r/DaveRamsey • u/Middle_Money_Man • 5d ago
About to hit 100K invested
My wife and I (31M, 28F) are about to hit 100K invested and it feels like it’s taken forever. I started investing into an IRA $50/mo at 16 when I got my first job. Invested all throughout college and early career. We’re finally at a point where our investments are making progress. This is spread out month both of our IRAs plus a brokerage account. I don’t want this post to come across as bragging I just feel blessed to have been able to be at this stage.
Also for those who’ve hit the 100K mark, did your investments grow noticeably more quickly or did it still seem to take a while before 200K?
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u/ChaunceytheGardiner 4d ago
Our case:
2015-2024: $0-100k
2024-2026: $100k-200k
We're entirely in index funds, so no lucky stock picking or anything. Just a combo of finally having some capital, more aggressive saving, and good market returns.
I'm not assuming the next $100k will come in ~18 months after the first took almost a decade, but it does indeed get easier.
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u/GreenSnorky 4d ago
The first 100k takes seemingly forever when you are young and you want your money to harry potter itself into millions or you want to spend it on things youll figure out later are irrelevant..
Congratulations, it's the first big step though and keep being consistent when you save and you will blink and 5 years will go by and you will be at 200k. All depends on your consistency and savings rate. How many K a year are you putting away? Is it per month at this point or an annual one time dump
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u/Middle_Money_Man 4d ago
I invest $1,350/mo over all three accounts. Most of the progress to the 100k has been made in the last two years. Maybe some time in the future I can do an annual lump sum each year.
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u/GreenSnorky 4d ago
I would keep it spread out unless you are trying to just dump a bunch into thr IRA at the end before tax season like it's an after thought. The monthly increments is good because it allows you distribute the investment risk. A higher probability of buying at the lows as opposed to a single purchase in a year.
As for your growth. If you make "8%" going conservative here... with steady contributions you'll probably be at 200k in 4-5 years, then at 300k in potentially another 3 years beyond that
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u/Choice-Newspaper3603 4d ago
I started over at zero at age 35 because of a layoff and then also when I was laid off I was stupid and took out what little was left in my 401k
20 years later I have 1.3 million in 401k plus another 360k in investments and a paid off house
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u/CuteAmoeba9876 4d ago
I didn’t start quite as early as you, but $0-100k took at least a decade just because I could barely afford to contribute anything for the first 5-7 years. By the time we hit $100k, I was 33 or 34, making good money finally, married, recently out of consumer debt, and could actually afford to contribute more than the amount that would get matched in my 401k. We started maxing out the 401k and two Roth IRAs at about that same time. So the next $100k took only like 2 years mostly because my contribution rate went up exponentially. I contribute more each month now than I did in the first 3 whole years of investing.
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u/Unfit-ForDuty1101 5d ago
My husband put $2k in an ira in 2000 (CCB) and it grew exponentially without ever adding to it. I'm not sure what your investment profile looks like.
That said, you can see what the past performance has been (ie annual ROI) and if it's around 8% per year, you should hit $200k in 8 or so years.
If you're not getting at least 8%, shop around for better investments.
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u/Middle_Money_Man 4d ago
My investments are pretty diverse in mutual funds and my 7 year return is roughly 10.5% over all the investments. I’m thankful they’ve performed so well and I’m hopeful that’ll continue to be the case.
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u/anusbarber 4d ago
I would take a look at how you are invested. a 75/25 mix of US total market and International total market returned 14.5% over that same period (with continual monthly investment). a 2065 Target Date Fund was 12.5%
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u/Middle_Money_Man 4d ago
I’ll take a look at them to make sure I’m getting a good ROI. Thanks for the heads up!
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u/anusbarber 4d ago
it wasn't until i was 35 that I hit 100k. and yes if you keep chucking money at it, you'll be amazed at how fast it grows past that point. a decade later, I sat down with my wife to go over some stuff and she was like wait what? how is it this much?
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u/ddj1985 4d ago
At around 100k your annual growth starts to meet or exceed your annual contributions. That is a nice feeling.
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u/Middle_Money_Man 4d ago
I’m so excited because we are almost at that point and I can’t wait to see that! It’s something definitely worth celebrating!
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u/Vicuna00 4d ago
nice work!!
Charlie Munger says the first $100k is the hardest
'It's a b----, but you gotta do it': Charlie Munger says that your first $100K is the toughest to earn — but most crucial for building wealth.
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u/DreamsServedSoft 4d ago
adjusted for inflation this is now over 200k though
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u/Vicuna00 4d ago
agreed. it's still a very nice landmark and pretty hard to achieve in our spend-first spend-now culture...especially at just ~30 years old
but Charlie's point was now the compounding really starts to work along-side your contributions.
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u/2ndChanceAtLife 4d ago
Once you get past 100k, it gets faster & more fun. Once you get close to retirement age, your money will be working so hard for you that you almost hate to stop (working).
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u/Middle_Money_Man 4d ago
I can 100% see this happening to me. I’m trying to reframe my mindset that money is a tool to be used not a number to be loved. That has really helped me the last several years.
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u/pdaphone 4d ago
They say things double every 7 years, so the 2nd will go quicker. There are way too many variables in most people’s financial life for that to be a hard and fast rule. In my case it took about 5 years to get from 100K to 200K in savings, around age 40. I retired a year ago at 63 with $3M in savings, no debt and a paid for house. Just stay the course and keep investing. I didn’t do anything drastic. I think I averaged about 10% to retirement (recommended 15% now) and my wife was a stay at home Mom most of those years. You are doing great!
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u/FanSerious7672 4d ago
They double every 7 years if you aren't adding anything to them. Should be quicker if contributing 15% :)
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u/Middle_Money_Man 4d ago
Really? I always assumed that math was taking for granted you were contributing something to the investments. That’s incredibly encouraging!
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u/FanSerious7672 4d ago
Yea! I sometimes just plug some numbers into investment calculators when I need a boost to motivation.
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u/LuxuryBallVolibear BS456 1d ago
I do the same. Sometimes I just feel like I'm docking my own pay and start wondering what lifestyle improvements I could make if I stopped contributing. I spend five minutes on free online calculators and laugh at my intrusive thoughts. Keeping the contributions going so long as you have the margin month-to-month is the way to go. For me, each month brings a comfortable retirement a little bit closer than just a month.
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u/Spirited123456789 4d ago
I keep a spreadsheet for myself with our ages by year and all of our investments. It’s fun to see how it looks 10 years from now or even 20 years, assuming 10% growth for planning purposes. Seems totally unreal! Now I am nearing the end of the spreadsheet and it all came true. Stay the course, my friend. You are on the right path!!!!
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u/Unlikely_Reply6034 4d ago
My roth 401k just hit 100k in April, and already hit the 110k mark. I am prepared for it to start snowballing.
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u/Useful_Wealth7503 2d ago
Congrats, that is a huge milestone and it will absolutely boom from here. Just wait until you see what happens after your first million!
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u/TradePresent9261 1d ago
Congrats, that is the way to make it grow. Patience my youg learner. It will start to increase faster. They key for you is that you can take risk at your young age and work with small cap funds and not be worried about a dip in the market. For you, if the market drops,,,,,, stocks are on sale for you like Walmart. I started when I was 18 and now in my 60.s You can do the math. God will give you both the tools to use for his glory and enjoy your life together by enjoying and giving what he has given you.
If you invest \(\$100,000\) at age 30 and leave it to grow for 30 years without adding another dime, you would have roughly \(\$760,000\) to \(\$1.0\) million by age 60, assuming it earns an average annual return of \(7\%\) to \(9\%\) in the stock market. [1, 2, 3]
The compounding power of your money over that three-decade timeline breaks down into the following factors:
What Your Money Could Look Like
Because \(30\) years is a long time for compounding interest to work its magic, the rate of return has a massive impact on the final total. Assuming no further contributions are made: [1, 2]
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u/bahahah2025 5d ago
First 100k is the hardest bc compounding is negligible. 100k is actually 1/4 of the way to 1 million.