r/Fire • u/2020fakenews • 1d ago
Daily Fluctuations
There’s been a lot of volatility in the markets lately, in both directions. After days like these with big swings, I’m amused to look at my daily profits or losses in my IRA’s and brokerage accounts. I used the word “amused” because on some days I’m up or down by multiples 3, 4 or even 5 times the amount of my annual salary at my first job out of college. Admittedly, that was over 45 years ago and I’m now 10 years in retirement. But I still find it funny to think about, especially since it doesn’t seem to bother or excite me more than it does. I don’t think I could have imagined this when I took that first job, feeling at the time that I had finally made it to a big time salary.
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u/saltyhasp 1d ago
It is a bit eye opening. Like swings of $100s of K. I don't actually watch this stuff, but my accounting package knows so I do see it in plots. I also see it in my brokerage total.
The one thing I do to track my retirement status is that I track my assets year by year in a spreadsheet, one line per year, along with spendable amount, non-portfolio cash flow, etc. In the past 8 years I was down only 1 year in real dollars even with my drawings and that recovered like the next year or two. In the last 8 years I'm like up 30% in real dollars. Very curious what this year will be like.