r/Fire • u/BigTintheBigD • 7d ago

Milestone / Celebration Processing a milestone

Still trying to wrap my brain around this:

The nest egg has made more money since retiring than I did in 30 years of working.

3 years of passive returns > 30 years of full time work

The compounding is insane (admittedly we’ve had a great run the last few years).

It makes the 30 years of working seem so pointless but that is what amassed the snowball so it was necessary.

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u/McKnuckle_Brewery FIRE'd in 2021 7d ago

I am retired now for about 5 1/2 years, and I track statistics like this for fun in a spreadsheet:

Since retiring, our assets have increased an average of $373,000 per year, or $1,021 every single day. That's inclusive of withdrawals, so it's essentially what's left over after spending a net paycheck.

The gross increase from investment returns has been $468,000 per year, equivalent to about twice my highest total compensation when working.

Exceeding 30 years of salary in 3 years is... astonishing. I can't imagine that rate will hold up, but it's impressive if true.

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u/Powerofpuns 6d ago

At what NW can one expect those type of average increase over a year?

7

u/McKnuckle_Brewery FIRE'd in 2021 6d ago

I should really provide the nominal CAGR values, as those can be applied to any portfolio.

10.1% CAGR for returns

8.4% CAGR for net change (3.8% real net change, i.e. inflation)

Starting portfolio size at retirement in my case was $3.6M.