Recently entered six figure hell.

>29 y/o
>Make 80k/yr working for defense contractor and as military reserve officer
>Set goal of 100k by 30 y/o
>want to use VA loan to buy house next year when eligible
>paying student loans and working on getting military or civilian job to pay them

Just want to do a check-in and get a status on my overall portfolio. I don't have any crypto because none of the major exchanges can verify my identity other than Binance.US and once they got banned I couldn't get back into the game. I had some BTC and Link years ago, but sold it to pay off my car. I'm also pretty cash poor because if I hold cash I tend to spend quickly, so I just invest my money before I can my hands on it.


What do you guys recommend? Keep doing what I'm doing or am I missing something major?

>>60637384 (OP)
I 30 year old neet and I higher networth than you, at your income you should be a millionaire

You should like you have no issue waging for another 15-20 years and you aren't completely retarded so just keep doing whatever, you'll probably be fine.
Not a mutt so I can't comment on your 9000 tax accounts but a car is a blackhole of a liability not an asset

>>60637384 (OP)
>muh retirement accounts
you're fucked mate
those don't count as real net worth

>>60637440
*sound
And seems like a pain to update your credit card bill monthly in your spreadsheet

>>60637384 (OP)
I tihk its just is six figures for a while. Not sure what else desu I mean you are most like most people you got one of those 4 ytear CS Degress (coidng ) and have the starting abverage minum TC of about 250 year startying after ther 4 years which is 22 years old. (18+4) and so after a few years you can hjit SWE 4 oir 5 and get this upgrade TC at about 500-600 k which is most poeople did and actually pretty normal? I think you are cherry picking.

>>60637423
Do you have any advice then ESL-kun?

>>60637440
Thanks for the feedback. The loan is a liability, but the car is an asset even it depreciates. I also included my guns in that column because it's basically just non-liquid stuff that is fairly easy to sell and holds value reasonable well. If I sold my car and guns, I'd probably get closer to 10k because I have a lot and they're collectible surplus guns, but I wanted to be very conservative.
>>60637511
It's not really a big deal. I don't update this every day or every week. Sometimes monthly, quarterly, or even just annually. I keep the old version to have snapshots of my progress. The last time I posted my spreadsheet on /biz/ I had 10k in assets and 50k in debt.

>>60637526
>Not sure what else desu I mean you are most like most people you got one of those 4 ytear CS Degress (coidng ) and have the starting abverage minum TC of about 250 year startying after ther 4 years which is 22 years old. (18+4) and so after a few years you can hjit SWE 4 oir 5 and get this upgrade TC at about 500-600 k which is most poeople did and actually pretty norma

I have a liberal arts degree and work in supply chain. I will never come to 250k/yr unless I go into management and get promoted like 3 times.

>>60637550
Well good job on being conservative on your asset estimations, beats most retards counting their future PnL by assuming they catch the very bottom and tops of price movements.
Also I have no clue how you can sit through and interpret these ESL AI hallucination tier posts

>>60637384 (OP)
no you're doing fine, 6 figure hell is just a grind for a long damn time unless you catch some crypto windfall or figure out nvidia before everyone else or take a high equity comp job at a startup. defense cos pretty good, push for more equity comp I think the us defense industry will continue to outperform since the tech just works

boomer advice: pay down your student loans first if the rate sucks. maximize tax deferred investments (401k to co match, roth to max). all investments you have should be cranked to sp500 indexes since you're young, but I'm guessing your asset allocation is probably alright

t 38 year old boomer in low seven figure purgatory

>>60637652
Thanks, I really just want to have a good discussion about wealth building with other people, but there's no where else to do it.

IRL people think you're trying to humblebrag or flex on them. And the people who actually are worth having the discussion with don't wanna talk about it in detail.

I also think people forget that you can just have a normal thread without it being coombait, hypebeasting, or trolling. But yeah the AI and jeets are pretty bad these days.

>>60637384 (OP)
>>Make 80k/yr working for defense contractor and as military reserve officer
I unironically do this as well. Keep doing what you're doing. I personally wouldn't bother with 3rd party investments (anything thats not a retirement account) until you have at least 50-100k cash. This isn't a good board to get advice from because alot of the posters here are either 18-21 + indian/european + college students with sub $1k portfolios who gambling hoping for a moonshot which will never come again.

Build your cash reserves then start investing. Until then use your standard retirement vehicles. Building wealth is a marathon not a sprint.

t. dod contractor (IT) + guard officer

>>60637773
>50-100k coh @ 80k pretax
lol
lmao even

>>60637789
>pointless comment
50k COH is not unreasonable. If you missed the earlier note he's in the reserves. It's very easy to build that much cash on hand during an activation or by volunteering for a short tour on TOD overseas where all income is cash free. Most military contractors also provide differential pay so he'd be receiving two incomes. His biggest issue is that student loan payment that he needs to burn down. I don't know what the interest rate on it is, but he might be better off taking an officer career starter loan, burning down that loan and then going on a 6-12 month tour to pay back the officer career loan

>>60637837
typo: tax free not cash free*

>>60637837
it makes sense you'd need the dog walked on that turd of a rec - 50k-100k coh in excess of emergency funds is way overweight for someone in that income bracket with that portfolio in the absence of defensive positioning, should be 2-10% not 33%++

>>60637384 (OP)
Depends on the loan rates. Under 6% I'd pay the minimum and keep dumping money into etfs. I'm not sure how long you've been making 80k/year or what you had to pay off beforehand, but if you take a serious approach to saving you're in a good position going forward at any rate. Obviously I'm in a low cost of living state with a paid off home, but my total expenditure is about $12,500 a year. I have an old car, I eat homemade pasta most meals, and I don't vacation or spend money on much of anything. That's all to give an idea of what a theoretical minimum expenditure would look like. Obviously your taste for pasta at every meal or driving a shit heap may vary.
A lot of it comes down to keeping expenditure low moreso than making more once you're at about 60k/year, the off brand is still perfectly fine, that $1,000 chair isn't really worth missing 30 years of compounded growth to $17,500, etc. Automatically rolling money into investment accounts is a good solution to keep you from having a huge bank statement burning a hole in your pocket. Depending on your end of life spending, you could retire extremely comfortably / easily by 40. As far as the actual investments go, Ben Felix has pretty good information on what is generally going to work out. And in the effort of achieving those targets, avantis etfs are pretty good. Engaging data fire calc is a good tool to play with to see what you'd need to save up.

>>60637888
The 50-100k isn't meant to be an emergency fund. It's meant to be starting capital / capital to burn down his student loan in its entirety. He's going to have an easier time building wealth if he focuses on getting his liabilities down to $0. I'm in the same income bracket as him and just went through this exercise at the same exact age - I'm 32, paid off my student loan doing exactly what I recommended to him and my loan was at 39k. We have other incentives we can utilize to build wealth, as a never serve I don't expect my advice to make sense to you


>age 28
>go to tour of duty on NIPR
>apply for 6-12 month deployment
>receive orders
>apply for career starter loan
>use career starter loan to pay down student loan
>Funnel all cash from deployment (O3 pay) into loans and bank account - roughly 6-7k a month before deduction on LES from career starter loan

He can do exactly the same.

>>60637384 (OP)
Retirement accounts arent real until you are ready to stop waging. also, $0 in crypto in a bull market is not good. my tip to you: marry a rich girl and buy a house

>>60637888
>dog walked on that turd of a rec
also stop typing like a zoomer nigger - this outs you as larper, no 38 year old man talks like this

>>60637720
>>60637773
>>60638032
I appreciate the responses. For the student loans, I'm still owed a few years of Student Loan Repayment from the National Guard, and my job also student loan repayment in place of 401k matching if you chose. I've been paying down my loans at about $300-500/mo for years because I don't wanna overdo it and miss out on free debt relief.

As for the deployment, I don't ever want to be an AGR or ADOS order hopping bum. I work from home most days at my civilian, so ADOS isn't worth it to me even if it pays more. I do have a five month BOLC coming up soon, and a unit deployment coming after that, but I won't volunteer for one that's not with my unit.

Thanks for the tips though. National Guard/Reserve is a straight up cheat code for getting rich if you do it right.

>>60638145
>also stop typing like a zoomer nigger

That's not a zoomer saying. People in the military use that a expression a lot, especially officers when they're giving briefs or hashing out plans

>>60638188
>ADOS order bum / bolc coming up
Ah you must be newly commissioned LT. You won't be able to take orders anyway until your BOLC qualified and even then I doubt your BC would let you cut loose this early in your career. You'll need at least 2-3 OERs before you can utilize TOD as theyll ask for the OERs when you apply.

>>60638198
You're thinking of walk the dog, not dog walked.

>>60637384 (OP)
lol my car resells for $40k and I have probs $75k in firearms. That category alone puts me ahead of you and I haven’t even considered it in until two minutes ago.

>>60638188
forgot to add, don't forget to recertify your SLRP paper with CivEd(?) forgot the office that handles this but make sure you stay on top of this. The paperwork is not automatic, ive seen people get fucked many times because of they dont know this

Can't you get disability from the military for $4k/mo or something for the rest of your life? Just lie on the application.
48k/y in passive income is practically worth 2 million in liquid net worth. You already won just fleece Uncle Sam for all he's got.

>>60638313
>don't forget to recertify your SLRP paper with CivEd(?) forgot the office that handles this but make sure you stay on top of this. The paperwork is not automatic, ive seen people get fucked many times because of they dont know this

The paperwork and process is a MASSIVE SCAM, but it is possible to get paid. I'm a new LT, but I've been in for going on 5 years. My contract implied that I wasn't eligible for SLRP until I commissioned, but the actual SLRP regulations say you're eligible after one year. I missed out on tens of thousands of dollars because the process is intentionally vague and obscure.

Also once you actually start the paperwork they want like 100 pages worth of documents, multiple signatures and memos, and then current HT/WT, and PT. I had all the paperwork, but my HT/WT and PT test weren't in DTMS, so I got fucked and have to reapply next month.

>>60638312
That's good man. I've seen some back and forth on including cars and guns in networth, but I think it's fair game if artwork and baseball cards are seen as valuable. Cars and guns are fairly easily to sell too.

>That category alone puts me ahead of you
It's really not a me vs you thing. Just generating a discussion to gain different perpspectives. I said it earlier, but I lowballed my cars and guns in value by a significant margin because if I ever end up selling them it's out of desperation and I'd be more likely in that circumstance to shitty offers.

>>60638362
>Can't you get disability from the military for $4k/mo or something for the rest of your life? Just lie on the application.


Despite what you hear, it's not actually that easy to get 100% disability. The people who have 100% (or even just 60%) usually have tons of small or even major injuries that are lying under the surface. VA disability is lifetime injury compensation not necessarily free money for serving.

And the people who get 100% for PTSD often have underlying or legitimately diagnosed psychological problems. Seems cool but that can prevent you getting certain types of jobs and from owning firearms.

>>60637384 (OP)
>military reserve officer
kys zogbot

>>60637384 (OP)
HSA/401k generally aren’t considered for this because they aren’t very liquid

>>60639092
Who told you that? HSA/401k are as liquid as anything else. I've actually used my HSA a lot, and it's pretty clutch. Pretty much every finance guru I've include retirement accounts and HSAs as part of networth.

>>60637584
I aM PRetty sure most everyone got a CS degree (programming) since software is everywhere. The starting average MINIMUM TC is about 250 k which is helpful to get a home but the good monet is little later when you work a few years then all of a sudden SWE 4 or 5 heppens and you make TC aoube of 500k ? There is an anon here would is TC 8 or 9 (since he is about 40) and so he makes a TC 700k which si preppty good all things considered. Idk where your numbers are coming from.

>>60639211
Not easily convertible to cash without incurring early withdrawal fees

>>60637384 (OP)
Im confused youre not in 6 figure hell youre 18k shy and why the hell do you have student loans if youre in the military. Also why 0 crypto are you retarded

>>60637384 (OP)
that money in your IRA and 401K are lost bro, you will never see it again

wtd do you do with all your money? make a budget and stick to it. pay off your student loans and don't borrow money for anything else but a house. start DCAing into the stock market. personally i setup bank automation to move my money around so i dont have to do it, no way im buying crapto at ATH, ill go balls deep into btc when its 30k a gain and 4x

>>60637384 (OP)
80k isnt much. Good luck, youre like everyone else.

>>60639260
>ill go balls deep into btc when its 30k a gain
lmao
here's something that people won't tell you, and I will
2025 is an accumulation phase
2026 is the bull run
you can ignore me, but you will remember my post next year

>>60637384 (OP)
> defense contractor and as military reserve officer

Just end it all and die for israel, faggot

>>60637384 (OP)
80k isnt much. Good luck, youre like everyone else.
>>60637423
hello neet chad

>>60637384 (OP)
>car as an asset
ha

>>60639288
>80k
he does not have 80k
his money is in his brokerage (36k)
and savings (4k)
the rest is lost in the scam retirement plans that he can't move

Need alt season to happen

>>60637384 (OP)
Why would you buy a house at 100k net worth kek. Why do poor people do this to themselves

>>60640058
Can I? >>60640048

>>60640081
Probably, but why bother

>>60637450
He also has over 30k debt lol and 4k is a car
Not true 6 fig hell

>>60637384 (OP)
just keep your cost of living static while you DCA more into crypto and your rothschild IRA

one day you'll wake up and be halfway to 7 figs mostly due to crypto but also due to currency debasement artificially pumping your goybucks

do NOT change spending habits or you will cuck yourself
stay single as long as possible as soon as you get the military trophy wife savings will become nonexistent
but, do lead on the military trophy wife, white pussy is so cash

>>60640048
concert all your stinky LTC to real coins

I keep savings in a gold etf. Shit is so cash.

WorthTracker is a good app to keep track of this stuff. Be warned though it’s very fun to make imaginary number go up

>>60640498
After the etfs

>>60640492
>stay single as long as possible as soon as you get the military trophy wife savings will become nonexistent
I know people have a variety of opinions about wives working (earning less than you, earning more than you, not working at all, having fucked spending habits etc.) but having another source of income *and* almost halved living expenses is incredibly powerful to building wealth.
Again, provided you don't marry a dumb bitch or whatever.
My wife and I together clear $280k and only pay $2200 rent currently, paid off cars, and it feels amazing to put away $5000+ a month into whatever

>>60640596
I would love to get married and double my income, but I struggle with women a lot and I don't trust any of them.

I'm really happy for you though that you found someone like that, anon.

>>60640492
Thanks for the response. My spending habits are actually already pretty bad which is why I have so little cash. I set up automatic contributions to my brokerage, Roth IRA, 401k (obviously), and a separate savings account. If it weren't for that I'd probably spend every dime eventually.

I was also unemployed for most of last year, so I feel very fortunate to have rebounded and hit my goal.

what'd you go in for?
my brother is 24 and is very seriously considering doing a 4 year contract (35N), then using it to pay for school when he's done. why'd you go with reserves over AD?

>>60640897
I did 3 years active, 35N, 20k bonus. I made 150k last year. Got out right before covid

>>60640904
would you have done it again? i think it's a good option and i've talked to my brother a lot about it. he's smart, did well in school, but is just kinda lost and i remember being that way. desu if i'd have known more about it, i feel like i'd have done it instead of what i did. i just went to a state school because out of state was way too expensive. i know this thread isn't for this but, ya know.

what was your experience like? did you go to school after? what are you doing now?

>>60640897
OP here,

I'm infantry officer in the National Guard. I chose the Guard over Active for personal reasons. My dad was very sick when I joined years ago, and I didn't wanna risk away from him for too long. He's since passed.

And any intel MOS is good, but people who say it makes it easy to get a job leave out the fact that you have to live somewhere that it's in demand. Usually means working for the government or a defense contractor in some capacity. There are actually a ton of former intel people at my current job, and like half don't do anything intel related. The ones who still do intel adjacent work retired after 20 years of service not a quick three and out.

>>60640921
>would you have done it again?
Yes I got a clearance that guarantees you jobs in the outside, even with no experience. The GI Bill pays for college and a housing stipend while you go. I didn't make much but was able to save a bunch between age 19-22 including my bonus and some per diem for travel. Go for disability and you can literally get tax free money for the rest of your life each month.
>he's smart, did well in school, but is just kinda lost
I'd say that'd make him a good candidate for it. It would at least set him up for success even if he's not into intel. I kinda wish I did 35P and learned a language but I was fresh out of school and didn't like the idea of doing so much more.
>i just went to a state school because out of state was way too expensive
Yeah I did a year of college before joining. It was really expensive and I didn't know what I wanted to do so the Army was nice to get me a job and benefits while I decided what to do with my life.
>what was your experience like?
I had a good time, I went to Germany for 3 years and visited like 20 countries. My job was okay but my unit's mission was pretty bland. I did air assault school and the German fitness and marksmanship tests. Pretty lucky
did you go to school after?
I have like 4 classes till an associates in computer science, but I haven't use my gi bill yet. I'll probably wait till I have a house and use it for my bachelors and masters
what are you doing now?
I contract and use my clearance. I made 150k last year, 140k the year before and the couple years before that was in the 90s. The good thing with 35N is that you get a CI Poly too

>>60637384 (OP)
You're off to a decent start. But you need to keep grinding and investing heavily if you wanna make it in your 30s/40s. I highly recommend you start getting into BTC (and ETH). To put into perspective, my NW was about $100k at this time in 2018 when I was 29. Now I'm at $2.4 million.
If I was in your shoes, I wouldn't even bother paying off the student loans any sooner than is required. Same for the VA loan whenever you end up buying a house. You're gonna have a shitload of money in crypto in 3-5 years if you follow my advice but you must resist the temptation to cash it out for a house, car, etc.

>>60637384 (OP)

>>60640801
> I would love to get married and double my income
LMFAO. loser needs a wife to double income.

>>60641282
Cry more

>>60641300
I make way over the median household income as one person, loser.

>crypto $0.00
This is why you're poor

>>60638425
There’s not really much to recommend. With hindsight I should have concentrated my investments into BTC and ETH. 50/50 split beginning in 2015. Never fuck with alt coins. And dyor and invest in individual stocks that you believe in. My big winners have been NVDA and PLTR. Then read Millionaire Fastlane to get a business of your own going. Invest into building a small but self-sustaining real estate empire. Good luck.

>>60641300
I dont need dual income like some cuck.

>>60637384 (OP)
>This retard has the last opportunity within reach to become a wholecoiner but will squander it and become priced out forever by 2027

>>60640801
> I would love to get married and double my income
kek

>>60640596
>only pay $2200 rent
Thanks be to God for you. You and your wife are welcome to become my tenants anytime.

>>60641351
>dual replying
>to MULTIPLE posts
even if you get to 9 figs you'll still be poor because you're mindbroken
enjoy being (maybe) rich but retarded i guess

>>60641015
Not that guy, but what level of clearance do you need for it to be really financially beneficial? I had an interview for a job last week that will get me secret, but from what I understand, you really need TS for the real money

Stop putting money in your HSA, I’m married with 2 kids and only have $1k in mine. Max out your ROTH. Own very few things individual stocks, just buy S&P index funds. Your car and guns only count if you can sell them and keep functioning, can you get to work without your car? You should have $80k saved for retirement. You aren’t in 6 figure hell, you are in 5. Good luck, you are going to need it.

>>60641282
>>60641323
DOUBLE REPLYING
holy shit the seethe man

OP here new ID
>>60642652
Your clearance level is important but it's also not. If a job requires a TS/SCI and they need a very specific type of Engineer to fill it they'll hire that person with or without a clearance. Your military clearance and your civilian clearance are also seperately sponsored clearances. Having a clearance already, just shows the employer you're already eligible which lowers the risk significantly for them.

Some jobs will also post clearances as a requirement even if you don't really need it. My job required a Secret (which I already had), but when I got hired and asked about upgrading my badge to reflect my clearance level Security told me I don't actually need a clearance and that my DoD one didn't count. If you're qualified for a job, but it requires a high clearance level you don't have, just apply anyway. If they need or want you, they'll get you a clearance.

>>60642760
I actually don't contribute to the HSA anymore because I use Tricare and have free healthcare. You can't contribute to an HSA with Tricare.

>Your car and guns only count if you can sell them and keep functioning, can you get to work without your car?
Guns and cars are pretty easy to maintain, and my job is partially remote so yeah I could get to work if I told them I had a car problem.

>>60642652
TS/SCI preferably with a polygraph. With this and zero experience you can still make six figures being a guard/monitor/escort somewhere. It'll most likely be a traveling or overseas job. It also opens the door for some trainings. Large companies like AWS can put you in a program to be a data center technician or even cloud engineer if you just have that clearance, although with them you'd eventually need to get a full scope poly. Just secret can be a foot in the door to get TS though.
>>60643174
>Your clearance level is important but it's also not
OP here is saying a clearance won't get you an engineering job which is obvious(although my friend became a cloud engineer with Amazon through a program for cleared people), but I think is underestimating how many jobs just need someone with a clearance to fill the role, and how few companies actually sponsor for a clearance.

>>60637384 (OP)
How the FUCK do you have student loans as a vet?
Shouldn't you have used the G.I. Bill? What are you doing dude?

>>60637384 (OP)
>six figure hell
>5k in between savings and checkings

Lol lmao even

>>60637384 (OP)

You made your balance sheet weird af compared to mine. Good job on the HSA btw, young bro.

You'll enjoy life at a middle class level of varying degree depending on your employment. Or you can increase your risk tolerance and get in on the stock market at a higher ratio.