Year 1

Our story starts in 2004, a period in ancient times before the launch of YouTube. This is the year that I graduated from law school and started what would be my job for the next seven years (in engineering, not law). My starting salary at a small engineering consulting firm was $48,000.

The salary negotiation was bizarre. The president of the company asked me what I would like to make. I asked for $42,000 (since I had a job already lined up elsewhere for $36,000). He countered with “Does $48,000 work for you?” I spent about two seconds trying to figure what the trick was before suppressing a smile and responding with “Yes, that will be acceptable.” The vice president’s dumbfounded sideways glance at the president sticks with me even today.

Mrs. RoG (named after my blog, Root of Good) was still in law school at the time. Like me, she never worked as a lawyer. In 2004, we owned a rental condo that was previously our primary residence in a nearby city where I attended law school. We had just purchased our new primary residence, a house in Raleigh.

We had some investments slowly accumulated during college and graduate school, plus a fledgling 401(k) from a couple years of Mrs. RoG’s employment between undergrad and grad school (at a salary of $24,000 to $34,000). I guess we were the weird ones who graduated from college with a positive net worth (in spite of six-figure college loans).

By the end of 2004, we maxed out our IRAs, I contributed what my company allowed to a 401(k), and we added to our taxable accounts. In total, we added about $15,000 to our investment portfolio in 2004, bringing the portfolio balance to $64,000. We didn’t start Year 1 with zero dollars, but it makes sense to start when I graduated from college since that is when our earnings picked up dramatically.

If you’re really interested in my career before my first postcollege job, check out "From Paper Boy to Engineering Manager to Early Retiree."