That’s right, I just updated my Net Worth page and I’ve crossed the $1,000,000 mark!
The first million is supposed to be the hardest. It took me nearly 30 years to have a net worth of $50,000, 35 years to reach $500,000 and at nearly 40 years of age this is where I’m at. I’m very fortunate to be here.
If you are new here, I urge you to check out my About page to learn a little more about me and how I got here.
I posted in November of 2013 about a net worth of $500,000 or half a million. That post can be found here. It took a little over 5 years to double my net worth.
What’s amazing is that 10 years ago, I had a net worth under $50,000. I’ve made huge strides in the last 10 years since I’ve been a dividend growth investor. Most all of my progress has been documented here on the blog.
While I do still care more about my passive income, it’s nice to take a look and see where you are at.
You’ll notice more than half of my net worth is from real estate equity. I hope to keep the balance of real estate equity to equities at a 50/50 split. I’m pretty close to this now.
I never plan to really retire, what I’m aiming for is FI, financial independence. My current goal is $6,000/month in passive income. At that point I believe I’ll declare FI. Until then I’ll keep grinding on. You can see a progress bar on the right side of the page and I’m just over the $3,000 mark. I hope to aggressively increase that over the next few years.
I appreciate anyone following me along on this journey. I never expected a single comment when I started this blog. It was to hold myself accountable for my financial decisions, good or bad.
I’m happy that I can motivate or help anyone along their path to FI! Feel free to reach out to through email. I’m happy to help any way I can.
Cheers and on to $2 million!
my net worth is 1,378,00. I am 78 years old. It took me 22 years to get my million (age 74)
My dividends are over 52,800.
I wish I had started much younger.
When my wife and I retired are income was a little over 66,000, It is now over 115,000
You are doing great
Hi Bill,
Congrats on being retired! You make a good point about time and starting early. Starting early and letting compounding work for many years makes it very achievable. It’s never too late though, most of us have higher incomes later in life so we can play some catch-up.
Thanks for stopping by!
Congrats, man! What a great accomplishment! Yes, it’s hard to reach the first million, but then things starts to compound and net worth starts to accelerate! Good job! I’ve been following your journey since 2015 I believe. Keep it up!
German recently posted…New Stock Purchase: Morguard REIT (MRT.UN.TO)
Hi German,
Thanks! It certainly feels good but I know it’s just that, a feel-good sort of metric. I don’t really plan on selling off real estate or my dividend growth companies, I’m more interested in passive income that they generate.
Thank you so much for being a loyal follower, I hope you stop by more often to comment.
What was the biggest driver of going from $500k –> $1m? Dividends? Real estate? Wage growth? From following along, you don’t talk “too” much about a 9-5 so I’m guessing real estate appreciation helped the most?
I ask about real estate because my wife and I are relatively high earners, but we’re also stuck in a high-cost area of the country where it seems you need mid six-figures in cash to play with real estate. Thoughts on how to get into rental properties if you’re feeling priced out?
Hi Noah,
That’s actually a great question and you’re right, I do leave out some personal details. I’ll try to be a little more transparent since I’m also writing more now.
I’ve worked full time up until January of this year. Mainly as a recruiter. I’ve also opened a restaurant and since sold it along with my business I had in Austin. I am receiving payments from the sell of my business and using this money to invest in stocks and real estate. I have had a little real estate appreciation but the bulk of growth has been the growth of my portfolio plus the addition of more rental properties since I’m always putting 25% down.
To get the best rate, you need to put down 25% for an investment property. So if houses in your area are 500,000, then you’ll need to put down 125,000. The houses in this area I’m buying are around 150,000 total so I’m bringing less than 40k to the table. The area I’m in has very slow or no appreciation but the properties cash flow well. I’m getting close to a 10% cash on cash return. I’m planning to write some real estate articles that explain my though process a little better. If you are in an area with higher appreciation, your rent may just barely cover your expenses. In that case you will rely on appreciation to make money. Over time you can slowly increase your rents as well.
You could also invest out of town but you may not feel comfortable doing that on your first one. I tend to like to be fairly close to my rentals. However, I’m 5 hours from one of my properties and it has the best tenant, best appreciation and has been the best rental that I own. I’ve had no issues that I can’t get someone else to take care of.
There’s also REIT’s if you want to be hands-off and not deal with tenant issues. I don’t mind being hands on and can make a few extra percentage points on my money this way.
Thanks for stopping by!
Wow! 50K to 500K to 1M in 10 years. That is so awesome man. Hoping to replicate that as we just started last year with 1K; today its at 15.5K usd (using 1 usd = 51 php). Long waaaaaaay to go.
Regards,
Lex
Lex recently posted…Tender Juicy
Long overdue comment. That’s great, I’d love to hear how you’re doing now! I wish you the best!
AAI