Down a little this month, but lots of exciting stuff going on!
If you scroll down to the bottom you’ll see why ;) BABY J$ now has his own net worth – woohoo!
After reading your comments and thinking more about whether to include it in OUR net worth or not, we decided to separate them out and give him his very own spreadsheet to manage down the road when he’s ready for it all. And here’s why we went that way:
- That money is not ours, it’s the baby’s. And if he can’t end up using it for whatever reason (maybe he gets a full ride? :)), it’ll then be allocated to baby #2 or #3 or #10. Or maybe we’ll cash it out and then divide it up equally among them later to help them start their young lives (after we ofcourse get our a$$ handed to us in fees and penalties and what not, ugh)
- I’d rather take the hit NOW on our Net Worth than later and watch it drop and drop and drop every month as we make those payments, haha… better to think of it as a college “expense” right now than an “investment,” at least in this case.
So that’s what we’re gonna roll with for now, and we’ll evaluate it as time goes on. There’s never a right or wrong way of doing things here if it fits within your goals, so we do our best and then tweak later if needed. All your opinions really did help last week, so thank you so much! We got some great perspective out of it all – even those who told us to include it :) We were pretty tempted!
Here’s How The Month of October Broke Down:
MONSTER CASH (-$12,275.78): After months and months of selling that property of ours and making a nice profit, we finally decided to use a portion of it to max out both mine and the mrs. Roth IRAs at $5,000 a piece. It wasn’t as sexy as re-investing the money into a PHYSICAL property like I had initially wanted (or really, I just wanted to SAY. Cuz I mean, how could would that be? To say you traded an online property for a real one? :)) but in the end the Roths did make more sense in the end.
As for the remaining $2,000+ loss this month, it all went into the baby’s new savings and 529 college account along with a little more. I made a bigger profit this month that previous ones, so the extra cash helped to soften the drop by a little bit which was a nice surprise.
GOLD & SILVER ($507.35): We also changed this category up a little and I’m now tracking all my physical gold and silver coins that I’ve been collecting over the past few months. The actual value of the coins themselves are much higher than their pure *metal* value, but to keep things conservative and more liquid (‘cuz you can trade gold or silver to ANY shops these days and get at least 90%+ of it in cash right there on the spot), I’m only adding in the metal values here. Which fluctuate on the market just as stocks and mutual funds do too – making it even easier to stay on top of and get a more accurate report on a recurring basis. So you’ll see this number go up more when I add in new coins to my collection and/or the market goes on some wild swings as it’s been known to do ;)
IRA: SEP (-$1,716.09): Haven’t put anything extra into this category lately, and we won’t for a few more months until end-of-year business profit has been determined and what not (That’s what the SEP is attached to). So for now it just goes with the market flow!
IRA: ROTH(s) ($8,898.88): A nice increase indeed, but not when you realize we just put in $10,000! Haha… That was a fast way to lose a grand ;) It’ll be back up in no time though, I ain’t worried… We’ve got 40+ years until we need to tap retirement!
IRA: TRADITIONAL(s) ($1,676.20): Nothing new has been added to these guys either – just keeping my eye on them and waiting to have the energy to write up a report on how this little test has been going so far ;) For now though, here’s how they’re fairing (they each started out at $60,000):
- IRA #1 (NOT Managed): $62,593.32 **Still in the lead
- IRA #2 (Managed, USAA funds): $60,278.42
- IRA #3 (Managed, ALL funds): $61,134.46
AUTOS WORTH (kbb) ($120.00): Another weird month of our cars going up in value ;) I’ve given up trying to understand it, haha… It doesn’t really matter until it’s time to sell them anyways.
- Pimp Daddy Caddy: $2,072.00
- Gas Ticklin’ Toyota: $8,635.00
HOME VALUE (Realtor) ($0.00): Same $285,000 as it’s been for the past three or four months ever since we dropped it $15k (booooo)… but until someone else sells in our neighborhood, or the market goes crazy up or down, we’re gonna keep things as-is and concentrate on knocking it down more in the meantime. Have I ever mentioned how I dislike home ownership? ;)
MORTGAGES (-$601.28): Last month was the first time in a while that we didn’t pay any of our $2,000 Mortgage Killer money :( But luckily our normal payments already budgeted in knocked off some principal there, so at the very least we’re shaving it down as the months go on… I’m hoping we’re back to slaying it again come next month though. Here’s how they break down:
- 1st Mortgage: $282,475.38 – 30 year conventional @ 5.5%
- 2nd Mortgage: $38,899.39 – Maxed out HELOC @ a variable 2.8%
And now, time for Baby J’s Net Worth update! :)
You might have already seen it last week when we first talked about this stuff (nothing’s really changed since), but just in case here it all is again:
That about wraps it up for the month… How did you guys do? Did you beat my $5k loss? ;) Either way, we move on and work toward improving things for next time! Always be closing.
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PS: I’m serious about him blogging here one day – How cool would it be to watch the thought process and progress of a little kid learning about money? Who knows what the booger will be getting into! :)
PS: If you’re just getting started in your journey, here are a few good resources to help track your money. Doesn’t matter which route you go, just that it ends up sticking!
- The "Budget/Net Worth" spreadsheet - the colorful Excel template I personally use.
- The "Money Snapshot" spreadsheet - a simple Excel template I created for my former $$$ clients
If you're not a spreadsheet guy like me and prefer something more automated (which is fine, whatever gets you to take action!), you can try your hand with a free Empower account instead (formerly Personal Capital)
Empower is a cool tool that connects with your bank & investment accounts to give you an automated way to track your net worth. You'll get a crystal clear picture of how your spending and investments affect your financial goals (early retirement?), and it's super easy to use.
It only takes a couple minutes to set up and you can grab your free account here. They also do a lot of other cool stuff as well which my early retired friend Justin covers in our full review of Empower - check it out here: Why I Use Empower Almost Every Single Day.
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He just had an infinite increase in net worth… that’ll never happen again… hopefully :)
Haha… It may for our next kid htough! :)
We had a pretty big boost in our net worth in October because we updated the market value on our duplex. =)
Whaaat? Baby J$ is killin’ it! He’s where I was at just a few months ago… yikes.
Baby J$ is killing it!
I love that idea about you teaching your child about money at an early age. I would actually be really interested in watching him progress when the time comes. I plan to do the same with my future little ones.
Hehe thanks guys! I’m excited for him to learn all about the $$$ too ;)
@Mrs. Pop @ Planting Our Pennies – Cool! Congrats on the value going up :) Ours has only gone down over the years, ugh…
@Cait – Perhaps, but one of you have more responsibilities and expenses than the other! Haha…
Wow, the baby has a higher net worth than some people I know in their 20’s!! Thats nuts. Congrats on making sure he is taken care of.
We’re up 9k this month, bringing us up to $279k! But my husband’s bonus season is now officially over & the holiday season has begun. So between making dinner for a dozen people and buying gifts for more people than I want to think about, I’m guessing this is the last big increase we’ll see for the year.
Sorry you are down this month. But glad to see Baby $ is up!
We had over $3K upswing in the net worth in October! We had paid over $5K towards debt but we also had some wedding expenses to contend with (paid with budgeted savings).
I can only imagine what Baby J’s future posts will be like if he takes after you lol!
Teaching your kid the value of saving and investing money, even at a very young age, is one of the greatest values you can share with your kid. Congratulations for taking the first step!
@Debt an the Girl – Thanks! Gotta save while things are going well ya know? Can never predict the future!
@Jennifer Lissette – Wow, that’s great though – congrats! Way to kill it!
@Jenna, Adaptu Community Manager – Hope things are well in your area too :)
@K.K. @ Living Debt Free Rocks! – Congrats! $3k is awesome!
@Cherleen @ My Personal Finance Journey – Thanks! I hope I don’t bore him too much and he actually likes money stuff as much as his dad! ;)
Looks like Baby J$ is probably in 1% by age category already. Are the other babies already complaining that he should be taxed more?
Hahaha… ZING!
I love the idea of having your son track and comment on his own net worth! I’ll be recommending that to my sister to try for her own kids (I don’t have any myself, so that’s the closest I can come).
Hey, the more kids learning about this stuff the better! Way to pass it forward :)
Like the increase in gold and silver, don’t forget about platinum and palladium (the other metals)
Yup! Lots of juicy metals out there to watch for, just some more fluidly traded in the real world than the others ;) Though you can really do anything on the market too.
Our net worth is about to jump somewhere around $18k as we buy our first house. The appraisal came in $22k over our purchase price. How sexy is that? Of course we’ll be putting a whole bunch of money into fixing the place up, so we’ll see how long that lasts….
That is wonderful!! I don’t usually hear good home buying stories these days, so way to work it! And also, nice to see you here again :)
Stayed about even which is always frustrating LOL, but better than a loss I guess.
Always! :)
So I’m brand new to your site and catching up, but why is your 1st house value less than your 1st mortgage? Did you just move in?