Rich Frugal Life’s First (and Last) Ever Net Worth Reveal

Welcome to Rich Frugal Life’s very first (and likely last) net worth reveal!

When I started this blog a little over two years ago, I really wasn’t sure how much of our financial information I would share beyond our monthly expenses.

I’ve ended up sharing a lot more than I had originally anticipated, but there’s one number I’ve never shared…

Why we’ve kept our net worth a secret 

Financially savvy readers could easily piece together a ballpark estimate for our net worth using information that I have provided on this blog. But I’ve never actually stated the number outright.

Why? Many reasons, really.

The most obvious, and a big reason that we’ve kept other things private on this blog, is security. This is one of the reasons that our first net worth reveal today will also likely be the last.

But another major factor is how far along our financial independence journey we already were when I began sharing it publicly.

By the time I started this blog, we were already millionaires. It felt sort of tacky to share our net worth at that point. I didn’t want my sharing it to be perceived as bragging.  

Just to be clear, I don’t personally think it’s tacky when other FIRE bloggers share their net worth. I find it interesting and inspiring. However, I have always worried (a bit too much) about what other people think of me.

Maybe it’s the taboo around money that made me feel shameful about sharing our net worth. Or perhaps it was the knowledge that we come from a place of privilege when there are so many others who are struggling. Either way, that feeling was enough to initially hold me back from sharing more.  

So, why share our net worth now?

I’ve debated whether or not to share our net worth on the blog several times over the past two years.

This recent time was spurred by the excitement of crossing another net worth milestone… followed by the disappointment that I could not share this win with others.

Transparency comes with ups and downs

As I contemplated whether or not to reveal our net worth, it became clear to me that my feelings would be different if we were earlier on in our journey.

For example, I would have absolutely shared our net worth if it was $100,000 or less.

I frequently and openly share the negative aspects of our journey and my personal struggles on this blog. But, I also want to be able to share and celebrate our wins.

I firmly believe that the more people talk about money, especially those who have found success in this area, the more we can reduce the stigma around it and the better off everyone will be. When there is an open dialogue, more people can learn why and how to take control of their own finances. Clearly there are systematic issues that need to be dealt with; however, increasing financial literacy and people’s willingness to teach and learn might at least help in the meantime.

Sharing our net worth is another way to show my commitment to transparency.

Where you start from is not necessarily where you’ll end up

What you see on this blog is the later half of our financial journey.

We may no longer be at the beginning of this journey… but we were once. Like many folks, we started with a negative net worth!

The starting point of your financial journey is just that, a starting point. It does not represent where you will end up. Similarly, where you are today is not necessarily where you’ll end up.

I wanted to share this part of our journey, along with the path it took us to get here, as a reminder of this fact.

Mr. RFL and I never imagined we’d reach this level of financial success growing up. You may also be capable of more than you can currently imagine for yourself.

The magic of compound growth in action

The biggest reason I wanted to finally discuss net worth on this blog is to demonstrate how much the growth of your investments and net worth can accelerate over time.

I have a finance background, so I already knew all about the magic of compounding from an academic perspective. Theoretically, I knew that our net worth and investments should begin to snowball and grow exponentially over the wealth accumulation phase of our journey.

However, seeing this concept in action is much different than reading about it in a textbook.

Watching the pace of growth within our own portfolio accelerate over the past few years has been pretty amazing.

My hope is that seeing a real-life example of this positive trajectory might also be motivating for those earlier on in their journey who are feeling frustrated with the slow pace of growth.

This is something that can’t be effectively demonstrated without sharing the end point, so here we are. I’ll talk about how long it took us to reach each of the major net worth milestones later on in this post.

Rich Frugal Life’s net worth reveal

Before we go any further, let’s get to why you’re really here… for the promised net worth reveal.

Our current net worth is $2,015,000.

When I began drafting this post, that net worth number was quite a bit higher, but the stock market always seems to have other plans when we’re approaching big milestones.

We’ve been living our version of a ‘rich frugal life’ for a while now, but I never felt like we had amassed enough wealth to ditch my frugal ways. Afterall, a million dollars doesn’t go as far as it once did.

According to Kiplinger, we’re now officially “rich.”

I still don’t really feel like that word applies to us.

We won’t be purchasing a private jet or Bentley any time soon. I also don’t plan to quit looking for cost saving opportunities or my other frugal habits, such as meal planning based on weekly sales, for the foreseeable future.

That said, having $2 million does feel different.

It’s also enough for us to qualify as millionaires on an individual basis.

Maybe now I can finally release some of the anxiety I’ve historically felt whenever we’ve loosened the purse strings… maybe.

Needless to say, this was an exciting milestone for us, and one I wanted to share.

Current break-out of our net worth

Although I won’t go into the specifics of our portfolio allocation in this post, here is a view of the current make-up of our net worth.

Our journey started with a negative net worth

You can’t really look at where we are now without considering where we started from. And where we started from was the bottom.

I graduated college with a negative net worth, including $40,000 in student loans. This was partially-offset by a used car and small amount of savings.

Meanwhile, Mr. RFL, having no debt, started his journey with a net worth slightly above zero.

Neither of us tracked our net worth back then and we wouldn’t even meet each other for several more years. However, for our purposes today, my best estimate of our combined starting net worth is negative $25,000.

The one asset that is not reflected in this balance is the accounting degree that we had each earned from our respective universities, which provided us with a strong earning potential.

We were not worried about struggling financially; however, we did have to watch our spending and cash flow closely for the first few years.

The first $100,000 is the hardest

This is so true!

Often the start of a financial journey aligns with the beginning of adulthood and one’s first career. Earnings are low, and so are base investments. You may also be starting under a pile of debt, which can slow things down even more.

Getting through those first several years and reaching your first $100,000 can be a challenge. It may take a while and will likely be frustrating at times. But, it does get easier!

The good news is that once you get past this milestone, things begin to speed up.

It took us a LONG time to accrue our first million!

It took us WAY LESS time to turn that $1 million into $2 million. Plus, the majority of our second million was built after I had already retired from my corporate career. We could have reached this milestone even faster if I had continued working.

As mentioned earlier, I don’t believe this acceleration is something that’s unique to our journey.

Rather I believe that our experience is an example of the compound growth and acceleration most people might experience on their own financial journey, if they stay the course.

Our net worth progression:

Our timeline: From negative net worth to $2 million

How long it took to reach various net worth milestones:

*Because I’m older by a few years, the starting date used to calculate the length of time herein represents an average of our individual numbers.

Although we didn’t our track net worth back early enough to determine how long it took to get to $100,000, it took us almost 7 years just to accumulate our first combined $250,000!

As our portfolio grew, the compounding effect became more evident.

It took us almost 13 years to achieve our first million.

But it took only took 2.5 years for that $1 million to turn into $2 million!

It’s hard to ignore the acceleration that has occurred over our net worth journey.

What was a long and winding road from a negative net worth to our first combined million, led into a pretty effortless stroll to the second million (despite me no longer working).

I suspect the rest of the journey will proceed similarly until we stop earning income altogether and begin withdrawing from our portfolio.

That’s the magic of compound growth! And that magic is building within your investment portfolio, too.

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