Still celebrating becoming half millionaires, my wife and I did a quick exercise today to look back in our personal finance journey so far and reflect on key milestones in our net worth growth.

The First $100,000

We accumulated our first $100,000 in life by May 2003. I would not say it takes twenty-some years of hard work to get the sum, but by then we did have five years' of hard work in full time jobs under our belt (we were really fortunate we didn't have any outstanding student loans at graduation). At that time, we were satisfied with $2,000-$3,000 regular monthly net worth improvement, with some occasional bonuses as nice surprises. (And for the record, I started PFBlog at the start of 2003.)

The Second $100,000

It took us 19 months to get the second $100,000. By January 2005, our family assets reached $200,696. More financial knowledge and regular tracking and sharing via PFBlog helped us dramatically to get more savings from our income.

The Third and Fourth $100,000

The 3rd and 4th $100,000 came almost back-to-back. We hit $353,676 in October 2005 after realizing almost $100,000 in profit from the house sale before our journey back to Asia. Two months later, our wealth hit $400,548. If I deduct the $100,000 from house appreciation, the 3rd $100,000 took us 11 months -- our financials improved dramatically thanks to my wife's full-time income and the booming of our sideline business.

The Fifth $100,000

Now you all know we broke $500,000 last month -- 8 months after our flirting with $400,000. Expatriate package, business income and investment gains all played an important role in this $100,000.

5 years to 19 months to 11 months to 8 months ... I can only say our wealth accumulation is picking up steam. How will life drive us next? And can we cut 8 months to 7 months or even shorter for the next $100,000?