Please handle with care as it contains real, personal, sensitive, and confidential information.
I hope it generates some discussion and helps you on your journey towards retirement.
At this moment, I feel comfortable doing this. Hopefully that will not change. I think the educational benefit out ways the privacy invasion. If it results in one person thinking more about retirement or having a more serious discussion about it, I think it is worth it.
Over 32 years, my wife and I put in $300k, our employers put in $200K, the market contributes $800k, and we end up with $1.3M.
The fact that my share was 23% and someone or something put in the other 77% totally blows my mind. We were very fortunate to have employer support which a lot of people do not have.
It’s just one approach. My parents and my younger brother did it largely with real estate. To each there own.
This is great! Thanks for sharing. Did you start tracking this at age 29, or did you backtrack? I’d love to make a sheet like this for me but it will take some digging to back track.
Yes, I started all this in 1990 at age 29 but not in its present format. I kept track of certain things as I went along. I created various schedules and spreadsheets. I kept track of the month end and quarter end amounts of all my retirement account balances. I often changed my methodology as time went on. I had about 30 spreadsheets in various formats that I used as the source data to bring together that summary. Yes, that schedule is merely a summary. Those 30 spreadsheets contain tons of backup detail for all those numbers in the summary. About 98% of the data is solid and represents what actually happened. To fill in the other 2% I made reasonable assumptions based on other information I had. Those gains/loss numbers are the actual amounts from the statements. So, there is no backtracking. I would not have done this if I had to make up most of the numbers based on assumptions and guesses. Thus, this represents what actually happened, plus or minus 2%. I always wondered what those percentages were that I calculated in the spreadsheet. The fact that the market contributed 63% is amazing. If you create a sheet like mine using your data, I would be interested in the results if you are willing to share. Good luck. Blake
Thanks again for the reply. Wow, you’ve had a lot of organization! I’m 40 and I’ve done various notes over the years but if I start now with making a spreadsheet like this like you’ve done, it’ll be nice to watch it grow over time!
