A Major Portfolio Milestone

As I'm writing this blog post on Friday, August 8th. The temperature here in Central Wisconsin is set to reach a high of 77 degrees Fahrenheit later. Not surprisingly, I plan on spending some time outside today.

Honing in on today's focus, my investments surpassed $200,000 last month. I'll briefly highlight the time that it took me to go from $100,000 in investments to $200,000. As I'll get into in a bit, I believe this demonstrates how much compounding starts to kick in after sticking with the dividend growth investing strategy for a while.

The Snowball Is Starting To Roll Down The Hill

Just like I noted in an August 2022 blog post, Charlie Munger couldn't have been more right with the following quote: "The first $100,000 is a b*tch, but you gotta do it."

That's because the vast majority of this amount is generated strictly from savings. Consider that I reached $100,000 in investments in March 2023 (this differs from my net worth milestone due to some liquid savings and my car that I own free and clear). That means starting from zero, it took about five and a half years to reach $100,000 in investments.

Reaching $200,000 in investments in late July 2025, it took a bit less than two and a half years.

Granted, the former did include a period in which I paid for my final two years of undergrad and saved up for my car. Plus, my earnings were lower over this period as I wasn't too established in my career. So, it's not a purely apples-to-apples comparison.

Still, it shows just how much compounding is beginning to work.

Concluding Thoughts:

What's really neat is that it was decades ago when Munger pointed this out in the quote above. Adjusting for inflation, I'm right around the point at which he says one can ease off the gas a little bit. I'm very grateful to be at this point in my life and hope to reach the next incremental $100,000 milestone in 2027.

Discussion:

Have you reached $200,000 in investments?

If so, when did you attain it? If not, do you have a timeline on when you expect to do so?

Thanks for reading. I look forward to your comments below!