Hit $900K on 5/17.

At market close on Friday, 5/17 I hit $900,784 in my 403B, which is my ATH. It's been my goal for over a year to reach this point and here's why. I left my teaching career after 26 years last June, at 55 years old. I first started DCA'ing soon after I started teaching at 29 years old. I didn't know what DCA meant, I didn't really know what a 403B was, but I knew that it reduced my taxes so I thought "Hey, why not?" My private school employer put 5% of my annual salary into my 403B as well, which I thought was pretty cool back in 1997. (It was my first "serious" job so this was all new to me.) I can't remember what funds I chose or how much I invested each month, but I vaguely remember it was around 10% of my salary. As the years went on I slowly increased it to 15% and then up to 20% of my salary. My wife earned more than I did as a graphic designer but she didn't invest much other than what her employer put in for her.

Through the years I would periodically check the 403B and noticed that funds had different returns, so I started choosing the funds that had the greatest returns over inception. (I know, I know…not the smartest strategy, but I didn't know any better. No one taught me anything and I never went online to research.)

Then Covid happened…2020. I was still teaching but I was the technology teacher so I didn't have the crazy Zoom remote teaching schedule that classroom teachers had, which gave me some spare time to research and dork around on the Internet. I started paying more attention to my 403B and noticed that I had more control than I originally thought over my funds. Since we weren't going out during Covid, I upped my percentage to 40% of my paycheck. At the time (after *21* years or so of teaching, I was making about $85K per year (I know…that's below some of your starting salary in other careers!). I had turned 50 and realized I could max out my 403B with an additional $$$$ annually, so I took full advantage. My wife wasn't maxing her 401K and she didn't know how much I was putting in mine.

On 5/30/2021 I had $688K and on 4/3/22 I had $717K. When I left teaching in 6/23 I was around upper 70's/low 80's. After June I was no longer contributing. In September I withdrew about $8K penalty free using Rule of 55. Then I didn't touch it after that. In early 2024 I re-evaluated the funds and reduced the number I was invested in. I have positions in about six funds, listed below, whereas before I had positions in about 10-12.

I've been checking the balance about once a week as it got closer to 900K and so finally on Friday, I reached it! After 27 years! I've never made more than 90K annual salary! I looked back at the returns on the funds I was invested in and most of them were way over 30% annually in the past few years, so I know that really helped me out. (MADVX, JLGMX, VMGMX, VSIAX, RERGX, VINIX) I have different percentages in each.

I'm currently working a temporary position at the school, with much less stress, but plan on getting a full-time job in another field, although I don't know what. This year has been a learning experience.

In addition, my wife and I have about $450K in other accounts – Roth, Traditional, HSA, crypto and 700K equity in our house. I hope we can both fully retire within the next 5-10 years, however our kid has three more years of private high school, then college (50K in a college fund).

I wanted to share this because I feel that it was almost dumb luck that I had the foresight to put money in my 403 27 years ago before I really understood what that meant. It's not timing the market, but time in the market. I only wish that we had started putting money in my wife's 401 much sooner. We're currently maxing hers out. We're both in our 50's and she earns about $110K a year. We live in a VHCOL city but fortunately we were able to buy a house 26 years ago. We added on to our house and re-fied a few times and our current rate is 2.75% with about 12 years left on our mortgage. Not a week goes by that I don't thank the stars that we bought a house when we did.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading and good luck to you all.