u/Abrasivebanana35

I’m sure this will be considered a dumb question but I’ve been thinking about this a lot as my income has exploded this year with a new position.

The main metric of financial success I use is replacing my income. The other rules of thumb are nice, but the younger you can replace your entire income, the sooner you can walk away from any situation you don’t like. In that thinking I remember when I first started out at 65k and how tight everything was and how difficult it was to find those extra dollars to save. Now that I am entering a year where I will make 400,000+k, the idea of replacing that seems daunting and impossible because the number is so big.

This leads me to the question, which is harder to replace? Your lower income when you start out or the one you typically end your career with?

Well, I just accepted my first big boy job. I will make around 400k. I went from 60k to 400k in about 7 years. I have been around I went from:

1.60k
2.65k
3.100k
4.110k
5.120k
6.150k
7.400k

I like to think I am good at investing and saving, but I am not good enough to know what I do not know when you enter this world. I have always followed the basic rules. have 1x annual salary saved by 30 was the most crucial in my mind. This has become virtually impossible with my raise happening when I am 28, so having 2 years to get there is just impossible in my mind. This is just an example of one of my thoughts.

Anyways. What do you have for advice on this kind of pay jump? Has anyone gone through it in their 20s? What can I no possibly know coming into it.

Looking for genuine advice and to see if anyone has gone through this. My wife and have been married for a little less than a year but dating for 10 years prior. We were turbulent in our relationship but in the end always made it work. I had hefty career goals and she waited for me to accomplish them so I felt I owed it to her to give her a wedding and the life she had waited for.

Our marriage was a challenge for me mentally from the start. The day of the wedding I already knew I wasn’t happy. After the initial private ceremony when it was just her and I in the car driving to a bar to meet our friends we were silent. As time has progressed over the last year I have become more and more resentful. She works a lot. I work a lot. There are times we don’t see each other for a week or two because of her schedule and mine not lining up. After about 6 months into the marriage I knew we made a mistake, came home and told her we should divorce before we get too deep into this and there are bigger consequences. That was the night she told me she was pregnant.

Now I grew up in a house with really strong principles and values. My parents stayed together for the kids but we always knew they weren’t happy. I don’t want to be that. But I also don’t want to see my baby 50% of the time. If we divorce neither of us are worried about money or fighting in court over custody. We are both good people who want the best. But I have come to realize I have zero romantic feelings for her and honestly never really did to the degree I should have for who I married. Obviously there is tons more to the story but you get the gist. To reiterate there isn’t ONE event that happened that is causing this. No cheating, money problems or major events.

So to wrap it all up with a question. Is simply not having feelings for your spouse reason enough to divorce?

My wife (29) and I (29) became higher earners and were really good savers. We bought a farm and did a total renovation. Like anything, it cost way more than we thought. Now I have about 55k credit card debt from the project. We make around 300k a year, but my spending is out of control. We have around 300k investments, most of which are in our 401k. I do not want to take a 401k loan but the idea of paying those down overtime overwhelms me.

Thoughts?

As the title says, I am wondering once you hit the point in your income level that you max out your retirement accounts and are comfortable with those investments, where do people who have built significant wealth start to look to park their money? Wondering if it’s land, businesses, commodities, or something else.

I’m not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, but maybe a few thousands dollars a month extra.

I (29) and my wife (28) have done extremely well as far as income goes. We saved young and hit our goal of having 1 year salary saved early. This was not easy because my income skyrocketed in the last two years and my wife finished nursing school late. We renovated a house and own a business with some partners that has 4 buildings with 1 total units. Total portfolio 285k retirement accounts, 70k real estate business equity, and a 100k equity in our home.

My point of saying this is, it really dawned on me this weekend how much money it really takes to live lavishly. I genuinely do not understand how the people around us own new boats, cars, lake places, or other "toys". I used to not be jealous because I saw my investment accounts growing so fast, but man it got to me this weekend. I know in the long run I am better off, but delayed gratification for the first time in my life has come with jealousy. Any advice

Of the general “rule of thumbs”, is one more significant than the others? Or are they all equal? The rules I am talking about are:

30 - 1 year salary saved
40 - 3x salary saved
50 - 6x salary saved
67 - 10-12x saved

My question more so is, do the later goals get easier if you hit the earlier ones, or are they all equally as challenging?