like I see on my feed /fire that they are in their late 20s/30s with over 1 mil saved up. like what? how? they clearly working a job that pays a lot while the whole world is struggling barely making ends meet. inflation go on, market gone down, jobs are tightening up. even places like hcol cities are scrambling everyday to work that 9-5 so they dont get laid off.

but these folks are ready to retire in late 30s with a big cushion and I'll love to be there but looks ike im working till old age

Im currently working a job with great benefits but the pay, not so good. It’s easy work with weekends off and a great off time for me to take some classes online and gain a new skill/ get a degree.. but I actually want something that’s a great career in high demand. I’m 35 w/ a daughter entering high school next year and I want better for both of us, or at the very least for her. Any suggestions or career field that’s worth exploring?

Scrolled some and it seems to me that everyone has there shit together..? Is any one here a regular person who started at zero? Worked a regular job and find there way as u went or is everyone magically have over 10k savings and brag that they feel it’s not enough for the age..interesting how right now 3k could change my life yet everyone here has that as pocket change??

After all necessary expenses are taken care of, not counting wants i have 1k left over each month to do whatever i want with, what would be the smart thing to do with it?

I’m going to make this as short as possible because i don’t want to write an essay.

I have 23k in debt, 325k on a mortgage. My house needs work, my truck will need an engine soon, and I have a child on the way.

My debt is structured like this:
Personal loan for myself: 12k, 9.75%, monthly payment at 412. I’m paid ahead till January.

My wife has 11k left on her car loan. It’s 7.74% with a 347 monthly payment, and she’s paid ahead till January.

I have misc. other debt, like approx. 600 at 0% at Best Buy, paying 60 a month to pay it off before the 0% ends. I have one affirm that is almost paid off, 371 left at 29.99% at 110 a month. I have 2 phones I’m paying 33 a month on each on, 550 left on those. I’m paying 155 a month towards medical debt and I have 3 more payments left.

The mortgage is 2477 a month. 455 of that is escrow. My other bills are water, electric, car insurance, food, and a bunch of other small things.

My wife and I make about 110k a year combined. We’re not struggling, but I don’t know what to save, what to pay off first, or really how to get this debt down to take out another loan to fix the house and the truck. I also should mention I contribute 5% to my 401k and it’s matched. I put in after tax. My wife has 3.5k in savings, I have 1.2k. Just regular savings

Now, I receive a bonus of 2850 every quarter if I do enough labor hours. I’m due to receive this bonus at the end of this month, and I expect it to be about 2k after taxes, and it comes in a separate paycheck. I expect to hit the bonus again and get paid out in January for the same amount.

I have a side business that is slowly starting to bring in more money, but it’s taking up more of my time. It’s doing automotive and truck work on the side, and after starting in March, I’ve taken home 800 in total so far. The rest is either put into tax savings or goes to expenses. I’m also due for a raise that I’m praying comes through, and it would bump my pay up about 5 an hour.

The truck and the house can wait. I bought my truck for cheap and fixed it up because I needed a diesel for the amount of towing I do and the total weight. It has a bad head gasket but it’s not bad enough to warrant fixing anything until it gets worse, which won’t be for a while. The house just has wood rot at the chimney and the rear door, and the damage is contained and will only ruin what’s already ruined.

So, this begs the question… what should we do with a child on the way? Should we save? Pay down the highest interest loan first? Use my bonus to pay off debt? Or use it to fix other small things? Buy things for the child? I personally don’t see the point in paying off my debt early right now with the fact that in about 7 months I’m going to be a dad for the first time ever. Debt is always going to be here, but I figure I’d at least ask and see what the best course of action is.

I have about 10k. A lot of people are applauding me for it but I can’t help but think it’s not a lot of money at all. Maybe I have high standards but I can’t help but think I should have 20-30k bare minimum by now

Hello everyone,

I’m really bad with saving money and still live with my parents, I tend to take money from my savings when I’m running low on money.

I was wondering if instead I put the €1500 in ETFs each month instead in my savings account would be smart? Then I can’t just take money as easy as I would with my savings account.

I was thinking putting it in iShares core MSCI.

I’m full time college and get paid minimum wage at a part time job. it is HARD to save but i’ve saved about 1.8k since may. i feel like im really behind my friends because i can’t just go out and buy whatever and i need to have time to budget it in beforehand.
i know they’re all just blowing through their child trust funds (im saving mine for rent in uni) and im grateful i dont have access to it yet (gave parents info and couldn’t get to it if i wanted it) but for right now i just feel incredibly behind.
should i get another job/stop being so hard on myself? idk

​

Which state do you live in, what industry do you work in, and how many years of experience do you have?

How much do you spend, and how stressful is your job?

Mods feel free to remove this if you deem this not relevant. I just spend a lot of time on this and similar subs so I feel like y'all are my people.

Not really sure why I'm posting here. Maybe because it feels cripplingly lonely at the moment and this feels in some way a way to talk to people? Maybe it's because I want someone to tell me it will be alright.

It all feels super fresh and raw at the moment. I haven't told my close friends / family yet because they all loved her and I feel like a failure for not being able to "keep" her. Maybe I'm just shouting into the void here hoping it responds back to me?

Breakdown:
Individual brokerage (VOO): 1.01M
Employer RSU: 716k (I know I need to diversify)
401k: 310k
IRA: 53k
Cash (HYSA/checking): 23k
HSA: 13k

Also, using a throwaway acc since some people that I know IRL know my main username

We are 41 married 3 kids, net worth about $1.9 mill. Within that is 2 paid off homes, $550k invested vtsax (brokerage, roth, hsa), pay into ss, will both have pensions totalling about $110k combined in 14 years, and our 2nd home is a rental property earning about $21k yearly. By 60-61 our $550k should become about $3 million, which if added all up, should be like $280-310k yearly.

We currently spend about $4.5-5k per month and honestly, I have a severe scarcity mindset that has probably happened over years of being frugal. We take home about $9,980 between the rental, our 2 jobs, and deductions like health insurance, pension, and ss. So we are living off about 50% of what we earn, and saving or investing the rest. Since we spend about $5k with 3 kids this leads me to believe we wont spend a ton more when theyre gone, minus some travel.

Anyway for example regarding the scarcity mindset, when we vacation, we either make our own food or eat like beef jerky or canned tuna to save money and get the kids some food out. We never eat at nice restaurants and frequent costco to eat pizza or sushi there even when on vacation. I mean, its fine w me, but I guess I have a hard time knowing what the ramifications will be if we ever chose to start eating at restaurants or doing more things. I get so afraid we will somehow spend more than we make and back track.

How do you get past this when all signs point to youre fine?

My friend just received a settlement check of $250,000 due to a personal injury suit. He owes 125K approximately on his condo with no other debts. He is considering paying off the condo going debt free and investing the balance. Anything he should consider before moving forward?

Just started grad school. Started investing in Dec 2024 and try very hard to save a good chunk of my student worker check/stipend. I can't get a higher paying job right now but any side hustle ideas are welcome, lol!

Edit: you guys have made me laugh a lot. I'll update again when I reach 1b 👍

With the recent bull run in the market, I crossed the 2M mark! The screenshot is from one of my accounts. My holdings include mostly VOO + SPY and some bitcoin. Started from zero 7 years back and have been DCA'ing into the market since then. High earnings (~250k) helped. A lot of it is luck considering the recent market performance. Feeling grateful to reach this mark!

EDIT : To those who are saying the math is not mathing, or it's impossible, feel free to run the prompt below :)

Prompt to claude : "I invested 150k per year for last 7 years, into VOO + QQQ, dollar cost averaged. Find my portfolio value right now"

Answer : "Your portfolio is worth roughly $2.0 million, on about $1.05 million invested. This is an estimate: I don’t know your exact purchase dates or your VOO/QQQ split, so I made some assumptions."

To my other young fellas getting after it: what did you do to make so much so fast.

I was worked 3 different low paying jobs (tubing park, busboy, landscaper,) from 14 to 17 then did 4 years in the marine corps till 21. Now I've been at a semi conductor place for the last 2 1/4 years (just turned 24.)

How did you get to where you're at?

Not the usual dropshipping, crypto, or YouTube stuff.

Something you started alongside your main job, online or offline, that actually made you extra money.

What was it, and how much did you realistically make?

Household income has dramatically increased the past couple years, going from $250k 4 years ago to $850k today (with some margin for RSU fluctuation). I got into tech and switched jobs at the right time, which is more of a luck factor than anything else. Unfortunately I’ve been picking up some one-off lifestyle inflation, but we are investing ~50% of our gross between maxing our retirement accounts and our taxable brokerage, of which most of our investments are in broad market ETFs. The goal is to hit $10M in a decade or so with a paid off house and just coast from there.

I am looking for an online radio (or permanent live stream on youtube) to listen at the office while working, something that is specialized in money, investing, economy, personal finance, stock market and similar topics.

Any suggestions?

Thank you

Seems like every time I open up Reddit there are people my age and younger with over 100K and it makes me feel like I should be doing better. Should I go into more aggressive investments than all S&P500? All my debt is 0% student loans.

My company is starting a 401K plan, and I'm 59 years old. I get the whole "no tax up front, taxed when you withdraw" concept but here's the question - do I max out and ride it for 6-8 years or do I just pay my insanely high income tax like I've been doing for years? (no dependas/no debt/no real deductions to speak of)

I can do trad 401k or Roth, or both. Employer will match some, but not all I put in.

I really have no idea about these things, so I'm hoping you money enthusiasts and smarter than me types can help a brotha out :)

I won’t say “finally” - because it’s annoying when every 20 something year old on this sub does it lol 

My wife and I had a goal to hit $500k in Fidelity before my 30th birthday, and today was the day. It’s really exciting because if you look at the annual historic rates of the S&P 500 , which is all this is invested in, then without any further contributions, based on past performance, we should hit eight figures by 62. 

Obviously that’s not guaranteed, and past performance doesn’t dictate future results, but regardless, it’s still really exciting. 

(Mind you - that $10 million would be worth about $4 to $5 million in today’s dollars once inflation’s factored in over that time)

We’ve both worked our asses off. We have two full-time jobs, plus a side hustle doing babysitting, dog sitting, and house sitting. We share one car, save about 80% of our income each month, rent relatively cheap one bed and only invest in safe stuff with long, boring track record.

If you knew us, you would probably think we are poor looking at lifestyle 😂 and that’s how we like it! 

Anyways, LESGO! 

(Don’t have anyone else I can tell, so thanks in advance!!)

TLDR; I worked for a company and have a healthy amount of RSUs that I have not exercised yet.

I’m fully vested and the strike price for them is reasonable. The company was recently bought out by a company that is public. I have a few months to make a decision and really not sure what to do, or who to ask.

Any ideas?

hi all, i’m currently 26 and i make ~110k in a VHCOL city in California.

currently I am maxing out my ROTH IRA, contributing 10% in my 401k with 6% match at 100%, and investing 300$ weekly into my individual brokerage (180$ VOO and 120$ QQQM)

my question is should I stop investing into my individual brokerage right now and max out my pre tax 401k first or should I continue the 300$ weekly investments and up my 401k contribution to 15%?

My current brokerage account has:
$16.3k in individual brokerage
$37.5k in my ROTH IRA
$86.9k in my PRE-TAX 401k
As well I have $136,000 sitting in a HYSA potentially for a house downpayment in the future.

With the cash I was also wondering if I should add more money into individual brokerage and not let it sit?

My current spendings are $1,300 for rent (living with roommates), $1,200 monthly individual brokerage investments, and $500-600 for groceries and eating out.

Would love to get to know your thoughts on my idea.

Needed to vent into the abyss so I wanted to say I feel very happy, proud , and sense of relief for saving up $120,000. The awesome feeling of having that amount liquid just brings me peace. I know it’s probably not much to some but it’s my first time getting there. Kinda late being 37 years old but I’ll comfort myself with saying the phrase , ‘better late than never’. Thanks for listening. Now my new goal is $225,00. The crazy thing now is $225 doesn’t seem far at all which is why I think i feel like ‘I made it’ .