Brian Earl Spilner said:
I'm in software/IT, have been working for 11 years, and am barely on track to hit $500k this year.
But when I consider where I was when I started (making $23.50/hour, with over $40k in student debt), I'm pretty happy with the progress I've made.
Paid my loans down aggressively until I managed to wipe them out in 2019, then paid $10k cash to buy out my leased car in early 2020 to kill all debt.
After that I was able to max out 401k, Roth, HSA, and throw in some mega backdoor Roth contributions. (Didn't even open my 401k until 2019 since I was only ever a contractor before that. Biggest mistake I've made in my financial journey.)
The vast majority of my net worth has come in the last couple years, and I feel like I'm finally seeing that early work start to pay off. I'm definitely behind where I'd like to be for my age (35), but trying to make up for it with the mega backdoor contributions.
wife and I were similar. Wife paid her way though most of her undergrad and all of her grad school.. we didn't have that paid off until she finished at age 30in 2010. I was a fortunate one to have A&M paid for (except for the last handful of classes)
I started tracking our net worth at that age.. we were an impressive $50k! I had a 401k for just a few years at that point. Then wife had one ffrom like 2012-2014.
Then we cashed out her TRS about age 35 after moving to CO. With her TRS and rollover and my rollover I put it all in stocks and mutual funds, and since then ~10 years ago, that's when all the growth really happened.
Little by little, it doubled, doubles again, doubles again and again... Investments alone today are hovering $1m.
Then we got lucky and bought a house in CO in 2012, paid mid $300k for it, it's $800+ today.