So I wanted to see how compounding has worked for LAL and DH. DH started saving in 2005 when he got his 1st job and LAL started probably in 2001 but didn't save much! I have never had a 401k so my entire retirement account has been in Roth IRA. Here are my balances on the first of the year. In 2005 was the first time I contributed the maximum of $4000. The total contributions for 2005-2016 is $59,000.
1/1/2003 $1,604.43
1/1/2004 $1,649.98
1/1/2005 $1,523.08
1/1/2006 $5,797.28
1/1/2007 $6,055.02
1/1/2008 $11,247.42
1/1/2009 $11,964.48
1/1/2010 $18,810.28
1/1/2011 $21,820.45
1/1/2012 $29,829.13
1/1/2013 $39,922.18
1/1/2014 $62,515.36
1/1/2015 $77,467.00
1/1/2016 $83,467.30
1/1/2017 $93,054.38
On January 1st, 2017 I would have contributed at total of $59,000. But in reality I only contributed $53,500 since I didn't make my 2016 contribution till 4/1/17. So based on compounding I made $39,554. ($39,554/53,500)/12 for a rough estimate return of 6.16% return. The proper way would be to calculate each year but I'm tired.
Currently though with my $5500 2016 contribution I have $104,926.89 in my Roth IRA. Not to shabby considering I have now contributed $59,000 and still have to do 2017 $5500 contributions.
DH is a lot more impressive but he's had a 401k with match.
DH Roll DH IRA 401k B 401k V 401k F
$0
$4,000 $0 $4,871
$4,148 $24,581
$8,322 $9,351 $38,895
$27,149 $13,642 $21,491
$18,497 $38,484 $59,763
$74,170 $100,378
$81,580 $121,116
$97,781 $165,139
$134,170 $247,078
$148,742 $288,367
$148,993 $320,533
$228,543 $304,448
Starting with zero in 2005 he contributed in 2005 the maximum IRA $4000 and $4871 to a 401k. Not bad considering he worked 2 months out of the year. As of January 1, 2017 he has a total $532,991 for retirement in 12 years. He also did not contribute for 2016 IRA but did max out the 401k for 2016 so we didn't miss a year. He contributed $251,000 so an approximate return of 9.36%. Not too shabby. Plus with the $5500 2016 contributions and 401k this year he's at $598,962. We broke the $700k retirement savings mark combined.
I'm not sure where we are heading but we are up $77,840 for the YTD and 2016 we went up with contributions and returns $73,501. 2015 we made $40,157, 2014 we went up $73,151.
I am going to guess we're getting over the hump where our returns will be more than our contributions annually. Which is $29k/year.
While not fantastic or super exciting I'm thinking that overall we're average boring investors in index funds now. Before DH would try to pick stocks which might explain why our returns are poor compared to the market. It also could be we had a few bad years in 2008-2010. But overall I think in another 10 years we'll see around average 8% returns.