Today I hit another financial milestone.
I checked my 401(k), and for the first time ever, it crossed the $100,000 mark.
Honestly, I wasn’t expecting it.
I thought I should have crossed that milestone a few months ago, but the market had other plans. My balance kept bouncing around between roughly $95,000 and $98,000. Every time I thought I was getting close, the market would pull back and I’d lose a couple thousand dollars. It felt like I was stuck just below six figures.
Over the last few days, though, the market recovered. I decided to check my account real quick because I figured I’d probably be sitting somewhere around $98,000 or maybe $99,000.
Instead, it was over $100,000.
That was pretty dope.
It took a long time to get here.
This account wasn’t built from one big investment. It was built by contributing consistently over a lot of years.
When I was working three jobs, I was putting 50% of one of my paychecks into my 401(k). I lived off the income from the other two jobs and let that account grow.
When I got my current corporate job, I rolled my old 401(k) into this one and started contributing 17% of my paycheck. For a while, I was also getting a 3% employer match from my previous company and a 4% match from my current one. I just kept contributing and left the money alone.
Buying my condo slowed everything down.
When I bought my condo in 2024, I had to take a 401(k) loan to help with the down payment and to buy my dad out of his half of the third rental property we owned together.
Between the loan repayment and everything else I was paying for, about $430 was coming out of my paycheck every month. I couldn’t keep contributing at the same rate, so I dropped my contribution all the way down to 6% just to make everything work.
Later, once things became more manageable, I increased it back to 10%.
A couple of months ago, I raised it again to 20%.
My goal was to finally break through the $100,000 mark.
Today, it finally happened.
Now it’s on to the next milestone.