Share your Net Worth Progression

[SmokeSignals]

2020 - 500k
2021 - 700k

This year we bought our first good car w cash, got lucky and sold residency home w modest profit, moved across the country to higher COL, now spend 1.5x our old mortgage payment on rent , spouse left full time job, kid in full time daycare (way less than current rent), nearly maxed retirement accounts.

Looking ahead to 2022 - spouse starts equivalent of intern year in private sector (low pay and bad hours for several years then will have great pay and hours), plan to max all retirement accounts for the first time, finish paying off of student loans once moratorium lifts, hope for 800+ NW by next dec if market treats us all well.

We are celebrating being in positive territory and inching closer to 7 figures. Happy new year everyone!

[Lordosis]

If you have twins, the amount you'll feel you don't have to pay once they start in August is going to feel like an even heavier weight lifted off your shoulders. We're paying $20-25 per day for the after school programming now, vs $50/day when they were their oldest in daycare. That's a huge saving. I still have one in daycare with 1.5 years left but I already feel a ton of relief because the pendulum shifted once kid #2 entered kindergarten and thus I had more not in daycare than in daycare. Camps will make it feel like the kids are all back in daycare but that's at most 3 months of the year (not even if you include vacations and the fact that school might last through the first week of June and/or start the last week of August).

Vacations will get expensive and so we're budgeting for that. Fortunately they're too young for anything extravagant. We just drove from Minnesota to Florida and back for the holiday. Saved at least $1000 if not more by driving instead of flying. The kids were better than my wife and I were on the drive! Did it mostly due to the virus but certainly it helped to argue the trip would be cheaper this way. And given how many flights ended up getting cancelled during the holidays, it's possible one of those flights would have been the one we booked to FL had we chosen to fly. All this said, I don't think we're going to drive all the way to Florida again but it's great knowing we did it and could do it again. It also means if a place is a 15 hour drive away, we won't even think anymore that's such a terrible drive because we defeated the dreaded 24 hour drive to Florida. Being in the northeast, you can get to a lot of stuff within 10 hours. Being in the midwest, things are 10-15 hours away but we can get to a lot of diverse stuff in this country whether we drive that amount of time west, east, or south

As a kid we drove from NY to FL a few times. I remember enjoying the trip but I was a kid and did not have to do the driving and had a gameboy and probably went through 20 AA batteries. There were 3 of us kids so driving would have been way cheaper than flying and renting a car. But my parents had flexible jobs and taking time off was not too much of a problem. It would be a bit harder for me to take a week off let alone a few more days for driving time.

If/when I retire early I will be driving everywhere possible. Time will be on my side.


Yes having twins doubles the cost of everything. But it will double the savings when they age out! Our daycare had a 20% discount for siblings when we started. It unfortunately disappeared a few years ago. I think we might have been the reason it was taken away :/

[nephron]

2 physician income, not including home equity/mortgage/cash/529 plans for children:
2011 (met with financial advisor): $179,000 retirement-$270,000 student loans= -$91,000
2019 (discovered WCI): Retirement $975,000-$50,500student loans=$924,500
2/2020: Retirement: $1,204,000
1/21: retirement: $1,470,000
1/22: Retirement: $2,090,000- student loan $36,521
My student loan is a consolidated private loan at 1.6% interest with a 30 year pay back period. It is auto-deducted from my bank account every month so I don't pay much attention to it. I intend to keep it until the government cancels it for me.

[8arclay]

My student loan is a consolidated private loan at 1.6% interest with a 30 year pay back period. It is auto-deducted from my bank account every month so I don't pay much attention to it. I intend to keep it until the government cancels it for me.

Forgive me if I missed the tongue in cheek, but why/how would the government cancel a private loan?

[Larry Ragman]

Forgive me if I missed the tongue in cheek, but why/how would the government cancel a private loan?

Pretty sure this is a tongue in cheek reference to early comments in the Biden Administration advocating the cancellation of student loans. As you note, it was always fraught with difficulties.

[jz-]

I hunch that Gen X have enjoyed the fastest rise in NW among us. Their first decade dollars were invested at bargain prices, during the lost decade (2000-2010) and have enjoyed a 15 year bull market since.
In contrast, us boomers' NW stalled out during the lost decade and have shot up since. Calculating for myself, NW was flat for age 40-50. This interval included paying university tuition for 3 kids

[Otolith]

I hunch that Gen X have enjoyed the fastest rise in NW among us. Their first decade dollars were invested at bargain prices, during the lost decade (2000-2010) and have enjoyed a 15 year bull market since.
In contrast, us boomers' NW stalled out during the lost decade and have shot up since. Calculating for myself, NW was flat for age 40-50. This interval included paying university tuition for 3 kids

I think student loans will be the deciding factor. Gen Z and many millennials grew up with parents and an environment/culture that stressed the utmost importance in going to college at all cost. Depending on source ~ cost of higher ed has increased 4 times compared to 80s/90s adjusted for inflation.

Luckily pendulum is swinging as now you are starting to have parents who will tell their kids growing up don't take out too much student loan debt, and maybe even consider going to trade school.

Hopefully Gen Z took their student loan payments or their summer earnings and started investing...

[Tim]

I think student loans will be the deciding factor. Gen Z and many millennials grew up with parents and an environment/culture that stressed the utmost importance in going to college at all cost. Depending on source ~ cost of higher ed has increased 4 times compared to 80s/90s adjusted for inflation.

Luckily pendulum is swinging as now you are starting to have parents who will tell their kids growing up don't take out too much student loan debt, and maybe even consider going to trade school.

Hopefully Gen Z took their student loan payments or their summer earnings and started investing...

If the goal is income to reach a job, home, transportation AND savings, then the all encompassing debt to income ratio percentages are what count across generations.
Total debt vs the income required ti cover.
The banks have this down pat. In defense of Gen Z, no generation has a characteristic to save vs spend. I am more concerned about confusing entertainment vs investing and saving..The components change, but not the total ratios. Boomers to GenZ.

[Turf Doc]

I think student loans will be the deciding factor. Gen Z and many millennials grew up with parents and an environment/culture that stressed the utmost importance in going to college at all cost. Depending on source ~ cost of higher ed has increased 4 times compared to 80s/90s adjusted for inflation.

Luckily pendulum is swinging as now you are starting to have parents who will tell their kids growing up don't take out too much student loan debt, and maybe even consider going to trade school.

Hopefully Gen Z took their student loan payments or their summer earnings and started investing...

I'm one of the youngest millennials, and maybe i wasnt paying attention, but i swear that i just didnt hear about how toxic student loans were when i was going to college. also, at my school everyone talked crap on going to a community college even though in california theyre a great cheap way to end up at a UC. I think things are different now fortunately

[SLC OB]

I'm one of the youngest millennials, and maybe i wasnt paying attention, but i swear that i just didnt hear about how toxic student loans were when i was going to college. also, at my school everyone talked crap on going to a community college even though in california theyre a great cheap way to end up at a UC. I think things are different now fortunately

I have a freshman at UC Davis. I know my son says that lots of classmates are on "full rides" and come to find out that they have "full loans!" Bummer! Not sure the message is out there as much as we think it is.

[Larry Ragman]

I have a freshman at UC Davis. I know my son says that lots of classmates are on "full rides" and come to find out that they have "full loans!" Bummer! Not sure the message is out there as much as we think it is.

My adult kids (31 and 26) still occasionally relate another story about friends swamped by college loans, some undergrad some grad. It was a big head start for ours to graduate debt free.

[Tim]

I have a freshman at UC Davis. I know my son says that lots of classmates are on "full rides" and come to find out that they have "full loans!" Bummer! Not sure the message is out there as much as we think it is.

Seems the most likely message out there is “Loan Forgiveness”.
Face it, there is great value in higher education to the individuals and society. The cost is unsustainable in the current model. No society has ever found a solution that higher education is provided for the masses. The cost/benefit is economically is just not there. That message is and will meet resistance. Even a high quality secondary education level is problematic.
No way would I expect college freshman to comprehend the problem let alone solve it on their own.