one MEEN Ag said:

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You're doing your mother a huge favor. Whether she appreciates it fully or can take your advice lovingly. Despite what TxAgPreacher says on other threads, you're doing the Lord's work here.

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Thanks.

I think it all goes back to the book The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel. Each person saves, allocates funds and makes decision off of a deeply personal relationship with money and what it is best used to achieve for a given person.

Some people see money and want to spend it, truly the view the future is no certain and why wait.
The other side is more similar to the AggieEE approach with Fire, save at all costs, and delay any gratification to watch the balance grow.

My view is there is a compromise between the two where I find happiness. I save at a high percent and try to grow assets to fund a life style and most importantly piece of mind.

My wife and I are 37, and by most measures are independently wealthy. However, we want to be able to spend, travel provide for our kids with opportunities that neither of us had. So- I continue to push in a very niche industry that has a all-in comp structure between $500K-1MM on any given year. The stress is nuts but I've been able to really deal with it because our baseline is covered. I do not have to worry about paying the mortgage or school as we've largely saved for that and can cover. It makes the high pressure career much mor manageable when you're not doing it solely to cover expenses.

I completely agree here. My wife and I pushed back having kids by 4-5 years to finish out our graduate/phd degrees and get some semblance of a financial footing. Once we got through the first year of our first, we wish we would have started sooner.

I've got a friends group where a couple of friends who got married right out of college, and had their first kid at 24-25 are doing just fine and onto their 3rd or 4th kids now at 31. They're about to visit the urologist during March Madness and call it a good game.

My parents perfectly fit the bill you're describing. They have two grandkids via only me. My other siblings are too picky, or career focused to get married, much less have a kid. One window of opportunity is closing on my sister while my brother does a catch and release program every two years with a girl. My parents realized they were going to probably not see this grandchild of theirs get married and started taking their health more seriously.

My parents would probably cut their retirement in half to rewind the clock, see my siblings married and having grandkids by now. After your base needs are covered, money means so little compared to family.

Hell, I'm trying to keep a dog alive long enough for my oldest to be able to remember when they're older. My parents are doing the same thing themselves.

one MEEN Ag said:

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I completely agree here. My wife and I pushed back having kids by 4-5 years to finish out our graduate/phd degrees and get some semblance of a financial footing. Once we got through the first year of our first, we wish we would have started sooner.

I've got a friends group where a couple of friends who got married right out of college, and had their first kid at 24-25 are doing just fine and onto their 3rd or 4th kids now at 31. They're about to visit the urologist during March Madness and call it a good game.

My parents perfectly fit the bill you're describing. They have two grandkids via only me. My other siblings are too picky, or career focused to get married, much less have a kid. One window of opportunity is closing on my sister while my brother does a catch and release program every two years with a girl. My parents realized they were going to probably not see this grandchild of theirs get married and started taking their health more seriously.

My parents would probably cut their retirement in half to rewind the clock, see my siblings married and having grandkids by now. After your base needs are covered, money means so little compared to family.

Hell, I'm trying to keep a dog alive long enough for my oldest to be able to remember when they're older. My parents are doing the same thing themselves.

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My mom is still kind of upset with me I didn't have kids but that's just how life worked out for me.

My younger brother has 3 kids so he's picking up my slack and runs interference for me on the kid front.

Thankfully!

Rustys-Beef-o-Reeno said:

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You don't go out as much, your vacations are cheaper, bar tabs are non existent etc etc.

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Ha! I spend more on all of these now than before kids. Completely independent of the kids though.

I've enjoyed reading through this thread. Some of you younger folks are way ahead of where my wife and I were at the same age and I always thought I was putting plenty back into savings. In perspective, I guess not.

It's a little hard for me to figure our exact net worth since my wife is in education and with her TRS retirement coming into play, it's hard to get a dollar figure. Last I checked we just passed the million mark this past year excluding our house and 30 acres it sits on. That also doesn't include her retirement pension somewhere in the next 15 years. Since that amount is based on an average of her 3 highest salary years, and since she is in administration where her potential income could increase from the mid $60's she currently sits to $80K to $100K depending what positions she transitions into over the next 15 years, our potential retirement income has a lot of variables still to be cooked in.

I would assume if she tops out with a salary around $85K on the 3 year average, her take home pension should be in the $60K range. If you figure living off of 4% of your retirement savings annually, I guess that would equate to about a $1.5 million dollar equivalent if the pension was monetized?

If that is the case, we should be sitting nicely once we hit about 60 and decide exactly when we want to transition to full retirement. Of course, we haven't put much back to pay for our 2 kids college and at this point, we'll be looking at paying a lot of that out of pocket. I'm not too worried about it though. I would love to not have my kids coming out of school with too much debt, but both my wife and I had a fair amount and we were still able to pay it off and save for the future.

I keep going back and forth on if I want to help my kids pay for college where they don't have to borrow or work during school or if I want them having to tough it out some. A lot of my friends that didn't have to work or borrow through college started off in a much better position but also don't have an appreciation for what they have. A lot of them are hard working and successful but also don't know how to deal with adversity. I think there is something to be said for tough times build tough men and easy times build weak men.

Ag97 said:

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I've enjoyed reading through this thread. Some of you younger folks are way ahead of where my wife and I were at the same age and I always thought I was putting plenty back into savings. In perspective, I guess not.

It's a little hard for me to figure our exact net worth since my wife is in education and with her TRS retirement coming into play, it's hard to get a dollar figure. Last I checked we just passed the million mark this past year excluding our house and 30 acres it sits on. That also doesn't include her retirement pension somewhere in the next 15 years. Since that amount is based on an average of her 3 highest salary years, and since she is in administration where her potential income could increase from the mid $60's she currently sits to $80K to $100K depending what positions she transitions into over the next 15 years, our potential retirement income has a lot of variables still to be cooked in.

I would assume if she tops out with a salary around $85K on the 3 year average, her take home pension should be in the $60K range. If you figure living off of 4% of your retirement savings annually, I guess that would equate to about a $1.5 million dollar equivalent if the pension was monetized?

If that is the case, we should be sitting nicely once we hit about 60 and decide exactly when we want to transition to full retirement. Of course, we haven't put much back to pay for our 2 kids college and at this point, we'll be looking at paying a lot of that out of pocket. I'm not too worried about it though. I would love to not have my kids coming out of school with too much debt, but both my wife and I had a fair amount and we were still able to pay it off and save for the future.

I keep going back and forth on if I want to help my kids pay for college where they don't have to borrow or work during school or if I want them having to tough it out some. A lot of my friends that didn't have to work or borrow through college started off in a much better position but also don't have an appreciation for what they have. A lot of them are hard working and successful but also don't know how to deal with adversity. I think there is something to be said for tough times build tough men and easy times build weak men.

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Nice humble brag tidbit!

Loan to value is only about 50% right now so I can't brag about it too much. House isn't the nicest and we plan on this being our last house ever so I see it as a net zero investment till we establish more equity over the next decade or two. I guess my kids will enjoy the monetary value of it when my wife and I pass away and they can sell it for whatever it's worth at that time.

I could be much further along in a savings aspect if I wouldn't have purchased the place we live now. I had my previous house paid for and outside of the acreage, the 2 houses were of similar value. That being said, the immediate satisfaction of my kids being able to hunt, fish, raise a few head of cattle and have acreage to play and finish growing up on is well worth the sacrifice of the extra money to invest for retirement. Worse case scenario is when my kids grow up and move away, we sell the place and move to a smaller house and no acreage to retire to.

YouBet said:

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Hell, I'm only 48 and stuff has become mostly just that to us. We've been on a mission the last year to simplify as much as possible without just wholesale selling the house and downgrading.

We've cleaned out every room in the house, sold everything we had in storage because we were wasting money keeping it, and I've been spending much more time with my parents as they hit 80 and physical ailments start to pile up.

I buy very little that doesn't have a use that I need. My biggest purchase last year was a $400 high speed scanner I saw recommended on here which has been a godsend in getting my office cleaned out.

My wife is currently employing something called the Swedish Death Cleanout(?). Basically you don't want to leave a bunch of crap behind for someone else to have to deal with. All sounds morbid at our relatively young age but damn it feels good to unload a bunch of crap you don't need.

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For the living, you can just call it a Kiazen. A feared word by every facilities manager and NPD team.

YouBet said:

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Hell, I'm only 48 and stuff has become mostly just that to us. We've been on a mission the last year to simplify as much as possible without just wholesale selling the house and downgrading.

We've cleaned out every room in the house, sold everything we had in storage because we were wasting money keeping it, and I've been spending much more time with my parents as they hit 80 and physical ailments start to pile up.

I buy very little that doesn't have a use that I need. My biggest purchase last year was a $400 high speed scanner I saw recommended on here which has been a godsend in getting my office cleaned out.

My wife is currently employing something called the Swedish Death Cleanout(?). Basically you don't want to leave a bunch of crap behind for someone else to have to deal with. All sounds morbid at our relatively young age but damn it feels good to unload a bunch of crap you don't need.

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It's actually pretty incredible how much anxiety just lots of *stuff* can cause a lot of people at times.

I'm one of them now, apparently.

Kudos to you and your wife.

Eliminatus said:

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YouBet said:

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Hell, I'm only 48 and stuff has become mostly just that to us. We've been on a mission the last year to simplify as much as possible without just wholesale selling the house and downgrading.

We've cleaned out every room in the house, sold everything we had in storage because we were wasting money keeping it, and I've been spending much more time with my parents as they hit 80 and physical ailments start to pile up.

I buy very little that doesn't have a use that I need. My biggest purchase last year was a $400 high speed scanner I saw recommended on here which has been a godsend in getting my office cleaned out.

My wife is currently employing something called the Swedish Death Cleanout(?). Basically you don't want to leave a bunch of crap behind for someone else to have to deal with. All sounds morbid at our relatively young age but damn it feels good to unload a bunch of crap you don't need.

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It's actually pretty incredible how much anxiety just lots of *stuff* can cause a lot of people at times.

I'm one of them now, apparently.

Kudos to you and your wife.

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Yep, and this was especially true with my wife. She mentally absorbs her surroundings and it has actually been a significant, positive mental health outcome for her and I've liked it as well.

The only reason any of this happened though is because we were at home for 2 years straight because of COVID. When you are sitting in your house 24/7, you realize how much b.s. you've accumulated over the years that you never use and just set it somewhere to get it out of the way.

We set a simple plan to tackle all of this. All you really have to do to get started is to just pick 1 room and agree on Saturday or Sunday that you are going to tackle that one room and just get rid of everything you don't need or use. There are 4 piles and for us it was generally in this order from most items to fewest items: charity, trash/bulk trash, sell, keep.

Anything we sold was a larger item (Ex: pieces of furniture we didn't need or didn't match rest of house) for which we use a local auction house. They come pick it up at your house and then they run an auction and keep a % of the proceeds. You never see it again until they send you your check.

anscag07 said:

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I am surprised this thread has turned into what it has. I am truly enjoying almost ever response. It seems my wife and I are like most on here. I don't have my own business, wife is a teacher.

Having a million dollars has just been a goal of mine for a while. Right now my wife and I have been focuses on paying off our house. I have read some where that having your house paid off is the "new status symbol".

Thanks again for the responses, please keep them coming.

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That's a mistake to pay off your mortgage in the last several years.

if you have a fixed rate mortgage loan at 2% then you could have been making a 7% return by investing in ETF and sector funds of the equity markets. so you were losing 5% each year.

TXAGFAN said:

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Don't be discouraged, there are a lot of crazy numbers being posted here which are easily Top 1% or general population in terms of income/wealth at that age.

I'm in my late 30's with a career that i think is recession/depression proof so I still think I can take on a lot of risk with my investments. If it was all gone tomorrow I'd just keep working. I carry less than 3% in cash/bonds in my portfolio (I keep about 6 months expenses in cash too incremental). Target funds will weight you towards bonds at a much higher rate (more conservative) than I'm comfortable with and I'm sure that's the norm for most here who are in millions in their mid-late 30's. If you look at fund profile can see this.

For example, based on my age Vanguard would recommend the Target 2045 fund. That fund would have me at 12% bonds currently which is much more than I hold and that proportion would increase significantly as I aged. Less risk, less rewards.

If you want to mitigate risk there's no rule that says you have to pick your retirement age, can always pick one further out. Like I could pick the 2065 target fund in my 401k.

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good info here.

the problem is that the bond market has seen in most cases a NEGATIVE return the last year. so if you are a retiree, you are getting poorer in your holdings and a double whammy with inflation.

basically, if your assets are not growing at the same pace of inflation (7%) then you are losing money, even if your account shows the same balance.

so you have to be more aggressive than the prior generation of just moving to bond funds at age 55.

AgDrone14 said:

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Created a sock. Some people know me from my regular username and I'd rather be a bit more under the radar.

Looking back looks like I joined the club in August, 2021.

My wife and I both work corporate jobs. We were both blessed with having our undergrad education paid for at A&M. After graduating I lived for free for 2+ years while working in a remote O&G location. I then went back to grad school. I received some scholarship money, but not enough to cover everything so I paid the remaining portion. After graduating I was planning to buy a house around late 2019. I moved back in with my parents while I started my search (again living for free for what turned out to be over a year). My girlfriend at the time thought we were trending towards marriage and convinced me to not buy a house as we would live in her fully paid off house once married (still wish I would've pulled the trigger on a house given how much everything has appreciated). Looking at the graph below you can see when I bought an engagement ring and when we got married. Our asset allocation hasn't always been optimal (her paying off her house in full early and me holding more cash since 2019 with my planned down payment), but it has helped each of us sleep well. The net worth is close but likely not perfectly represented, the zillow estimate of net proceeds is $x, the zestimate is ~1.1x, I carry the value on my spreadsheet at ~0.82x. We are planning to upgrade houses this year and start a family soon, the values will work themselves out once sold.

Being on the same page as my spouse has been an amazing blessing. Having us both enter the marriage with a strong financial foundation was great. We both don't want to take the time to budget or stuff like that, we both trust our spending habits. I simply update the sheet about once per month. I will be turning 30 this year. I think we've each made some sacrifices early on (like working a not so great job in the middle of nowhere - but these sacrifices helped set us up for more success) and were also blessed by our families (allowing me to stay for free for a year with them, paying for undergrad educations).

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Smart adjusting downwards. I don't trust zillow anymore after their public fiasco with their valuation analysis. I started using realtor.com. The difference in market value between the two is $202K which is dumb.

I go with the lower number from realtor.com to be conservative.

I do something similar to this in charting net worth but I do it yearly as it would probably give me too much anxiety to do monthly. Great progress for your 30s!

When tracking I normally don't account for the appreciation in real estate. I keep it as the cost basis at which I bought it at. Easy to add it both ways to track but just my philosophy on it.

Daytona22 said:

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I do something similar to this in charting net worth but I do it yearly as it would probably give me too much anxiety to do monthly. Great progress for your 30s!

When tracking I normally don't account for the appreciation in real estate. I keep it as the cost basis at which I bought it at. Easy to add it both ways to track but just my philosophy on it.

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This view is one of the few native charts I consistently look at in Quicken. You can adjust the time frame on it. It's kind of extraordinary to see the jumps in assets at certain times of the market.

Realtor.com shows my home to be about $5k higher than Zillow. It may vary by market location.

XXXVII said:

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Realtor.com shows my home to be about $5k higher than Zillow. It may vary by market location.

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Guess so.

YouBet said:

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Smart adjusting downwards. I don't trust zillow anymore after their public fiasco with their valuation analysis. I started using realtor.com. The difference in market value between the two is $202K which is dumb.

I go with the lower number from realtor.com to be conservative.

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Makes sense, I don't put a whole lot of thought into the number as of right now.

Checking out more sources, looks like Redfin is $9.5K less, Realtor is $34K less. Even at Realtor's value still reflecting a decent amount under that in my NW calculation, though it moves things a bit closer together.

Another thing I've really been doing a lot of reading on lately is Overemployment. I think I could pull it off fairly easily, but hopefully with a kid coming in the next year or two, might not be worth it for the short period of time and potential risk.

From the $5M thread, I thought this would be appropriate to post here for context since it's highly relevant to this thread:

Net worth by age (Net Worth Includes Net Housing Values aka Home Equity)*

Age group | Median net worth | Average net worth

Under 35 years old | $14,000 | $76,340

35-44 years old | $91,110 | $437,770

45-54 years old | $168,800 | $833,790

55-64 years old | $213,150 | $1,176,520

65-74 | $266,070 | $1,215,920

75 years or older | $254,900 | $958,450

*Source: Federal Reserve 2020

edit: corrected to source from 2020 and not 2021

YouBet said:

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From the $5M thread, I thought this would be appropriate to post here for context since it's highly relevant to this thread:

Net worth by age (Net Worth Includes Home Values)*

Age group | Median net worth | Average net worth

Under 35 years old | $14,000 | $76,340

35-44 years old | $91,110 | $437,770

45-54 years old | $168,800 | $833,790

55-64 years old | $213,150 | $1,176,520

65-74 | $266,070 | $1,215,920

75 years or older | $254,900 | $958,450

*Source: Federal Reserve 2021

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Average net worth is a worthless metric.


A histogram would be shocking to look at. As a landlord i am often confused on how a 50 year old couple with two jobs in the 100-120k gross income can have zero dollars to pay for a deposit.

YouBet said:

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From the $5M thread, I thought this would be appropriate to post here for context since it's highly relevant to this thread:

Net worth by age (Net Worth Includes Home Values)*

Age group | Median net worth | Average net worth

Under 35 years old | $14,000 | $76,340

35-44 years old | $91,110 | $437,770

45-54 years old | $168,800 | $833,790

55-64 years old | $213,150 | $1,176,520

65-74 | $266,070 | $1,215,920

75 years or older | $254,900 | $958,450

*Source: Federal Reserve 2021

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Married households I hope or if individual amounts uh oh.

evestor1 said:

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YouBet said:

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From the $5M thread, I thought this would be appropriate to post here for context since it's highly relevant to this thread:

Net worth by age (Net Worth Includes Home Values)*

Age group | Median net worth | Average net worth

Under 35 years old | $14,000 | $76,340

35-44 years old | $91,110 | $437,770

45-54 years old | $168,800 | $833,790

55-64 years old | $213,150 | $1,176,520

65-74 | $266,070 | $1,215,920

75 years or older | $254,900 | $958,450

*Source: Federal Reserve 2021

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Average net worth is a worthless metric.


A histogram would be shocking to look at. As a landlord i am often confused on how a 50 year old couple with two jobs in the 100-120k gross income can have zero dollars to pay for a deposit.

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Yes, and I would ignore that. The median number is far more representative of reality here.

AgOutsideAustin said:

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YouBet said:

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From the $5M thread, I thought this would be appropriate to post here for context since it's highly relevant to this thread:

Net worth by age (Net Worth Includes Home Values)*

Age group | Median net worth | Average net worth

Under 35 years old | $14,000 | $76,340

35-44 years old | $91,110 | $437,770

45-54 years old | $168,800 | $833,790

55-64 years old | $213,150 | $1,176,520

65-74 | $266,070 | $1,215,920

75 years or older | $254,900 | $958,450

*Source: Federal Reserve 2021

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Married households I hope or if individual amounts uh oh.

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These are household figures. I'm confused by your statement. If these were individual that would be a better outcome.

Maybe I have dyslexia kicking in...

YouBet said:

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AgOutsideAustin said:

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YouBet said:

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From the $5M thread, I thought this would be appropriate to post here for context since it's highly relevant to this thread:

Net worth by age (Net Worth Includes Home Values)*

Age group | Median net worth | Average net worth

Under 35 years old | $14,000 | $76,340

35-44 years old | $91,110 | $437,770

45-54 years old | $168,800 | $833,790

55-64 years old | $213,150 | $1,176,520

65-74 | $266,070 | $1,215,920

75 years or older | $254,900 | $958,450

*Source: Federal Reserve 2021

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Married households I hope or if individual amounts uh oh.

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These are household figures. I'm confused by your statement. If these were individual that would be a better outcome.

Maybe I have dyslexia kicking in...

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I had the same thought, YouBet.

I was told there would be no math… oops