I've always been interested in investing since I was a kid. I think it was the scene in Back to the Future where Marty tells his uncle (or dad?) to buy yahoo stock.
Anyways, I'm getting close to my financial goals, and I just wanted to lay out the path I took since college.
Currently a month shy of 32 years old.
I've maxed out my Roth IRA since 21. Fortunate enough to not have any student loans holding me back. Going to university in Canada was a big help-- 8K was my tuition at a top school. Would've been 40K a year at an equivalent school in the US.
Bummed around for a few years post college. Tried to make it in a couple different parts of he country. Had one decent paying seasonal job that brought in 20K in a few months around the age of 23. That was the first bit of money I used to opened a non retirement investment account (NRIA). I'm guessing I took about 1/2 of that money and started playing with stocks.
Found myself underemployed again. Moved to Seattle and started looking for work. Spent a year doing manual labor and had about a net loss of 2K over a 12 month period before I found my currently job.
At this point, 25 years old, ~25K in my Roth IRA, and ~10-15K invested in a non retirement account.
My life style didn't change when I started the "real" job, I believe my Salary was about 65K when I started. 40K of that was distributed to my Roth, 401K (20%), and NRIA.
As my salary went up, my lifestyle never changed. I always cooked for myself, avoided big nights out wasting money at bars. My work involves a lot of travel so I always could add on a few extra days and make mini vacations on the cheap. I make big purchases from time to time (skis, kiteboarding gear, small boat, etc). I am living a very full life, despite she constant agony of working for a big corporation.
Currently making around 95K a year and about 65K of that gets invested one way or another. I decreased my contributions to my 401K to about 8%. My portfolio just recently broke through 500K.
For a couple years I played around with high risk investments, I came out slightly ahead, but the stress and time it took wasn't worth it. I'm now perfectly happy putting lump sums in mutual funds and forgetting about it. I'll still buy some individual blue chips stocks with high dividend yields.
I'm aiming for financial independence by 37-39. For me, this would involve having a 1.2-1.5m portfolio generating 100K of passive income. I'd feel comfortable leaving my job at that point and using income property as my main source of income. Over the next 7-8 years I'll be focusing on buying a few properties and establishing them as rentals. I'll be closing on my first one by the end of the month. Once I get the attached MIL rented out My mortgage will be covered.
Just wanted to share. This seems like a good place for it. Questions, comments, and advice are welcome. I don't really talk about it with anyone in my life except my parents, so a little outside perspective would be nice. Most of my friends think I'm poor and cheap and that's how I'd like it to stay :)
Submitted November 11, 2017 at 11:15AM by mgeeeeinak http://ift.tt/2meTauO
