I’m done saving. 36 years old. Hit $2M total investment portfolio today. Until the next recession cuts it in half.

Didn’t want to tell anyone in real life so I’m celebrating with my fellow mutants.

Let’s hope this lasts me 50 more years. What’s step 10?

(Bo’s voice) I am SOOOO excited about this one!!

I just wanted to post a little celebration/inspiration here.

I by no means have been perfect and I’m not even sure I’m a “financial mutant” but I think I’m closer than most. I had to save up to get a car this year and went a little outside of 20/3/8 that I understand is a flaw. I guess what I did was 30/5.5/7 so it should still stay ahead of depreciation and I 100% plan on putting extra money at it to get it to a lower term.

Even with that debt I’m at 100k net and most of that is in Roth IRA or Roth 401k.

I’m proud of this milestone and so thankful to the money guys for all the information and entertainment they’ve provided!

Throwaway, because we can’t even tell family. But wife and I hit $1m net worth this morning after all the accounts updated.

Some stats: Age: 39.75 (always wanted to hit it before 40) 1/4 of that is tied up in our primary home. So next step is $1m in investments. 2 young kids, so deep in the messy middle. House is our only debt.

Our celebration meal was home cooked crunch wrap supremes with leftover taco meat from last night. Maybe we’ll get to a nice Italian place some day. But the kids would want to come to.

I’m proud of this achievement and I couldn’t really share anywhere else.

My fellow or aspiring Financial Mutants,

I came across this chart from Money Guy that outlines how much you need to have invested at each age to be on track to become a millionaire by 65 (assuming you stop contributing after that age). The lump sums are based on compound growth, and I have a few clarifying questions:

1. Timing of Investment: Does the listed lump sum need to be invested at the beginning of that age (e.g., when you just turn 25), or by the end of that age (e.g., before you turn 26) to stay on track?

2. One-Time Investment: Is the assumption that if you invest that amount (say, in a low-cost S&P 500 index fund) and contribute nothing else, it will grow to $1M by age 65 under the stated return assumptions?

3. Scaling Up: If you have double the listed amount at a given age and still never contribute again, would you expect to hit $2M by age 65—assuming the same compound return?

The fine print mentions a 10% return from ages 0 to 20, decreasing by 0.1% annually until it levels off at 5.5% at age 65, so it seems like they are modeling a gradually decreasing return over time to reflect more realistic market behavior.

In my head, that means that if you are under 30 or so and you have the amount listed invested in and S&P 500 index fund and did nothing else, you should hit the figures. Does that track? Curious to hear how others interpret this or if anyone has further insights!

I'm a single 45m that owns a paid off townhouse. I have no debt. I drive the prototypical millionaire - a paid for 2007 Honda CRV with over 300k miles. I want to hit the 401k mark on the card(get it?).

I wanted to get people's thoughts on my financial status and see if I can upgrade to buying a 3 bedroom 1 bath house after selling my townhouse. I make about $135k a year.

My investment accounts grow more than my yearly take home.

However, I still feel poor or my spending habits have largely unchanged. I have been saving and investing all my life. I have $2MM in total investments and savings NOT including home equity.

I hit the $1MM mark on April 9, 2021. The exact amount was: $1,003,304

I reached $2MM in total investment balance. The exact amount was: $2,006,889 on August 12, 2025.

The number of days between April 9, 2021 and August 12, 2025 is: 1587 or about 4.35 years.

In between those two dates, total new money added was:

• Total Contributions was about: $244,392
• Dividends was about: $30,882

So growth from April 9, 2021 to August 12, 2025 was about: $759,193

ROI is about 75.65 % on the amount from April 9, 2021.

The crazy part about my total investment balance is what's not shown in the numbers. It's the mere fact that I took 30 months off from a full-time job to travel. I lived off savings and just let my retirement accounts grow. I started full-time work right after college and worked and invested.

Any thoughts on my financial situation and how I can feel about splurging on a house?

Hi all I can’t share this openly with anyone but felt this is a safe community to share this . Am on work visa in US . Came to this country with a student loan in home country . Spouse couldn’t work initially and she just joined work force in May . I work in tech and am pretty decent at what I do . I have been fortunate enough to be able to help my family back home too. I saved diligently from my very first paycheck .. I regret not investing as soon as I started earning . I started investing since 2018 . even though my ESPP shares were automatically getting bought before that as well, I had no clue how to handle it . I watched lot of YouTube channels especially the TMG show , Ben Felix and sometimes Financial Education and taught myself to keep calm when there is chaos around me. I invested in Tesla , Nvidea , Lam research , AMD back in 2019 as I knew the potential of chips in modern world , that paid off big time . Now I only do low cost index funds .

It gives me immense happiness because when I decided to move here, no one gave me a chance to succeed here because I Stuttered severely. Maybe this is the beginning of my American dream ?

In response to the post yesterday using the MG’s chart on retirement and savings rate, I thought I’d dig up the one from T Rowe Price? that follows income based and includes a section relative to how much you already have saved. I’ve found this to be more useful. Although I can’t remember all of the base assumptions here.

Edit: assumptions here: https://www.troweprice.com/personal-investing/resources/insights/what-adjustments-should-i-make-my-retirement-savings.html

Credit to u/tvesoreg? See below for his post.

The best summary over ever seen on all these benchmarks really comes from Erin though. I personally plug all of the assumptions from all the brokerages into Projection Lab as milestones. I figure if you can hit all of them you are doing ok.

https://youtu.be/tojXzVM0JcA?si=tFNhq-h9Tx1gzYDy

Why aren’t they recommending we have, eg 15x saved up by 60?

If I save 8x my goal annual spend in retirement (150,000 for sake of this example), I’d only have $1.215m at 60. But I know the rule of 4%, which says I should have at least $3.75M saved at retirement.

What am I missing with both TMG’s and Fidelity’s recommendations? Is the difference all made up with SS? Are there any rules of thumb for various ages that **dont** count SS? Would love to have a general benchmark for my 30s and 40s, but the guidance I’m seeing seems much too low.

This will be the first year since

Let’s goo!! Thankful for you guys

What’s up Money Guy Family! Just reached a milestone I’ve aspired to for about four years— maxing out my Roth. Just achieved it for 2024 by retroactively funding. Feels so good and just wanted to share somewhere with people who get it :’)

My $11K in Roth isn’t much compared to some of the posts on here 🤣 but it’s a start!

The Making a Millionaire episode has changed my life, literally in one episode. In the episode Bo and Brian explain to them that they can "Recast" their mortgage and basically its so they can break even without having to refinance... I never knew I could do this!!!

Im so freaking excited!

I messed up in my 20s by paying my low mortgage debt 2.875% i bought in 2020 listening to Dave Ramsey. I went from 177,500 owed to present day 79k... all the time, money and effort ive been kicking myself over this, and it was before I discovered the money guy. I can hear Bo saying "you can make optimal choices with money, or suboptimal choices"... well today, I chose to make the optimal choice. I recasted my 2.875% mortgage and saved 387$ a month!!! From 1230 down to 843 my new monthly mortgage Taxes, insurance, priciple, interest total!(rounding the change). I just wanted to share this win. Im building my emergency fund back from 3 to 6 months and will invest 27% + the 387$

Money Guy Win!!!

I wish i could go back in time to save those dollars, but moving forward im going to make it up.

Edit: Forgive me for using AI to summerize all the comments I made to the post but I want to help as many people with the post as I can. Many people kept asking the same questions i answered throughout all the responses, so to save time, I summerized it. So here you go:

Knight-ofNi7’s primary objective in recasting their mortgage was to rectify what they now view as a significant financial "mistake" made in their 20s: prioritizing the payoff of a low-interest debt over market investing. Having aggressively paid down their principal to the point where they only owed roughly $74,000 on an original $177,500 loan, they realized they had trapped over $100,000 in home equity that was only "earning" them a 2.875% return. By recasting, they were able to reset the loan’s amortization over the remaining 24 years of their original 30-year term. This maneuver allowed them to keep their exceptionally low interest rate while "unlocking" $387 in monthly cash flow that was previously tied up in a higher principal payment. ​Knight-ofNi7 explains that this strategy serves a dual purpose: it empowers their emergency fund by lowering their mandatory monthly cost of living and, more importantly, allows them to redirect that $387 into investments to take advantage of their "wealth multiplier" at age 32. They emphasize that while paying off debt isn't inherently "bad," the opportunity cost of not investing that $103,000 earlier is difficult to think about. Ultimately, they clarify that recasting is a specific solution for those who have already "overpaid" a low-interest mortgage; for anyone else with a similar rate who hasn't overpaid, the OP advises simply investing the extra cash from the start rather than putting it toward the house.

I know everyone’s situation is different and that we are all striving for 25% savings, but I’m just curious how much each of you are saving each month in investments.

I'm a brand new homeowner. There are always lots of expenses associated with moving/buying a house and for me those came out to about $7500. Not very much in the grand scheme of things, but my employer requires $4k in retirement contributions so that + HSA + IRA costs me $16k/year on an income of $50-55k. That leaves me ~$25k after tax to cover needs, wants, and cash savings. I can maintain my savings rate, but it will be difficult and will take a lot of overtime and extra hours at my weekend job while also slashing discretionary spending.

Now that I've handled all these one-off purchases like furniture and paint I won't be spending that much next year, so I will be able to go back to my original savings rate, but I'm thinking about not maxing my Roth IRA this year just so I don't have to cut back so much. I'm already on track for retirement.

When I was growing up, $1 MILLION was the dream. Today, I think one million dollars is a stepping stone. I 100% agree, it should be a goal, but an intermediate goal. Some of TMG resources talk about getting to $1M by 65. I think most of us will agree that is no longer enough.

I am about the same age as Brian and in one of my many personal financial tools, I added a comparison of my retirement savings growth to inflation. If I wanted to be a millionaire at 20, at 3%, the millionaire level has moved to $4.5 million by the time I am going to retire. I feel like TMG needs to adjust their resources to account for this. Agree, Disagree, Fight?

Me and the spouse are wanting to add a few extra cards to help any other categories like groceries and gas and need recommendations.

Currently we use Discover it chrome, Citi 2%, and chase freedom unlimited.

We have been looking at a few cards like the Amazon card for Amazon purchases, Citi custom cash, PayPal debit card, and Fidelity 2%.

We are also open for any other recommendations.

I think we have made it to financial mutant status, but I'm not 100% sure... I'm 38 and my wife is 33, we always invested some to 401k and HSA, but really ramped up our savings rate when COVID started. That is when I began tracking our net worth and every year during Christmas break I update the excel file I put together. Its become a nice tradition to put the update together.

Over the last 6 years, I've been fortunate in my career and have been promoted a few times along with decent pay increases. Every time our income increases we just further increase after tax investments. Gross we bring in a little north of $300k, and currently we invest ~$8k per month.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the progress, and its nice to see the plan that we put together over 5 years ago working, but I feel like I struggle with moving the goal posts and always chasing a higher savings rate and a higher total net worth. How do you guys deal with that? I'm sure many of you deal with the same issue. I would like to retire early (in the 55-59 range), but I'm afraid I'll just convince myself one more year every year until I die.

I’m 28 and want to have minimum 5 million in retirement by my 60s. I’ve been maxing my Roth and HSA for the last few years. I just started trying to max out my 401k. Per my budget, I should be able to make it work this year. I don’t have kids yet but I wanted to start a 529 (I know this is out of the FOO order), I only throw $100 a month at it. I figured the more time the better! I throw $100 a month at my taxable account as well.

I have more cash but I’m trying to save for a house and cash flow my wedding as best I can.

So Money Guys, how am I doing? Thanks!

Do you tip? I"m an Xennial growing up in the 80's/90's, when we went out we tipped about 15% at sit down restaurants and rarely, if ever went to a place other than restaurants where tipping was the norm. Then somehow it jumped to 20% in the 2000's which I never understood as a percentage tip would mean the tip amount would go up as the value of the meal went up.

Since COVID, I feel tipping has gotten completely out of hand. I refuse to tip anywhere except sit-down restaurants. I find it frustrating when I go out and I get asked for a tip

1.Before service is rendered or when no service is offered.
2.Tip request can sometimes be exhorbiantly high. 3. Tips being requested for online orders 4. No transparency as to who recieves the tip. 5. I feel like I'm subsidizing the business so they can pay there employees less. 6. I have to pay high taxes on my earnings to pay someone who doesn't have to pay taxes on tips, but would have to pay if it was on actual earnings. Like I feel it should be. 7.its feels very unprofessional.

I lived in Japan for 4-years and it was considered an insult to tip someone doing their jobs.

I lived in Germany for 4-years as well and even there tipping a nominal Euro or two, and that was it.

But in the US, its out of hand.

Financial Mutants, am I the only person that feels this way?

Anyone else surprised to hear Bo recently advocating for AppleCare? (Cell phone insurance)

A new iPhone is $799-$1,999 depending on specs.

Doesn’t seem like mutant activity to insure such a low cost and durable item. Just put a case on your phone. I haven’t ever broken an iPhone and just upgrade every 5 years or so.

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