Do you ever go back and read your old entries? I am surprised by how much has changed since 2014 when I started the blog here at SA.  7 years ago I was unhappy where we lived so we changed that.  We had been planning on staying and buying a different house.  Turns out we did buy a home instead of our townhouse.  But it's a completely different town and we paid a lot more than we had expected to at that time and got still a small house.  BUT I love it.  I love where we've been since 2015 so no regrets.  I'm happier now in the middle of winter than ever.

We didn't have that third kid because we ended up moving without jobs.  We ended up better financially surprisingly.  Here's an interesting take.

July 2014 NW $963k  /  January 2021 $2.3m (6.5 years later, so by rule of 72 it should have doubled...)

Retirement - $505,286  / $1.37m
Taxable Investment - $160,881  /  $710k
DD1 College - $12,118 / $85k ($42k ESA)
DD2 College - $6,758 / $75k ($32k ESA)
Cash - $64,540 / $45k - might be going up soon and debting investing more
Checking - $5k, one month float sameish

We definitely doubled our money.  The kids savings happened because we stashed quite a bit into their accounts.  But the ESA I started when they were born and am limited to $2k year.  DK 1 is 11 (2010) and DK 2 is 8 (2012).  So heavy liftying was done by the stock market.   Both net worth only account for home equity paydown not what I guess to be the homes are worth.

Here's a funny thing we are back to our old buget of $5k/month.  Seems like no matter how I try I have trouble getting away from that number.  We had it back when we were more frugal and we are back again.  I'm unsure how to save coming up.  I think i need about 3 month to figure out new income and budget.

Who'd have guessed our finances would change so much for the better in 7 years.  Have you looked back at all?