September 16th, 2022 at 06:04 pm
I took a peek at Personal Capit and since the first of the year, net worth despite automatic 401k deductions, matching and additional investing every month, lost about $39k. If I look at the investments, I've lost so much more. So I'm just going to ignore it. I'm still sorta young and I'm going to do my best to keep ignoring it. I think just like the housing market over time, it's just a matter of when you take the money out. The value doesn't matter until I take it out. I'm 9 years away from even minimally taking out social security and I know things can change so much. I think 10 years ago I bought a 2 bedroom 800 sqft townhouse for $30k and put in about $5k of work into it, sold it 6 years later for nearly $120k.
The other thing that I keep in mind is that I know that I'm so much better off than so many folks I know. Unless things completely colapse, I think we'll be okay. We have no debt.
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March 26th, 2021 at 08:53 pm
Glad to work with the tax guy virtually. Taxes are filed and the state refund is already in the bank. I'm glad to have this done even though there's an extension. I also opened up an additional retirement account at work because one time in my life I took it as a challenge to see how much money I could siphon off my paycheck without noticing and live on less. As a single parent living as lean as possible so I could take care of myself in retirement was a smart thing. It seems so weird to be closer to retirement than working too long. I always thought I'd have to work until I was 65 but that's not the case, thankfully. The time went so fast and now I want to look at the things I might have missed out on. I want to live my life a little slower now.
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January 11th, 2021 at 09:15 pm
Well, we all thought the new year would be better....but it's not. So hard that I feel like I keep wishing away my days. Not too long and it will be March which is when the pandemic started and we all that that was bad.
I looked at Mint and now definitely over the 1 million mark with all assets counted. That feels weird to me and to think I've got 10 years left. I went to go look and see what I've put in my 401k per year to see a ball park of what I can expect to have it increase. I know that our returns can't be expected to stay the same. My annual rate of return for it was over 20%!!! I believe I put over $16k in every year and even if I wanted to, I couldn't change that, it's mandatory at my job. With luck I'll be like Patient Saver and have at least 1 million investments before I retire. Of course over that time, so many things could change but I know that I'm sitting better than so many others.
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April 16th, 2020 at 10:22 pm
We got it and like many of you, we put it in savings. We don't have any mortgage or outstanding loans and I'm working so it's just extra emergency funds. If we really do go into a big recession that lasts a long time and/or if I loose my job. We might need it. So for now, I put it in our online savings account where it gets the biggest return on interest. Long term I think we'll be fine but these are such strange days.
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June 4th, 2018 at 10:12 pm
We sold the townhouse, after closing costs we received a check for over 108k which is pretty good since I bought it for 35k in 2012. I used a chunk to pay off the mortgage on the house we're now living in and will use some to buy my sisters out of the family cabin(they both want to sell). I've got it currently in Ally bank because that online savings account has the best interest annual interest rate at 1.6%. Anyone know any better rate to keep it liquid in? The rest will be used to do some things around the house. I feel pretty good about it. I'm now completely debt free at age 48.
Our family is a single income family right now and our plan is to begin the process for foster care licensing.
While I don't care to live where I do because it's so conservative and rural, the house is paid for and if we lived closer to the metro area, we'd have a higher housing expense. We will plan to live in our current location for at least two years to avoid capital gains. It's been hard to return to where I lived because of the isolation I feel. We just returned from a nice two week road trip to see some of the National Parks. Roosevelt, Estes Park, Arches, Canyonlands and hiked Bear Butte. It has me dreaming about purchasing some kind of campervan or simply a van for future road trips. We spent more on hotels than I'd like because camping wasn't has comfortable as it has been when we were younger.
I've also been dreaming of living abroad for a few years....but I'm not sure what country I would want to live in that is affordable. I guess I feel like I'm trying to position myself for future.
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February 5th, 2018 at 08:38 pm
I don't pay too much attention to the stock market because I'm young enough that I can still be a bit aggressive in my investments. I figure that anything too terrible will correct itself eventually. I also figure since my most active retirement account is my 401k through work, it's just buying more shares when the market is crappy. The current ride of great returns has been nice but it seems that is changing.
I wonder if this is a big long term change or if it is only a temporary blip.
My wife recently retired and rolling over her retirement account. We're also going to get her going with a ROTH.
I must confess, I'm hoping eventually we'll have better saving interest rates.
How are you taking today's stock market news?
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