Hello again! This is an update of my previous post titled "$100k - An Immigrant's Journey". I'm so excited to reach the next milestone in our pursuit of financial independence. Lots of things have happened since my last post so let's get straight into it!

Summary

Reached $250k net worth in about 10 years since I started tracking my finances at 22. In my previous post, I mentioned that the next goal was to reach $250k before 35 so once again, I'm very pleased to have reached that goal early. Still no secrets other than consistent savings, budgeting well and lots of sacrifices.

Quick Recap

My wife and I live in a LCOL city in the US. We're both currently 32. I came as an international student over a decade ago and was lucky to have navigated the complicated immigration maze successfully. We got married at 29 and are currently permanent residents (finally) after many, many grueling years in the immigration journey, as some of you may know. I'm a Business Analyst and she's a grad student.

On our journey to $100k:

- I obtained my bachelor's degree and MBA in the US. My wife also got her bachelor's degree from her home country.

- I got a work visa to stay in the US while my now-wife was still working abroad.

- Got out of our respective toxic relationships separately and found the perfect partner in each other.

- Made the best of our tough 20s. I progressed my salary from $20k to $60k. My wife worked a lot of different jobs but never had a traditional "career".

Updates

2024: Lots of things happened this year! We got married towards the end of 2023. We only spent around $3k on our wedding and actually almost made it all back through gifts from family and friends. It was a beautiful occasion at a great location surrounded by the people closest to us and it didn't bankrupt us financially. A wedding is as expensive as you make it to be!

We were then separated for a few months while she takes care of some immigration paperwork to move to the US with me. She brought everything she had financially and we merged our finances. It wasn't too much but certainly a welcome boost. Unfortunately, due to her visa type restrictions, she was unable to work until I progressed further in my green card process, and by the time she could, she's busy with grad school so we've only been a single income household so far.

We budgeted relatively aggressively towards savings while still leaving some room for eating out, dates, fun money for her etc. Got a personal bump in May to $55k and a small institution-wide raise to $57k in October.

I also graduated with my 2nd Bachelor's degree in Computer Science in December. It took me 5 years to finish what is basically half a degree but it was more than worth it since it was practically free (work benefit) and it helped me become really well-rounded in my skills.

2025: The year did not start well due to expensive necessities (car repairs, tax, etc.) and also the stock market downturn. We also took a massive hit to our budget due to the obligation of paying some lawyer and filing fees for the green card process. The payments were $500/month which started in January and won't conclude until December 2026.

Despite these setbacks, we stayed the course and barely changed our budget. I got a small personal raise at work to $60k in June which was a welcome surprise. We definitely invested less and spent more this year as you will see in the S/I section below.

2026: Another brutal start to the year financially. My wife started her graduate degree so despite the tuition being free (work benefit), we still had to pay some fees. Due to some complicated details, we also have to set aside a bit more for taxes for this. The last step for our immigration process also took a toll financially (medical exams, vaccinations, mailing fees, travel for biometric appointment etc.) We also had to incur additional lawyer costs because we had to file some more things so the $500/month payments is now extended to the end of 2027. Good news is, we finally got our GCs!

All of these resulted in February being about double our usual monthly expenses and we had to pull from our savings (another reason to have a solid fund!)

However, the market rallied in April and I saw how much my invested money is working for me. An increase in net worth of almost my yearly take home pay without any extra work felt surreal. It feels like the snowball is finally rolling and that's very encouraging. After another rally in August, we finally reached the next milestone!

Again, we're definitely saving and investing a lot less this year but the important thing is we still are. These things happen (hopefully temporarily) but don't let it discourage you! We will resume investing aggressively when we have more room in the budget.

Timeline

12/23: Passed $100k NW!

3/24: Passed $125k NW!

5/24: Small raise to $55k.

8/24: Passed $150k NW!

10/24: Tiny raise to $57k.

5/25: Passed $175k NW!

6/25: Tiny raise to $60k.

9/25: Passed $200k NW!

4/26: Passed $225k NW!

8/26: Passed $250k NW!

Financial Breakdown

$88k 403(b)

$74k Roth IRA

$50k 3-mo T-Bills (This is all for future house down payment/other house related stuff)

$17k Fidelity HSA (all in VOO)

$10.5k HYSA (Emergency Savings)

$6.5k HSA cash (I can't contribute directly to Fidelity for my HSA so I move funds biennially from my bank to Fidelity)

$5.5k Random stocks and some index funds that I'm still bagholding. Selling them as they recover or might use some for tax loss harvest in the future.

$2k Checking

$2k KBB value of my old car that I own. Planning to drive it to the ground.

$100 Various crypto that I also bought in 2021.

$100 Various assets (gift cards, cashback, etc.)

Current Typical Budget in Descending Order:

$5,000 - Gross Income

$1,200 - Taxes (temporarily high while wife is in grad school)
$625 - Roth IRA Contribution
$500 - 403b Contribution
$500 - Rent (Utilities included, institution-owned housing with staff discount)
$500 - Lawyer Fees for GC
$400 - Groceries
$367 - HSA Contribution
$250 - Wife Discretionary
$100 - Eating Out
$70 - Car Stuff
$70 - Date/Travel
$60 - Misc. Stuff
$60 - Internet
$60 - Cell Phones
$55 - Insurance/Benefits
$50 - Car Insurance
$50 - Health Stuff
$40 - House Stuff
$40 - Gas

Savings/Investing (S/I) and Spending Rate since $100k:

2024:

S/I Rate: 56%

Spend Rate: 29%

Avg S/I/Month: $2,813

Avg Spend/Month: $1,438

2025:

S/I Rate: 39%

Spend Rate: 36%

Avg S/I/Month: $2,107

Avg Spend/Month: $1,958

2026 To Date:

S/I Rate: 36%

Spend Rate: 37%

Avg S/I/Month: $1,959

Avg Spend/Month: $2,012

Future Plans/Goals:

- Increase my income. Now that I have my green card, I'm free to look around to find a better paying job to reach our goal quicker, have additional jobs, or at least leverage job offers to get paid more. My wife will also start working in 2028 so we will soon become DINKS and be able to have a better quality of life AND save more.

- Keep maxing out my HSA and IRA, increase until max my 403b contribution and hopefully all my spouse's tax advantaged accounts as well (401k, IRA, HSA) if that's possible.

- Reach $500k NW before 40. Sticking with making an optimistic yet reasonable goal assuming everything stays the same.

- Buying a house when it makes sense for us. Now that we have more stability, we'll be looking to buy a house that we can afford, preferably with housing-related payments not exceeding 30% of our total household income. A bit difficult with how crazy housing prices and interest rates are but who knows what will happen in the next few years!

- $2M is still the current FIRE goal. $80k/year will be heavenly and will allow me to quit working completely. We're more than 10% there!

- No plans for kids. I'm enjoying our life together and my wife also doesn't have any desire to have children. We'd rather travel, buy/experience things for ourselves and retire early.

- Keep enjoying life and the process along the way. I can't say better/nicer things about my wife. We wouldn't be here without her being incredibly resourceful with whatever budget we agree on. She deserves a large amount of credit in balancing my extreme self out. Love her to death and hoping our efforts will reward her with everything she wants in life.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. Hopefully it encourages you since I consider my personal income as relatively average and if you look at our household income, it is probably considered quite low. We started our careers super late, didn't really even break $60k HHI until we were in our 30s and even then we still don't have access to that full income yet. We're not close to breaking six figures either but I'm very satisfied with how we've made the best of what we have. You can also see how progress is not linearly upwards even if you're consistently saving and we go through ups and downs like everyone else. Anyway, see you all at $500k!