How to Secure a Brighter Financial Future in 2025
Finally, my wife and I are back for another quarter of Building a Brighter Financial Future. It sounds ostentatious, but I’m running out of SEO titles at this rate. Creating a new blog post title is similar to creating new passwords all the time. It’s a struggle to be original.
While I might have referred to the journey as a “season” before, a “quarter” (QTR) seems more appropriate for the long game. QTR 1 (2019-2024) was about the setup and foundation. The second QTR (2025-2030) will push us through early retirement range. QTR 3 will be the trigger point while QTR 4 is the full retirement journey.
Based on our net worth and trajectory, we may fully retire by 2032 (with $7 million) or 2037 (with $10 million). This might seem bold, considering we started with a negative $108,077 net worth (deficit) in 2014. By August 2023, we leaped into millionaire status. There are good odds to reach millennial multi-millionaire status by year-end (YE).
While the last five years have been explosive, the time was mired with some setbacks. In faith, we persevered. Our success is something we grab onto and share with others. The next five years’ goals include establishing a new (forever) home, setting new roots in a new city, and seeing where the story goes.
Table of Contents
Anything is Possible When Your Financial Future is Dynamic
For anyone new here, The Neighborhood Finance Guy writes about financial literacy topics such as How to Grow Your Wealth, Budgeting, Investment Strategies, Retirement tips, and more. The goal is to help you make effective decisions, and set S.M.A.R.T+E.R. goals with your money.
Most mess up their financial plan due to inflexibility. You can plan for everything and still come up short. Those who understand that, learn to take the hit as a learning opportunity and adjust. Stay dynamic, the cards will not always fall in your favor. Your efforts (unfortunately) will not be synonymous with your outcome. The game is about learned acceptance of the things that didn’t happen and gratitude for the things that did.
As always, the information is FREE but the struggle is not sold separately.
Welcome back TNFG fans and any Newcomers
Cheers to the start of the new year.
Everyone will not get the chance to live through 2025. As such, communicate more, and forgive the negative cycles. It is time to bury hatchets.
People are rebuilding their homes while California is under fire. With the incidents in New York and New Orleans, the year already started a bit tougher for a lot of families and friends. Be mindful, because a better financial future promotes improved relationships and fewer issues like this.
Since we were snowed in the Northeast, it was time to draft our 2025 game plan. Sadly, Budgeting and Net Worth Tracking aren’t the norm but being normal leads to being broke.
With so many retiring broke and wishing that they understood personal finances, now is a great time to start. Time is the only true fleeting natural resource. You only get so much of it to live on purpose and leave an impact (if you choose).
A better Financial Future requires a bold approach while investing the difference
As for our household, my wife and I are starting the year with some much-needed introspection. We skipped the vision board in favor of three activities. One writing out and sharing our big material wants in life. The second, talking about our top three (individual) objectives. And, finally discussing the things that we want to do together.
We added +$200,000 to our net worth in 2020 and 2021 respectively. 2022 slowed down to less than +$100,000 while 2023 clawed back a massive +$360,000. If you were tracking with us, we hit average millennial millionaire status in August of 2023 due to the Public Student Loan Forgiveness of nearly $89,000. We bulldozed our way to +$517,692 in 2024.
All in all, the big lesson is that when quality stocks are on sale, you should lean in a BUY. As long as you have a long-term perspective (aligned to your risk profile), you should edge out +10 percent annualized gains.
Now, we are setting bigger and bold goals for the future. For one, 2025 is a close-out year for simpler home renovations followed by a sale. Secondly, we aim to be multi-millionaires by year-end 2025, meaning we need to add +$365,000 —learning to dream bigger and then conceptualize a reality where it works. The idea here is to think of a probable future and visualize the work you need to do to get there.
Feel free to check out the recap for December 2024, “How we missed the Santa Claus rally and still added $10k in wealth.”
Our Estimated Net Worth at Year-End 2025
Our Estimated Household Expenses For 2025
Work Smarter, Not Harder to Write Your Financial Future
Since 2012, my wife and I have revolutionized our lives. So much so, that we documented the entire process on The Neighborhood Finance Guy website.
I strongly believe that with the Net Max Financial plan, Americans can cut down the number of years required to work and become millionaires in less than 20 years. Turns out, we did it in less than 6 years.
As bold as that sounds, understanding how money works can help you generate more wealth than your 9-5 ever could. It’s all about working smarter and not harder. Even if some doors close, focus on the doors you can open.
At this stage, I’m more concerned with netting +7% to keep up with inflation. Expenses are slated to increase by 30% in 2040, the struggling season is just beginning if people stay under-prepared. That’s what worked for us.
We are sticking with the long-term wealth approach. Social media is replete with get-rich schemes and zero-risk returns; the truth is, that wealth takes time to build. You might not even see the fruits of it. This is why I strongly advocate wellness in association with building wealth.
Every new dollar is not as dreamy if you are sick, depressed, or both. Find financial stability and you will find freedom. Cash flow management is the hidden solution that gets you on the path. With the net max financial plan, my wife and I gained nearly 40 cents for every $1 invested. As it compounds year over year, our future is limitless.
If you need more information on wealth building, check out the Money Guy Show video below.
Building a Million-dollar Investment Strategy Grow your wealth
We experienced our first super big investment drop of $50,000 in March 2020.
We stuck in through and found that long-term investments favor wealth. Once you establish your financial foundation and stability, the next part is just having fun. And once you master that, rebalance annually or semiannually.
If you do nothing else, INVEST in an ETF stock like $VTI, $VOO, or $QQQ. I found it more beneficial for people to be in the game versus waiting for the right time to jump in. These are all ways to grow your wealth. This might be the last great chance to buy great companies at a discount and to ride the wave to 2025.
Don’t get cute with trying to stockpick or cryptocurrency your way to financial stability. It doesn’t work. Try my patterned tips for increasing your household’s investment potential by 111%. I’m sure there will be more declines in the future, which equal more opportunities for those who stay prepared.
Invest in a SMARTER Strategy to Grow Fearless Wealth
Unfortunately, Dave Ramsey would disapprove.
When people are hyper-focused on paying down debt, they often neglect all the areas where they could have reduced their taxes, increased their assets, and secured their financial future.
Just like having the PSLF pay off (2023) almost $90,000 for me, it was a better play to buy my time and invest the difference. In the end, I think I paid around $40k in student loan debt in contrast to starting with $125,000. This is the definition of working smarter, not harder.
In 2024, we will likely spend $12,500 on travel and an extra $12,500 on home renovations via credit cards. While packing credit card debt is generally a bad idea, it might be a reward card. It falls to how you manage money.
In the end, the credit card companies paid us $1,302 in credit card benefits, cashback, and rewards. Not too shabby. We aren’t passing up on credit card reward points. With luck and no emergencies, we should be debt-free by year-end. We are very strategic with how we spend and invest to make up the difference.
Our goal is to reach wealth velocity while avalanching our way up. Inflation and high prices are hitting but here we are. Wealth is (Contribution x Rate of Return) to the power of time.
This is why time is money. Your efforts today will compound tomorrow. Either positive or negative.
Estimated Net Worth Monthly Tracking
| Net Worth | Growth/Loss in Dollar Value | Growth/Loss as a Percentage | |
| January 2025*** | $1,645,680 | +$11,851 | +0.72% |
| February 2025 | $1,636,981 | -$8,699 | -0.53% |
| March 2025 | $1,617,046 | -$19,936 | -1.23% |
| April 2025 | $1,669,539 | +$52,493 | +3.14% |
| May 2025 | $1,680,758 | +$11,219 | +0.67% |
| June 2025 | $1,692,681 | +$11,923 | +0.70% |
| July 2025 | $1,752,125 | +$59,444 | +3.51% |
| August 2025 | $1,779,159 | +$27,034 | +1.52% |
| September 2025 | $1,842,427 | +$63,268 | +3.43% |
| October 2025 | $1,858,842 | +$16,415 | +0.88% |
| November 2025 | $1,888,183 | +$29,341 | +1.55% |
| December 2025 | $2,002,834 | +$114,652 | +6.07% |
| Total Change | +$369,006 | +22.59% |
***Post-Election Cycle, Expecting Turbulence in QTR 1 and QTR 2 2025
Economic Predictions for 2025
Here are a few ways to Grow Your Wealth Like Us:
- Boost bank savings to $50,000 and keep 10% dividend cash reserves in investments to buying opportunities in 2026.
- To begin with, invest an average of $2,000 per month in M1 Finance Brokerage focused on Growth and Dividend Income that generates at least $1,500 in passive income in 2026.
- Check out my portfolio in real time for pointers. If you like the platform and want to start investing, I have the $10 for $10 referral for added motivation – https://m1.finance/SYdqDJ2SyADC.
- Some deals for $30 or $50 match drop sporadically.
- We are shooting for a sustained investment rate with the push for a $2,000,000 net worth.
- To help monitor your savings, cash flow, net worth, investments, retirement, and more. FREE with Personal Capital! Sign up with my link & get a $20 Amazon gift card. *Terms apply. https://pcap.rocks/lawrencegonz
- Work on personalizing the blog. Update PowerPoint presentation. We are pushing to build out for the next 7 years [Net Worth Valuation $3M (2028) and $8M (2032)].
Disclosure:
This post is brought to you by the Neighborhood Finance Guy. We highlight financial literacy information, resources, and more on your way to money management goals and personal wealth. Our goal is to help you make S.M.A.R.T.+E.R. decisions with our money. We do not give investment advice or encourage you to adopt a certain investment strategy. Your ‘personal finance’ is up to you. If you take action based on one of our recommendations, we won’t earn a dime as of 5.2022. We operate independently.
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Good Reads:
- Top Financial Literacy YouTubers for Beginners, and
- Top Financial Podcasts for Beginners,
- Top Three Apps to Make Budgeting Easier.
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