Working Toward Retirement – July

This month our retirement savings is up $2,148. Not as good as last month, but at least its growth.

Since my last retirement post, my work 401k peaked at 31%, but took a dramatic tumble to 29%. I’m kidding of course. These high rates of return are going to really help our average over the years when we experience low or (shudder) negative returns.

As I wrote in April, this July I would do a comparison of where our accounts stand a year after my first post.

Since that post my work 401k has gone from $102,618 to $110,032. $7,414?!?

That’s anticlimactic. My mood started waning as I was typing it.

I was really expecting to see something more impressive since my year to date rate of return (based on my company’s October 1st fiscal year) has been so high. I guess July to October of 2020 really sucked ass. Haha.

Lets look at our Roth IRAs, but first excuse me while I go get some tissues.

Our Roth IRAs went from $19,152 to a whopping $22,499.

Wait a minute. I was looking at the numbers from April when I mentioned the annual comparison so that I could link it above. Hold please.

So in July of 2020, my work 401k was $69,138. That would be a difference of $40,894. Whew. That makes be feel a little better, but lets take a look at the growth.

I wasn’t going to be completely accurate here because I received raises and bonuses that contributed to the deposits, plus we increased our contributions from 9% to 10% during this past year, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep if I half ass’d it.

Looking back through the posts, it looks like our total deposits were $15,086 in my work 401k. That would be $25,808 in growth. That’s more like it. Now for the Roth IRAs.

This one is a little easier because I don’t really need to look back. We maxed it out last year with my bonuses and we’ve contributed $1000 each month since.

$12,000 last year, plus $7,000 this year brings us to a total of…hold on. Let me get a calculator.

$20,001. Wait, hold on. $19,000. $19,000? Yeah, $19,000. That would make our Roth IRA growth $3,499. Not as impressive as the 401k, but it is a little baby bird and isn’t able to experience the same compound growth, yet.

So, I’ll try to make July a benchmark to see how things have grown since the year prior. Hopefully next time I pay attention to what month I am comparing it to. I can’t make any guarantees though.