg but a pretty exciting month for me overall. My family and I took a 2 week out West to see some national parks and the eclipse and it was a pretty amazing experience. It makes you appreciate time alone with your family away from all of the other distractions of daily life and makes you truly appreciate what is important in life. It also makes me want to reach financial independence like tomorrow so that spending time like that is not restricted to just one two week stretch during the year.

The other exciting thing that happened while were on vacation is that my wife was offered a teaching job and accepted. So she will be working as well this year which means the MFJ household will have two primary incomes for only the 2nd year in this journey which while ironically will cut into family time here in the short term may give us more options going forward to expedite the financial independence portion. I’d like to say I’d have enough guts to take some action as early as next summer as far as scaling back my working hours, but it’s a big leap of faith and I’ll likely need some encouragement if things line up the way I anticipate they might.

The hardest part as you get near that point of financial independence is having the courage to turn off the spigot of money that pours over you for simply going and sitting in an office for 40 hours a week / 12 months a year. Everything a FI aspiring person does leading up to that point is maximize earning potential, cut costs, and treating each dollar as something sacred and then all of a sudden this same person is supposed to essentially say no thanks you can keep that extra $50k or $100k a year I think I’m just going to spend more time doing stuff with my family.

It’s a tough mental hurdle to get over and often leads at least in my experience to people hanging onto that extra security and padding that nestegg longer than is necessary. In my case the most pressing issue is the age of my kids as they are growing up faster than I ever could have imagined and if I don’t take action soon it will be somewhat for nothing as having loads of freedom in my 40s & 50s won’t be anywhere near as productive as having free-time still in my 30s when I can use that time to spend with my kids. I also turned 38 this month so me speaking like I have a lot of time in my 30s is a prime example of how time flies.

I don’t think I’m quite to FI yet as our expenses have risen quite a bit with the new house and the growing age of our kids, but deep down I know I could probably easily cut my salary in half with my wife working and not needing to save for retirement anymore and still be just fine. So if I can cut my salary in half in theory I only need to work half the year which probably would be perfect right now, but unfortunately the logistics around working part-time don’t seem to be as easy in practice as they seem on paper – especially when dealing with an employer. We will see…

Taxable Account- $48,396.05 (+1.55%)
Private Stock $63,100 (+0.00%)
Traditional Rollover IRA – $24,336.07 (-3.22%)
My Roth IRA – $176,919.71 (+0.24%)
Wife Roth IRA – $115,563.54(+3.26%)
Traditional 401k – $363,337.24 (+0.53%)

Roth/Traditional % = 36.95% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $791,652.61 (0.75%)
Retirement Salary (4%) $31,666

Monthly Contributions $1,405.44 (401k)
SP500 Performance +0.05%
My Monthly Investment Performance +0.57% (+0.55% vs SP500)
My Monthly Individual Stocks Performance +1.11% (+1.06% vs SP500)

My retirement nestegg grew very modestly this month and my investments greatly under performed the market as a whole, especially my individual stocks. This will certainly happen as my portfolio has much more volatility than the market and so my downs are usually much worse than the market and my ups have historically been much greater than the market anyway. I feel like I have the right mindset and these swings do not bother me much. Having 6 figures removed from my nestegg would be a normal ebb and flow for me and does not matter in the long term horizon.

Taxable Account- $47,655.94 (-8.02%)
Private Stock $63,100 (+0.00%)
Traditional Rollover IRA – $25,144.40 (-8.21%)
My Roth IRA – $176,500.64 (+0.52%)
Wife Roth IRA – $111,913.47(+0.05%)
Traditional 401k – $361,422.34 (+2.08%)

Roth/Traditional % = 36.67% (tax free)

Total Retirement Nest Egg $785,736.79 (0.24%)
Retirement Salary (4%) $31,429

Monthly Contributions $1,405.44 (401k)
SP500 Performance +1.93%
My Monthly Investment Performance +0.06% (-1.87% vs SP500)
My Monthly Individual Stocks Performance -1.48% (-3.41% vs SP500)