Over 550K invested

Our investment accounts have now hit another financial milestone: surpassing $550,000 in value!  The stock market has been on a tear over the last decade and our investment account balances have been shooting up as well.

This includes money in our 401Ks, Roth IRAs, taxable accounts, and 529.  This does not include money in our checking accounts, savings accounts, home equity or rental property equity.

Here is a look at the timeline of our previous investment milestones:

June 2, 2014: 100K

March 12, 2016: 200K

June 5, 2017: 300K

July 15, 2018: 400K 

April 16, 2019: 450K

November 5, 2019: 500K

We are not stock pickers.  We are not market timers.  Our investments are simple and our contributions are automatic.  We invest in index funds that track the US stock market (63%), international stock market (27%), and US bond market (10%).  Index fund investing allows us to diversify our portfolio and keep our costs very low.

In the long term, I expect that our investment account balances will continue to hit new highs - which I will share with you all.  This being said, a stock market correction or crash can occur at anytime.  We had a small stock market pullback in 2018 when the S&P 500 had a -6.59% return.  People were crying, “this is the beginning of the next recession!”  During this time, we consistently contributed to our investments.  In fact, we sold some of our bond funds to put more money into the stock market.  The S&P 500 returned a whopping 30.43% in 2019!  We recently sold some of our stock index funds into bond funds (Vanguard VBTLX) to rebalance our asset allocation.  This is how we continue to buy low and sell high.

Stock market volatility is normal.  Time in the market surpasses trying to time the market.  We will continue to stay the course with our investments on our way towards financial freedom.  I recommend you do the same.