Congratulations everyone! According to this chart below, everybody is rich in America! Our assets are at the highest level compared to our income in all of history thanks to tremendous asset price appreciation.

Anybody who bought stocks and real estate between late 2009 and 2015 is sitting mighty pretty. When you’re sitting mighty pretty, you tend to spend more frivolously and take on debt to buy things you don’t really need. But at some point, a percentage of the population gets carried away, commits financial suicide, and brings the rest of us down with them.

I’m really hoping the good times will last for several more years. After all, it’s more fun making money hand over fist than losing money. Alas, I’m worried that with cash-out refinances reaching pre-crisis levels, we’re bound to repeat our mistakes from the previous financial crises.

Ever wonder how net worth compositions change the wealthier you get? Look no further as I stumbled across this great chart from VisualCapitalist.com that highlights how much each asset is as a percentage of net worth from the Federal Reserve of Consumer Finances. If you want to get rich, it’s good to study how the rich allocate their money.

Notice how red (primary residence) quickly shrinks the wealthier you get while blue (business interests) quickly grows. The key to creating great wealth is to therefore build a business or acquire a significant share of equity in a business.

When I was 30, my goal was to retire in 2017 at the age of 40. I figured, after spending my 20s learning, I should spend my entire 30s earning.

Now that I’m almost 41, I’m glad I didn’t wait until 40 to leave the workplace for good. Life doesn’t end once you retire. It simply morphs.

Although I no longer consider myself retired with all the work that goes into running this site and being a stay at home dad, here are some things that have happened since 2012:

1) Written a book called, How To Engineer Your Layoff: Make A Small Fortune By Saying Goodbye.

2) Traveled to 30+ new countries in Europe and Asia with my wife. Angkor Wat, Cambodia was truly amazing.

3) Gotten my USTA tennis ranking up from 4.5 to 5.0. This would have not been possible without all the newly found time to practice.

4) Consulted for several financial technology startups ranging from seed stage to series C.

5) Built this site into over a million organic pageviews a month with no forum.

6) Grew passive income by 2.5X.

7) Bought and remodeled a fixer.

8) Became a foster child mentor.

9) Became a high school tennis coach.

10) Became a father.

I’m excited what the future will bring!

Whenever I publish posts with six figure household incomes and detailed expenses my comments section and social media light up with displeasure.

Instead of accepting the fact that higher income leads to higher taxes and that living in large metropolitan areas result in higher expenses than in less densely populated parts of the country, there is denial. There’s also a segment of people who display hatred for high income earners, as if living in a three bedroom house and wanting to eat healthier in order to be around to see their children grow up is an affront to their way of life.

Based on my observations, here are the types of people most triggered by others paying a lot of taxes while also trying to raise kids and save for retirement in an expensive city:

• People who don’t live in an expensive coastal city.
• People who don’t have kids.
• Students who haven’t even gotten a job yet.
• People who see a $1.5M house price tag and scoff, but don’t understand that if the median house price is $1.5M, then the house is quite average.
• People who work 40 hours a week or less and think they should be far ahead of the game compared to their peers who work 60 hours a week or more.
• People who are too afraid to make a change in their career or are too afraid to move for an opportunity.
• People who don’t tell the full story of how they make ends meet e.g. a reader claims to save $200K on a 300K income without explaining his taxes and housing situation.
• People who have a tendency to discriminate against others, otherwise, they would be more accepting of other people’s situations.
• People who feel their reality is the only reality that counts.

What the heck is going on folks?!  It’s OK to be skeptical and disagree, but to hate is unbecoming. If you are easily triggered in a personal finance context, I’ve got a solution for you. Focus on achieving equality instead of being mesmerized by the numbers.  

After publishing my latest Net Worth Targets By Age post, I received some pushback from people who felt it was more appropriate to use a multiple of spending as opposed to a multiple of income to calculate a net worth target. The argument is that most people spend less than they earn, therefore taking a multiple of spending creates an excessive net worth target. Fair enough if you want to make excuses. But don’t you want a challenge?

What if your spending goes up drastically due to unforeseen medical expenses? What if you have to start supporting more people? What if your investments lose money as we forget they sometimes do? What if you get laid off with no severance? What if you can’t sell your house to pay for living expenses because the market dried up? Because there is no rewind button in life, I think it’s better to be more conservative with your financial calculations.