2024 Financial Review & 2025 Outlook

[james.hendrickson]

I just reviewed the year-end statements for all of our Vanguard accounts (8 accounts total). Total income for the year was $122,092.07. That means that our investment income just from Vanguard fully supported our spending for the year. That's not counting growth, just income (interest, dividends, capital gains). Most of that is tax-sheltered in retirement accounts. $50,000 is taxable. Vanguard holds about 65% of our portfolio.

Thats amazing Disneysteve, great work!!!

[EasyMoney00]

I just reviewed the year-end statements for all of our Vanguard accounts (8 accounts total). Total income for the year was $122,092.07. That means that our investment income just from Vanguard fully supported our spending for the year. That's not counting growth, just income (interest, dividends, capital gains). Most of that is tax-sheltered in retirement accounts. $50,000 is taxable. Vanguard holds about 65% of our portfolio.

What accounts are tax sheltered in vanguard? Is there anything other than Roth?

[disneysteve]

What accounts are tax sheltered in vanguard? Is there anything other than Roth?

Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs.

[EasyMoney00]

Traditional IRAs, Roth IRAs, and rollover IRAs.

I misread. I thought you were referring to you withdrew the $120k and it didn't count as income, which is why I had Roth in my mind. How much money did you pull out in 2024? I know if you keep it around $120k with the standard deduction you can avoid all capital gains.

[disneysteve]

I misread. I thought you were referring to you withdrew the $120k and it didn't count as income, which is why I had Roth in my mind. How much money did you pull out in 2024? I know if you keep it around $120k with the standard deduction you can avoid all capital gains.

Our AGI for the year will be higher than 120K.

[srblanco7]

I just reviewed the year-end statements for all of our Vanguard accounts (8 accounts total). Total income for the year was $122,092.07. That means that our investment income just from Vanguard fully supported our spending for the year. That's not counting growth, just income (interest, dividends, capital gains). Most of that is tax-sheltered in retirement accounts. $50,000 is taxable. Vanguard holds about 65% of our portfolio.

I tracked our dividends and cap gains in our brokerage (for estimated tax purposes) - came in at about $100k for the 2024 and we generated about $25k in interest income from individually held t-bills. The dividends and cap gains were up about $30k year over year - though I don't have any specific insight as to why - just that a couple funds we hold spun off large distributions.

[disneysteve]

I tracked our dividends and cap gains in our brokerage (for estimated tax purposes) - came in at about $100k for the 2024 and we generated about $25k in interest income from individually held t-bills. The dividends and cap gains were up about $30k year over year - though I don't have any specific insight as to why - just that a couple funds we hold spun off large distributions.

When the market has a really good year, capital gains distributions are often high. Happened to us too. Even though 2023 was also good, it may be that more people took some profits in 2024 so the funds had to sell more shares.

[jenn_jenn]

2024: $1.1M to $1.5M NW. Non-cash is split pretty evenly between real estate, retirement accounts, and brokerage.

I’m not thrilled with our performance because our spending was so high. We had about $100k of excess spend on truly non-essentials that I would have preferred we add to investments. Still working on us finding that balance in life.

In 2025, we have $80k of additional home renovations but no other forecasted major purchases so hoping to save quite a bit more. We will max out 401k(s) & HSA as we did this year. Stretch goal is $2M. Probably won’t make it but if we work towards it, we’ll be closer than if we didn’t!

[disneysteve]

I guess this is the best thread to share this. As of market close yesterday, our portfolio crossed the $4 million mark for the first time.

My wife and daughter are leaving for a convention tomorrow. I told DW she could treat herself and buy a t-shirt.

[kork13]

I guess this is the best thread to share this. As of market close yesterday, our portfolio crossed the $4 million mark for the first time.

My wife and daughter are leaving for a convention tomorrow. I told DW she could treat herself and buy a t-shirt.

That's fantastic, congrats! Good to hear that you're really loosening the purse strings as your impressive wealth continues to grow.

[disneysteve]

That's fantastic, congrats! Good to hear that you're really loosening the purse strings as your impressive wealth continues to grow.

Yep. We're really splurging. Of course she is going to San Francisco for 5 days for a Star Trek convention so there was already some purse loosening involved.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I guess this is the best thread to share this. As of market close yesterday, our portfolio crossed the $4 million mark for the first time.

My wife and daughter are leaving for a convention tomorrow. I told DW she could treat herself and buy a t-shirt.

Woo hoo!

Good year for us. Our NW grew by a lot. Our portfolio grew by a lot. I never count on home equity more than what I paid down. We owe 66% on what we bought our house for. I love that we've paid down 14%. To me that's huge. We officially hit fi I guess. 3.5-4% withdrawal rate on our portolio we are there. Our lifestyle would never need to change. We could spend what we spend now and not outlive our portfolio. This means also not counting on SS or what the house will be after we pay it off. I kinda like our life so I'm pretty stoked that we've reached the point where adding to our portfolio doesn't mean much.

Years ago when I joined I said I would like to be FIRE at 45. I turned 45 in 2024 and officially our portfolio crossed over the FI territory at fat fire level. But we are definitively set on working until DH finishes his company. So I don't have a clue when or where we will be. It's an interesting perspective.

We've always been LBYM like most on the board. But it's a weird feeling knowing that along the way we've always done what we wanted because we felt we had financial security to take a lesser paying job or a year sabbatical without income and switch career fields. There was insecurity because we much less money and we were worried about the future that we'd have to work longer. But then being able to make life decisions without finances being part of the equation has made it easier.

We've been super fortunate that everything has broken our way career wise. All of our career moves has gone well(knock on wood) so far. And now not only did we cross over into FI, but this year while difficult has also enlightened at least me, that we're in super weird position of suddenly accumulating generational wealth for our family and inheriting it as well. It's really weird.

I look and realize that my kids are going to inherit at least $2m each from my mom, which if I hadn't decided to press her to disinherit me, i'd be inheriting. Then realizing my in-laws are in a very similar circumstance and my kids again are the only grandchildren and my BIL as well has not married and has no other family. My BIL this past xmas inquired if we were settled for college for the kids or we needed help. I said we were fine, but he offered to help if needed. It has been a stunning change in circumstances for us all. So suddenly the dicussion of helping my kids has changed radically over the past year.

for 2025 I need to sit with my older kid and really start discussing responsibility about money and the potential inheritances coming her way.

[srblanco7]

I guess this is the best thread to share this. As of market close yesterday, our portfolio crossed the $4 million mark for the first time.

My wife and daughter are leaving for a convention tomorrow. I told DW she could treat herself and buy a t-shirt.

Congrats! Impressive.

[srblanco7]

Woo hoo!

Good year for us. Our NW grew by a lot. Our portfolio grew by a lot. I never count on home equity more than what I paid down. We owe 66% on what we bought our house for. I love that we've paid down 14%. To me that's huge. We officially hit fi I guess. 3.5-4% withdrawal rate on our portolio we are there. Our lifestyle would never need to change. We could spend what we spend now and not outlive our portfolio. This means also not counting on SS or what the house will be after we pay it off. I kinda like our life so I'm pretty stoked that we've reached the point where adding to our portfolio doesn't mean much.

Years ago when I joined I said I would like to be FIRE at 45. I turned 45 in 2024 and officially our portfolio crossed over the FI territory at fat fire level. But we are definitively set on working until DH finishes his company. So I don't have a clue when or where we will be. It's an interesting perspective.

We've always been LBYM like most on the board. But it's a weird feeling knowing that along the way we've always done what we wanted because we felt we had financial security to take a lesser paying job or a year sabbatical without income and switch career fields. There was insecurity because we much less money and we were worried about the future that we'd have to work longer. But then being able to make life decisions without finances being part of the equation has made it easier.

We've been super fortunate that everything has broken our way career wise. All of our career moves has gone well(knock on wood) so far. And now not only did we cross over into FI, but this year while difficult has also enlightened at least me, that we're in super weird position of suddenly accumulating generational wealth for our family and inheriting it as well. It's really weird.

I look and realize that my kids are going to inherit at least $2m each from my mom, which if I hadn't decided to press her to disinherit me, i'd be inheriting. Then realizing my in-laws are in a very similar circumstance and my kids again are the only grandchildren and my BIL as well has not married and has no other family. My BIL this past xmas inquired if we were settled for college for the kids or we needed help. I said we were fine, but he offered to help if needed. It has been a stunning change in circumstances for us all. So suddenly the dicussion of helping my kids has changed radically over the past year.

for 2025 I need to sit with my older kid and really start discussing responsibility about money and the potential inheritances coming her way.

Congrats on your hard work, good fortune and achieving FI. Managing generational wealth is a wonderful “challenge” to have!

[LivingAlmostLarge]

yoy%	Year
0.00%	2004
2021800%	2005
187.24%	2006
48.88%	2007
-9.00%	2008
54.86%	2009
65.30%	2010
17.41%	2011
66.50%	2012
67.74%	2013
15.37%	2014
33.73%	2015
4.11%	2016
2.16%	2017
-3.33%	2018
37.81%	2019
36.63%	2020
28.08%	2021
-19.59%	2022
57.60%	2023
27.58%	2024

So it took about 10 years to hit a million in NW. this is without the home equity just the portfolio. We had a bunch of flat years because we took out cash to buy our current home. I don't have my mortgage debt or my home value in there. I'm curious where we will end up in 2025. My suspicion is higher than I think. I found out some good news yesterday and that will be a change.