Comments on: A Guide To Setting And Reaching A Net Worth Goal

By: deepali

deepali — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:58:57 +0000

@MITBeta

I took a look at your worksheet, but I’m wondering if you could label your columns? I’m sure I could figure it out, but isn’t that the nice thing about Google Docs – someone else does all the work? :)

By: SavingDiva

SavingDiva — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 19:54:36 +0000

Great post! I don’t think that I will be able to invest $1200/month because I’m struggling with $700 right now. However, it is good to give yourself a goal to shoot for.

By: Matt

Matt — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:38:42 +0000

This is a great post. I’m new to this blog and you really seem to have a good grasp on figures. I’m 24 and just now starting to learn how to really save and build wealth. (I’ve also started a blog to archive personal achievements and seek feedback along the way). Good Advice.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 12:47:15 +0000

Great post. I love the concept (and loved the book Your Money Or Your Life). It’s a little early in the am for me to wrap my mind around the math, but I have a lot of debt to pay off before I can work on this part.

By: MITBeta

MITBeta — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 18:59:07 +0000

@Dave:

Here’s my rudimentary stab at this:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pQmY2tyk-bfcGTc64A7BaXA

By: MITBeta

MITBeta — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:27:18 +0000

@Sharon:

I ran a similar calculation quite independently last night and came to the same conclusion: the lower my salary is now the lower it will be in 20 years, and the less I’ll have to save to reach the crossover point. I might have to save 25% to 30% of 30,000, but it won’t be 36%…

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 15:24:19 +0000

Okay, so my brain is -incredibly- broken today. In fact trying to add 1 and 1 gives me 3. But I’m still want to figure this out. Can someone drop down … not the an excel sheet, but what is in each equation is? I’m trying to create it, in general terms. If can re-create it means I understand. Thanks.

By: Sharon

Sharon — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 19:24:29 +0000

ataman..
easier to hit the crossover with less income? I beg to differ. One can with effort save 36% of a 40,000 income (leaves you with 25,600 to live on).
But to save 36% of a 30,000 income leaves you with $19,200. This is an amount which is much more difficult to live on. Perhaps possible depending on debts and the area of the country.
At 25,000 you have only 16,000 to live on. There comes a point where you cannot reduce the amount expenses proportionally to the income.
But the reverse is true. As your income increases it is easier to _not_ increase your expenses proportionally….

By: ataman

ataman — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:29:44 +0000

i created a spreadsheet to play with the numbers, with the following columns: my income, wife’s income, total income, spending, investing, return, and portfolio. this made it very easy to play with the numbers and make them more realistic, e.g. wife leave job in 3 years and goes to school full-time, etc.

as i was pasting left and right, something that’s fairly obvious struck me: the lower your income (and, hence, spending), the sooner your crossover point will come. who knew living frugally/modestly could buy you several years of freedom?

p.s. true, there is inflation, fluctuations in the market, etc., but i think the point still stands.
p.p.s. if anyone’s interested, i’ll be happy to provide the spreadsheet.

By: Engineer

Engineer — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:56:32 +0000

To follow up on lorax’s point to “s”:
If inflation is 3% you need to save that much from your 5% so your interest next year keeps up with inflation. But your friendly Uncle Sam is going to tax the entire 5%. Say your combined federal and tax rate is 20%. 20% of 5% is 1%. So after taking 3 of the 5% interest to compensate for inflation and 1% for taxes you’re left with 1%. If you had $1 million in the bank, that’s only $10,000 to live on. If you managed to have that much in a tax-deferred IRA, then you’d get to take out 2% on which you’d have to pay taxes. $20,000 less taxes. Better than $10,000, but you’re still eating cat food.

And that’s also a point to Trent. Yes, having your investment gain equal your salary is noteworthy. But it’s not good enough on which to fully retire. If gains minus inflation minus taxes is greater than expenses, then you could think about it. That is if you can expect the gains to continue consistently. A few bad years in a row can put a serious dent in your portfolio.

By: lorax

lorax — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 00:03:23 +0000

s – 3% is not low, unfortunately. The problem is that you have to factor in inflation. Inflation runs at about 3% by itself. So in about 25 years, that 3% will get you 1/2 the buying power it did now.

Aside: Inflation is actually a much debated quantity. Many people think the US government is now under-reporting inflation. Others think it barely exists at all (see Your Money or Your Life).

By: paula

paula — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 22:39:36 +0000

I just want to say how much I appreciate posts like this. I don’t understand numbers (with or without coffee), so “The Simple Dollar” really helps me wrap my mind around certain concepts. Although this idea is not new to anyone who has read “Your money or your life,” it is always helpful to see the concept spelled out through examples.

Keep up the good work.

By: Trent

Trent — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:45:34 +0000

Chris, if you use salary as a target, you can continue to invest and hedge yourself against inflation. If you use just your living expenses, you won’t be gaining ground any more (or at least not very much).

By: FamilyFinanceBlog

FamilyFinanceBlog — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:33:39 +0000

Trent – thanks for a good article. I tried to cover something like this in my blog a little while back, but you have done it in a very clear and concise way. Keep up the good writing. I’m trying to reach that cross over point as soon as I can, and that’s a good way to talk about it.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:27:30 +0000

Why use salary rather than expenses for a crossover goal? The difference between my income and expenses should be in savings. Once I’m living off of my savings, the amount I’m saving should be zero, finances in balance.

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:54:01 +0000

Getting a 4% raise for 20 years makes your new salary = 4000 x 1.04^20, or 87645. This is just a typo since Trent used 87600 as the result.

Trent, please post a spreadsheet, or go into more detail about how you calculated this — there isn’t enough information in your post to really understand what’s going on.

Thanks,
Jeremy

By: s

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:37:38 +0000

3% seems pretty low, seeing as you can make 5% in the bank. Obviously the index funds might not beat the bank EVERY year, but if you stored away an extra year or two worth of salary in a bank, you could probably be safe with some down time in your index fund.

Plus, if you’re retiring at 45 or so, you can probably stand to work a little on the side in a down year ;). Or at least reduce your number of European vacations to say, 3 a year, instead of 6.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 17:28:40 +0000

Regarding the safe withdrawal rates, here is a good article:

http://www.retireearlyhomepage.com/restud1.html

Basically it comes down to your risk tolerance and time horizon. There are lots of other good articles on this site.

By: Zach

Zach — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:42:28 +0000

Just finished reading Your Money or Your Life, and this is a great visual representation of one of the steps to FI. Great Post!

By: kevin

kevin — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:38:14 +0000

Angel—you were correct the first time. The equation is supposed to be

initial salary*(1+ percentage of yearly raise/100)^number of years

40000*(1.04^20)

It’s similar to the way you would calculate interest earned if it were compounded yearly…ie invest 40000 at 4% over 20 years.