10 years of actually caring

[bradwebdev]

Ten years ago I was 24 and much stupider than I am today. I spent the majority of my late teens / early 20's partying and blowing through money like I had plenty of it (I didn't). Ten years ago today I made a promise and decided to start saving money, for retirement and just for personal security in general.

Here are the results.

Pretty self-explanatory, but the left column is the January 1st balance, right column is December 31st, and middle in the amount contributed throughout the year. This is a combination of three different accounts; TSP, VFIFX, and a brokerage account. The large sums of contributions in 2016 and 2020 was money I had saved up from deployments, every other year was just what I could afford to shovel away while not having to eat PB&J every meal.

My TSP was in the L2050 fund until about a year ago, where I jumped to a C/S/I split (70/15/15). I could probably be a little more aggressive but this is just where my risk tolerance lays. The brokerage account is mostly a 80/20 split between VTSAX and VTIAX, along with some Amazon shares.

Having my daughter right around the start of the COVID lockdown actually helped a little bit with being able to continue shoveling money away, because everything was closed and couldn't go out and do things.

I don't make a TON of money; all of this was from an E6 and below paycheck (made E6 in 2015). I'm married with a 3.5 year old, and my wife is a stay-at-home mom (she was a nurse before having our daughter). I'm not lucky. I don't have any education above high school level. I hate sitting behind a desk. It's possible to build a significant savings / retirement with even just the basic knowledge of how it all works, it just takes time a little bit of research.

I guess that's the post. Happy New Year everyone!

 

[godexists]

@bradwebdev You’ve got a savings contribution rate of somewhere between 40-50% of your base pay. That’s incredible considering your sole source of income for three family members.

Nice job!

 

[bradwebdev]

@godexists Thank you! My TSP had been in overdrive the past few years contributing 34%, along with maxing out VFIFX (which is paid mostly by my tax return each year). It was hard to get started but we are smart with the money we get each paycheck, so we're able to have fun and save tons at the same time.

 

[sloanep]

@bradwebdev Awesome job! Rockstar!

Future you is going to love the discipline you've shown.

 

[camaro]

@bradwebdev Not sure if it's your cup of tea, but military credit card churning helps reallocate even more money from my military check and still allows me to travel. Between my wife and I, we have 16 platinum cards which each have $15 Uber cash. 16 * 15 = $240 plus $30 more from 3 gold cards we have for $270 towards Uber eats groceries. Right now it's just my wife and I, but we'll have twins in March and that all the benefits of the cards we have definitely help

 

[khidyr]

@camaro That is pretty cool, the annual fee is waived for all of them?

 

[camaro]

@khidyr That's the only reason I have them lol we have a combined 43 cards.

 

[khidyr]

@camaro Nice, I was unsure if they would only waive one platinum per person. I guess I’ll go ahead and open up some more!

 

[patrickholman]

@khidyr Waived for all personal cards from Chase, Amex, US Bank, and Citi

 

[bmeza]

@patrickholman How do you maximize us bank and citi cards? I haven’t jumped on those yet

 

[patrickholman]

@bmeza It’s a bit more difficult. US Bank doesn’t have transfer partners but easily has the highest earning rate. With 4.5x on most purchases with tap (on the Altitude reserve with travel redemption), 5x on two biggest categories up to $1500 a quarter (Cash+), and 6x on two biggest stores of your choice up to $1500 a quarter (Shoppers rewards) you could run a fully cash back setup in a single system.

Citi is fine. Transfer partners aren’t as good. Advertise most of their stuff as CB but like Chase are actually points. It’s more so that the bank is known to have poor service and there are a lack of credits, which for active duty personnel is free money.

 

[svdbygrace2]

@camaro So I can have more than 1 platinum card? I didn't know Amex allows that. Do you get the sign up bonus for each card too?