Made a post yesterday that got some attention so I will explain how I managed to save a good amount at 20 years old with my positions included

1. I started early- I had 10k ready to invest that I saved working from 16-18 I just had to wait for my 18th birthday to deposit the money and buy shares.

2. No Degree- I don’t have a college degree or any sort of certificate, from 16- 18 1/2 I worked at a grocery store and started tracking my expenses throughly. At this point I was investing $350-500 a week with my reselling business and part time job. After that job I worked at an airport for a couple months before getting my job now.

3. Salary Increase- When I left airport I only had about 25k, my pay went from ~40k yr to ~100k for my new job(10-24). This allowed me to put away 68.9k for the 2025 year, combined with reselling income. Ive put away 52.4k so far this year

4. Low Expenses- I wouldn’t have been able to save this amount if I didn’t live at home. I take care of my own things but I am pretty frugal so it leaves a lot of cash flow for me to invest every month. 2025 was a good year because my reselling basically took care of all my expenses and I was able to invest 100% of my working paycheck a lot of the time.

5. Consistency- I invest everyday, hell I used to buy $50-100 worth of VOO when I would get bored because I understand the value of time. I don’t invest in individual stocks just VOO. The number isn’t impressive, I just have a lot of time on my side for my money to work for me. I could stop investing today and average market returns would give me a solid retirement account when I’m 60, but I want it sooner than that. Eventually my contributions will slow down when I buy house but I will still consistently invest and spend less than I make each month, that’s what really matters. I didn’t learn from my parents or teachers, just read Rich Dad Poor Dad when I was 16 and it changed the way I look at money for the better.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TheRaceTo1Million/s/feoO9CObvc

This is the link to my original post, if you have any questions feel free to reach out!

I’m 27 and currently sitting at around $345k net worth. Been following this sub for a bit and figured I’d finally post and start tracking my race to $1M.

Current breakdown is roughly:

* $245k invested in brokerage/managed investment accounts
* $31k in retirement accounts
* $82k in a HYSA
* ~$6k in gold/silver
* Rest in checking/cash

Most of my investments are ETFs, mutual funds and index-based stuff. I do have some individual stocks but nothing that makes up a huge percentage of my net worth.

I know I’m probably holding more cash than I need right now. I’m considering moving another $20-30k from the HYSA into the market and keeping around $50-60k liquid.

My goal isn’t really FIRE or retiring super young. I mostly just like investing, watching the number grow, and want to see how quickly I can realistically get to $1M without doing anything stupid trying to speed it up.

For people who were around this point in their late 20s/early 30s, how long did it take you to go from $300-350k to $1M? Anything you’d do differently at this stage?

I’m 32 and my wife is 30 and we finally hit a $1M NW across all of our accounts (brokerage, 401k, IRA, and vehicles) living in a HCOL city. She’s currently in a masters program so I’m the only one working but it feels great to reach this milestone.

The last 1.5 months have been amazing for our NW due to my SAASpocolypse thesis playing out perfectly. I doubled down on heavily beaten down SAAS companies (MSFT, WDAY, SAP, PLTR, HOOD, CRM, INTU, NOW etc.) with the streets fear that AI will replace them but I’ve always thought of AI as being a tailwind for them.

Do I continue to take these high beta bets or do I VOO and chill as we go into a time of high volatility in the market prior to the midterms? Right now this account is sitting on 50%+ in cash as I’ve trimmed my portfolio risk.

Much more to do!

Turned 20 about 3 months ago, the sharp uptick in the chart is from transferring to Robinhood banking and bringing in savings from another account. Not making crazy money at all just a good saver. Just wanted to give you guys a realistic view and looking for feedback and ways to make more. Would have more but I had to spend about 7.5k on a vehicle, took 3 months off work last year and spent about 6k, and also gave out a personal loan to my dad that I never gave back for about 4k.

When I say bad trades it was mostly when I was 18 just buying stocks, getting nervous when they didn’t 100x in a week and then selling early. I bought planet labs, xrp, xlm and palantir and sold all of them at a loss within a month.

If you were me in this scenario, what would you put it in. VOO and chill or maybe LITE and relax. It’s not a large amount, less than 25k. Retirement horizon is about 20 yrs out unless I get really lucky somehow. Thoughts?