Retirement Accounts Page Updated – A Lot Has Changed Since 2016!

As part of my ongoing effort to update the blog, I’ve finally completed a major update to my [RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS PAGE].

And this one was definitely overdue!

The last time I regularly updated this page was back in 2016, when retirement still seemed pretty far away. Fast-forward 10 years, and that finish line suddenly doesn't seem nearly as distant.

The updated page takes a look at the major components of my retirement plan:

• CalPERS Defined-Benefit Pension
• 457 Deferred Compensation Plan
• Roth IRA
• Dividend Stock Portfolio
• Social Security

What has changed considerably are the numbers. In 2016, the combined reported value of the pension, 457, and Roth IRA I was tracking was approximately $411,000. Today, that figure has grown to approximately $1.22 million—an increase of more than $800,000 over the past decade!

The updated page includes:

• Historical balances going back to 2014
• Current 2026 retirement account values
• A look at the growth over the past decade
• Rough estimates of where things could stand four years from now
• My updated retirement income strategy
• Some thoughts about retiring in four years...or maybe even two

Perhaps the biggest change is that retirement no longer feels like some distant financial goal. For now, four years remains the target, but having the financial flexibility to potentially leave sooner is becoming increasingly important.

After more than a decade of saving, investing, and documenting the journey, it's pretty exciting to finally see retirement coming into view.

Check out the newly updated [RETIREMENT ACCOUNTS PAGE] to see all the numbers and where the journey stands today.

Multiple sources. Greater flexibility. Financial freedom.

Tracking My Road to Mortgage Freedom - Page Updated!

 

Mortgage Balance Page Updated!

As part of my ongoing effort to update the blog and bring everything current, I’ve recently started updating my Mortgage Balance page.

Home equity and paying down the mortgage have been an important part of my financial journey since long before I started this blog. In fact, when I wrote my original preface back in March 2014, I dedicated the first section to the story behind our home equity and the financial decisions that helped get us to where we were at the time.

A lot has changed since I wrote that post more than 12 years ago!

For those interested in the history, you can still read my original Home Equity preface here. While I’ve updated my Mortgage Balance page, I still need to write an updated Home Equity background post that picks up where the original story left off and provides some context for the many changes that have occurred since then, including the purchase of my current home and the start of a new mortgage journey.

Once that post is completed, I’ll add a link to it here as well.

In the meantime, I’ve begun updating the Original Home Equity Preface page itself to reflect where things stand today.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m actually more interested in tracking my mortgage balance than the equity in my home. Home values will fluctuate over time, and since I have no plans to sell or cash out the equity, paying down the mortgage is the number that matters most to me.

The page is still a work in progress, so I’ll continue adding historical mortgage balances, milestones, and other updates as I work my way through the numbers.

Like many parts of this blog, it’s fun to look back at where the journey started, see how much has changed, and continue documenting where it goes from here.

[ORIGINAL HOME EQUITY PREFACE]

[MORTGAGE BALANCE PAGE]

Updated Home Equity Background – Coming Soon!

 

New Background Page!

Click on the graphic or the following link: BACKGROUND

As part of my blog overhaul, I've completely rewritten my Background page to better reflect where I am today and where this journey is headed.

When I started this blog back in 2014, I was documenting our family's path toward Financial Independence. A lot has changed since then. Life took an unexpected turn with my divorce in 2024, and with it came a new set of challenges, priorities, and goals.

Rather than simply updating a few dates, I decided it was time to completely rewrite the page. It now tells the story of how my Financial Independence journey began, how it has evolved over the years, and what I'm working toward today.

Going forward, this blog will continue to focus on dividend investing, personal finance, and Financial Independence, but it will also include my experiences navigating life as a single father after divorce. I'll be sharing both the financial and personal lessons I've learned along the way, along with the occasional travel adventure as I work toward my goal of retiring in just four more years.

Whether you've been following this blog since the beginning or you're visiting for the first time, I invite you to check out the updated Background page to learn more about my story.

As always, thank you for following along and for being part of this incredible community. Your encouragement over the years is one of the biggest reasons I'm excited to begin this next chapter.

Blogroll Cleanup Complete!

Click on the graphic or the following link: BLOGROLL

Over the past few days, I spent some time reviewing my blogroll and have finally completed a much-needed cleanup.

Over the years, many excellent dividend investing and personal finance blogs have come and gone. Some bloggers reached financial independence and moved on, while others shifted to YouTube, social media, or simply stopped publishing altogether.

To keep the list useful for everyone, I've removed blogs that are no longer active or haven't published new content in over a year. My goal is to make it easier for readers to discover bloggers who are still actively sharing their investing journeys and financial insights.

If your blog was removed but you've recently become active again, or if you know of a quality dividend investing or personal finance blog that deserves to be included, please leave a comment or send me a message. I'd be happy to take a look and add it to the list.

Thanks to everyone who continues to share their experiences, successes, and lessons learned. One of the best parts of this community has always been learning from one another, and I look forward to discovering even more great blogs in the future!

New Blogs Added to the Blogroll!

Admittedly, its been a while since we have updated our blogroll. So we recently decided to utilize a little downtime, courtesy of the COVID-19 Stay At Home orders, to look through our blogroll. We found a few blogrolls that no longer are actively posting and have purged some of them from our list. At the same time, we also added a few new, up and coming bloggers, that have been active in our dividend investing community.  We plan to continue refining our blogroll in the coming weeks but thought we'd at least share with you the six new blogs that we have added to our blogroll. 

Without further ado, please help us welcome the following new blogs:

Dividend Power

Dividend Power is a self-taught individual investor who has been investing in stocks for close to 20 years. Dividend Power focuses on dividend growth investing with a long-term horizon and through undervalued large-cap stocks with sustainable dividend growth and capital appreciation potential. 

More Dividend

Jason began investing in early 2015 with his first brokerage account with TradeKing. After doing his research, he decided that the best investment strategy would be a combination of value and dividend growth investing. Since opening that first account, he has opened several other accounts including a RothIRA, Loyal3, and Robin Hood. Along with these accounts, he also has a Roth401k and HSA account but I do not currently list those assets here on MoreDividend.

Dividend Cultivator

Jimmy is an entrepreneur father with four boys and a software engineering background. His blog was born out of an elusive problem: generating passive income. Like many people, Dividend Cultivator earns a salary. However, he was looking to build a passive income stream outside of traditional retirement accounts like 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and the vast assortment of IRAs (Traditional, Roth, SEP, etc.). He has dabbled in blogging, building apps, and selling products online, but nothing has really stuck, nor has any of those side hustles provided him with the “passive” income stream that he is striving for. 

Seeking the Dividend
Seeking the Dividend is an engineer in his early 40s who recently decided to get serious about finance. He starting his journey in 2014 and similar to our family's blog, Seeking the Dividend uses his platform to document his journey.  As he continues to invest and growing his money, the blog provides his readers with many insights into his DGI journey, both successes as well as lessons learned.

Dividend Farmer

Dividend Farmer is a husband and a father of two. He is a technology product manager but also an occasional pilot and educator. The is striving to learn as much as possible about dividend investing and the blog is a place where he shares what he's learned to his readers. The blog is based on the tenets of Value Investing fathered by Ben Graham and made famous by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger.  Researching dividend-paying firms using conservative fundamental analysis rather than technical analysis, momentum investing, or day trading techniques is at the core of Dividend Farming. 

Capturando Dividendos

Nandy, also known as Capturing Dividends (or Capturando Dividendos), is in his early 30s. Before starting his blog to document his path towards Financial Independence, he was living paycheck to paycheck. His blog documents both the achievements and failures throughout his FI journey, which began in August of 2014. Through hard work and maintaining a frugal lifestyle, which Nandy documents through his income and expense posts, he hopes to continue improving his passive income and one day be financially independent.

We always welcome new dividend bloggers. So please feel free to leave a comment and we would be happy to add you to our blogroll.   

Happy 4th of July (Independence Day) Everyone !!

From our Family to Yours

Wishing Everyone a Happy Independence Day!!

Enjoy your holiday weekend with friends and family, 
may you all be 1-year closer to your own personal

Financial

Independence

Day!!