Share your Net Worth Progression

[CordMcNally]

2015: 1 unit
2016: 4 knots
2017: 2 leagues
2018: 5 hectares
2019: 8 decibels
2020: 9 diopters
Today: 14 farads

It goes without saying, things have been going well.

End of 2021: 21 gigawatts.

[Larry Ragman]

I think I am in the 1% among physicians. My net worth is crazy high these days. I still work doing a variety of things (both clinical medicine and CEO type stuff for the health care company I started) but I get to design my work week however I decide to structure it. Where else can you say this personal financial stuff and brag out loud? (nothing humble about this brag) Well, that would be on an anonymous physician forum, right?

Some things that I did over the years:
*I invested in tax deferred accounts to the max, every year.
*I invested in taxable accounts, whatever was left after maxing out tax deferred and after RE investment downpayments were made.
*We always spent carefully in our younger years and although we enjoyed nice vacations and a nice home, we were very careful with optimizing everything financial.
*I developed multiple income streams, moonlighting as a resident to build up an emergency fund, to max tax deferred, and to have a downpayment for RE investments, a consulting side gig as an attending, and most importantly, I took a leap of faith, quit academic medicine and started a healthcare related business start up that became increasingly successful with time.
*My marital partner was 100% on board with optimizing spending and investing.
*We started investing in real estate early on, buying our first investment property when I was still a resident.

Net worth progression (I tracked the net worth progression on a monthly basis on paper at various times in the old days, and on spreadsheets in more recent years. But alas, I lost the records from some of the years and I stopped tracking for a while during certain unfortunate periods of national economic meltdowns):

1984: 16,000
1985: 27,000
1986: 45,000
1987: 51,000 (bought first RE investment property as I was completing my residency)
1988: 79,000
1989: 125,000
1990: 166,000 (finished fellowship and became an attending)
1991: 229,000 (paid off student loans, bought primary home)
1992: 272,000 (bought additional RE investment property)
1993: 307,000
1994: 664,000
1995: 866,000
1996: 933,000
1997: 1,031,000 (made the milestone of a 7-figure net worth in 7th year out of training)
1998: 1,307,000
1999: 1,606,000
2000: 1,940,000
2000: 2,001,000 (2nd million took only 4 years, as opposed to 7 years for the first million)
2001: ? (lost track of some of the old spreadsheets)
2002: ? (lost track of some of the old spreadsheets)
2003: ? (lost track of some of the old spreadsheets)
2004: 3,053,000 (3rd million also took 4 years)
2005: ? (lost track of some of the old spreadsheets)
2006: 3,656,000
2007: 4,596,000 (4th million took around 2.5 years)
2008: ? didn't track, depressing stock market meltdown and RE meltdown, but held on to all holdings through thick and thin
2009: ?
2010: 4,048,000
2011: 4,146,000
2012: 4,741,000 (started a health care related company, off to a slow start)
2013: 5,583,000 (5th million took around 5 years in a period of terrible economic conditions)
2014: 6,586,000 (now each extra million started rolling over every year)
2015: 7,230,000
2016: 8,600,000
2017: 16,507,000 (both business income and business value take flight into low earth orbit)
2018: 17,776,000
2019: 20,234,000
2020: 40,021,000 (business income and value take flight into outer space)
2021: 48,728,000 and growing (now the million dollar increases can happen every month or two, whoa!!!)

We have loosened the purse strings. We donate a ton to charity. But we still fly commercial....

And finally, holy moly, how did this level of wealth happen to a simple, hard working guy like me?

I suspect most people have a thing they would do if “rich.’ My wife and I say we would never fly commercial again.

[billy]

over the past year it seems I went from 15x-->20x, despite not working since Nov. The hardest parts were getting back to zero net worth (2 years out of residency), but once I paid off student loans last year (yes, i know interest arbitrage, could've held on to them instead) it was so easy to just plow money into the market stress free. for reference I am now 6.5 years out of residency. Last year had 40% gross savings rate, will aim for 35-40% this year also although my taxes are now higher.

[abds]

mid-2015 (started practice): -182k
12/2016: 0.1M
12/2017: 0.5M
12/2018: 1.3M
12/2019: 2.6M
12/2020: 4.1M
12/2021: 5.8M

Since I also track my annual savings--as I'm sure most of you do--I calculate what percent of my increase in net worth is from savings versus investment growth/appreciation. The majority is still from savings every year. Goals this year are to maintain current income and savings, while getting back into shape.

Happy New Year to all

[TheDangerZone]

mid-2015 (started practice): -182k
12/2016: 0.1M
12/2017: 0.5M
12/2018: 1.3M
12/2019: 2.6M
12/2020: 4.1M
12/2021: 5.8M

Since I also track my annual savings--as I'm sure most of you do--I calculate what percent of my increase in net worth is from savings versus investment growth/appreciation. The majority is still from savings every year. Goals this year are to maintain current income and savings, while getting back into shape.

Happy New Year to all

Incredible trajectory, saving >850k a year is inspirational. Cheers

[East coast]

mid-2015 (started practice): -182k
12/2016: 0.1M
12/2017: 0.5M
12/2018: 1.3M
12/2019: 2.6M
12/2020: 4.1M
12/2021: 5.8M

Since I also track my annual savings--as I'm sure most of you do--I calculate what percent of my increase in net worth is from savings versus investment growth/appreciation. The majority is still from savings every year. Goals this year are to maintain current income and savings, while getting back into shape.

Happy New Year to all

All offense intended....come on, man/woman, u gotta spend more. I really think this level of savings is more in line with a hoarder mentality. This assumes you aren't making $2m a year in income I guess and these jumps in NW are more savings than appreciation. But even then.

[MaxPower]

True, and even worse when I said that if you’re going to count the mortgage, you also have to count the value of the home in another post ...

We also owned a rental house at that time that was underwater, although not by $600k.

So a second edit to my numbers looks like
2014: -$450k




2020: + $1.4 million

2021: $2.92 million (most change due to ridiculous home appreciation, but did contribute 6 figures to retirement accounts this year again, so plowing money into an expanding market has definitely paid off).

[Tim]

mid-2015 (started practice): -182k
12/2016: 0.1M
12/2017: 0.5M
12/2018: 1.3M
12/2019: 2.6M
12/2020: 4.1M
12/2021: 5.8M

Since I also track my annual savings--as I'm sure most of you do--I calculate what percent of my increase in net worth is from savings versus investment growth/appreciation. The majority is still from savings every year. Goals this year are to maintain current income and savings, while getting back into shape.

Happy New Year to all

Hint: It is helpful to annotate notes about each year. AA, contributions, gains and any controllable changes you made.
Beginning Balance,Market Change(monthly),Dividends & Interest, Fees, Deposits,Withdrawals,Ending Balance, Monthly %,Cum %,Cum Gain
I track this by month since 2003. Courtesy of the dot com crash. Easy to put in yearly totals for net changes you wish to track.
The biggest advantage is this one spreadsheet brings you back to reality when the "news" prompts knee jerk reactions. Stay the course, you see how the market gains/losses are random and the long term trends are the result of your own behaviors.

You are on the right track is tracking the drivers of the net change.

[SLC OB]

This thread makes me feel poor.... not that I am but I have a lot tied up in real estate (live in HCOLA) and retirement accounts, very little in taxable.
We have a paid for rental house (worth low 7 figures) and our our home with only about 16% of the value in mortgage.... hoping to pay off in next 4 years.
The market has been good to us, which is nice.
Am moving to a new decade this year (only bright spot is catch up contributions, yay!) and figure there is a few "doubling" left to do before we access these accounts. Luckily I am happy in my work, at this time.

[StarTrekDoc]

12/2017: $37k
12/2018: $208k
12/2019: $502k
12/2020: $2.44M
12/2021: $6.12M

My trajectory is definitely abnormal and likely not reproducible due to a variety of reasons lol. I have made posts about how I've accomplished this though. Took a lot of risks and some leverage to get here. I have way more than I need to be happy, but I like seeing the numbers go up and having new high scores.

Hit the cash out button when you win the lottery. If you really want to play with the house's money, at least take the baseline needs off the table

[abds]

All offense intended....come on, man/woman, u gotta spend more. I really think this level of savings is more in line with a hoarder mentality. This assumes you aren't making $2m a year in income I guess and these jumps in NW are more savings than appreciation. But even then.

Just trust me that we (the opposite of “the royal we” - my wife) spend plenty of money. Enough that when the occasional “how much do you spend” threads come up, I’m embarrassed to share. The high annual savings is a function of a very fortunate, very high income.

[SerrateAndDominate]

Admittedly I haven't performed detailed tracking until yesterday. I'm only 18 months out of training. My wife is a dentist who started working my PGY-4 year. During my first of two fellowships, I started maxing out my 403b and backdoor roth IRAs. I maybe had about $10k in a Roth IRA pre-marriage. Since 2017, we've both maxed out 401k/403b accounts, backdoor Roth IRAs, deferred compensation plan through my hospital, and thrown extra into our joint brokerage. During 2021, I started my wife's solo 401k with vanguard since she's an independent contractor. We did buy a house in May after being in this town and job for 11 months; we are both from here and have family here. We found a very nice home at a good price (low cost of living in the SE). We also sold my accidental rental home, which was a huge relief.

End of 2021 - my net worth is positive $219k; wife's accounts are around $300k. Have about $117k in student loans that I re-refinanced to a 5 year variable in April 2020. Current rate is 0.91% so I'm in no rush to pay it off.

All in all, I'm very happy to have over $300k in assets being just 18 months out of training.

[Bonez]

11/2017 (-$300k) - shortly after finishing fellowship
1/2022 +600k - have largely been just maxing out 401k (w/ profit share), backdoor roth IRA for my wife and myself, paying student loans, and investing extra cash in an ASC and practice real estate since starting job.

[eyecandy]

Wow amazing numbers here. Mine isn’t as impressive as others, but I’m pretty proud of it. Happy New Year!

2013 -225K
2014-2015 edu loan pay down
2016 zero
2017 275K
2018 540K
2019 910K
2020 1.3
2021 2.0

[Bonez]

Honestly don't know when we passed $1M. The first I knew of it was when our financial advisor at the time said we were at $1.5M. The last few PFS I've compiled for banks are as follows:
8/30/16 : $8.4M
12/31/17: $10M
10/03/18: $11.3M
12/31/19: $12.8M
The real estate has done well for us.

I know your post is relatively old, but if you're still watching the thread.... Are you investing in residential real estate / rentals? Or what kind of real estate is it that has done so well for you? Thanks!