JL Collins

JL Collins And The Difficult Path To Wealth

November 23, 2021 by Mr. 1500 Days 3 Comments

Hey look, JL Collins, author of The Simple Path To Wealth, is out with a new book:How I Lost Money In Real Estate Before It Was Fashionable is JL's true story of a disastrous real estate transaction. Short of being electrocuted, everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. And then some.The story starts with JL trying to decide whether he should buy a Porsche or … [Read more...] about JL Collins And The Difficult Path To Wealth

The Difficult Path To Wealth

February 1, 2021 by Mr. 1500 Days 38 Comments

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns a lesson he can learn in no other way.-Mark TwainWhenever the stock market takes a big dump, I feel a little giddy. Mindy and I are still in the saving part of our lives (she works, I don't [Wife-FI? Spouse-FI??]), so corrections are opportunity.We got very lucky last spring. We had paid cash* for a home back in 2020, but our … [Read more...] about The Difficult Path To Wealth

My goal was to build a portfolio of $1,000,000 by February of 2017; 1500 days from the birth of this blog (January 1, 2013). And hey look, I’ve since retired!

Investments only (primary home excluded)
1/1/13 (The Start): $586,043
1/1/14 (1 Yr Later): $869,635
1/1/15 (2 Yrs Later): $987,351
1/1/16 (3 Yrs Later): $1,057,961
1/1/17 (4 Yrs Later): $1,257,128
1/1/18 (5 Yrs Later): $1,527,701
1/1/19 (6 Yrs Later): $1,549,440
1/1/20 (7 Yrs Later): $2,035,040*
1/1/21 (8 Yrs Later): $3,379,746**
1/1/22 (9 Yrs Later): $4,762,642
1/1/23 (10 Yrs Later): $3,112,821

2023: Investments only
1/1: $3,112,821
2/1: $3,582,368
3/1: $3,716,852
4/1: $3,861,599
5/1: $3,694,445
6/1: $4,089,141
7/1: $4,384,858
8/1: $4,539,865
9/1: $4,468,622
10/1: $4,353,063
11/1: $4,027,929

Gains: $915,108

Overall
Gains since 1/1/2013: $3,441,886
Net worth***: $4,257,929

* The big jump between 2019 and 2020 was partly because we bought another home, but kept the previous (much more expensive) one as a rental. We have since sold it.

** Tesla.

*** Includes our primary home equity in addition to our investment portfolio.

Finally, we still have about $290,000 in mortgage debt (which I love!). No regrets about the debts!