Back in action, baby! At least for now…
Had a great month in the stocks department (hard to take any credit for it since I didn’t do anything, haha…), and between that and our house getting a re-evaluation (up $15k!) it was enough to give us a substantial boost – in both worth and encouragement :)
The one thing we still need to keep our eyes on, however, is our leaking cash flow. While it has been a whirlwind of spending lately, what with our recent move and renovations and wife no longer working anymore, we have to make sure we at least stop it from further going down, even if we just break even for a little while…
I’m hoping some new business ventures and my recent jump back into blog/social media consulting helps to get us there again, but we’ll see. If it keeps up I really WILL have to get a 9-5 job again one day! For both change AND change! Haha… get it? ;) I miss having all those thousands of dollars extra every month. Feels so weird…
Here’s how net worth for the month of July broke down:
MONSTER CASH (-$1,944.19): While it’s better than last month’s $30,000 drop, it’s not really saying anything, haha… the one thing we have going for us though, is that we’ll soon be getting those rent checks in the mail. If you remember we went through a property manager to find a renter and manage it all each month, so they take the first month’s rent as their initial commission and then start passing the rest right over. And at the moment we’re in that limbo stage paying for two homes which is pretty much the opposite of fun :( But at least we have a renter now!!
529 College Savings (+$186.47): A nice little bump directly from the markets. We don’t plan on putting anymore in any time soon for reasons we talked about above.
IRA: SEP (+$2,498.74): Same here. Though I will need to figure out how to get my hands on a big chunk of money so we can pay into it at the end of the year in order to save a chunk in taxes again. Something I hope REALLY works out because it’s the only time and place we invest our money now that I’m self-employed :( We don’t have 401k’s, etc. Though we do still have the ability to fund Roths.
IRA: ROTH(s) (+$2,688.55): Speak of the devil ;) All new investments here will depend on cash flow and what happens with our SEP above. We usually fund both to the max, but obviously I’m in no place to count on that any more… wha wha.
IRA: TRADITIONAL(s) (+$8,235.67): This is the beauty of the whole lot :) Up $8k without putting in a penny! All our money here are from old 401(k)s we’ve since moved over so I could have everything at USAA, as well as full control of all our funds. And then since I couldn’t decide *which* investing route to go (managed vs un-managed/etc), I chose to divide them all equally amongst the three and see which one wins in the end ;) You’ll see the results of our IRA Test below. With no cut off point yet, which I really should determine at some point…
- IRA #1 (NOT Managed): $72,386.94 **Leader for over a year
- IRA #2 (Managed, USAA funds): $67,745.79
- IRA #3 (Managed, ALL funds): $68,182.33
AUTOS WORTH (kbb) (-$308.00): Lower lower lower as it should be. Even though I am debating on whether changing my car’s state from “good” to “fair” really was smart or not :) It makes a $500 difference when running the numbers through KBB.com, but I suppose better to be more conservative than not. On the plus side, my dinged up beauty is still ridin’ strong! Really glad I ended up keeping her in the end… very fun to blast music while creepin’ in the city ;) Here’s how our cars break down:
- Pimp Daddy Caddy: $1,562.00
- Gas Ticklin’ Toyota: $6,888.00
HOME VALUE (Realtor) (+$15,000.00): Wahooooo! The prices in our old neighborhood are going up up up, and for the first time in the 5+ years of owning the course has actually been reversed. It’s a miracle! :) You can read all about why/how we came to this extra $15k valuation here. It’s no $75,000 to get it to what we originally paid, but I’ll take $15Gs all day every day. I’m still in a little shock.
MORTGAGES (-$634.61): Nothing new to report here – just chipping away at our two mortgages bit by bit. It’s a good thing we refinanced all those years ago when we did cuz it’s now saving us a good $400/mo. (And on the flip side, it’s good we didn’t move forward with my 2nd “brilliant” refinancing plan from this year cuz my oh my have times changed!). So while we do still pay higher than normal rates these days, we’re blessed to be able to afford them all no problemo. And soon our renter will be paying it for us anyways :) Here’s how our mortgages break down:
- 1st Mortgage: $277,947.34 – 30 year conventional @ 5.5%
- 2nd Mortgage: $29,290.38 – Maxed out HELOC @ a variable 2.8%
And that wraps up our comeback edition! Quite a change from last month’s $40k drop, eh? But we’re still far from being out of the woods quite yet… Gotta get that cash flow plugged up and growing again! Time to tighten up the ship!
How did you guys do?
———————
PS: When do you think I’ll be famous enough to get on here? :) CelebrityNetWorth.com
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.
Get blog posts automatically emailed to you!
Congrats on the big gain in net worth this month J Money! I am a little confused. I know you lost your job, but aren’t you doing just fine working for yourself? Or is that to up and down to feel confident you can make it on your own? You are doing great, but obviously you want to keep the net worth ship steadily rising for the next 10-20 years before you could be comfortable enough to have enough.
I lost my job 2 and 1/2 years ago and have been self-employed every since. Mostly up days/months than down ones, but lately financial-wise it’s been down. More so than that though, I’m getting antsy doing everything online and working from home 24/7, so I’m thinking of making some changes up ahead to kinda fix a handful of things going on at the same time. But overall yeah – been pretty successful so can’t complain :)
We had some pretty big growth in our net worth this month, too. But it’s hard to get too excited about it since a good chunk came from an increase in our home’s value and that’s an asset that brings in no cash flow and we have no intention of selling anytime in the forseeable future. =P
Good luck plugging the cash flow holes. It’s always tough with a move since until you get into a routine you end up paying for a LOT of convenience. (And inevitably buying extra stuff because you can’t find the box that has the can opener or stuff like that.)
I know, it’s a lot more exciting when cash flow goes up incrementally than an asset you want to keep and hold on to, haha…
Nice to see things going the other way again :). Did your house go up more than the renovations you put into it, or was that the main cause in the price increase?
I didn’t include the renovations whatsoever – just happened to work out time wise like that :) Though I’m sure the renovations would help to sell it faster and/or at the higher point of the value range when the time comes.
Great job on your net worth increase! I don’t track things quite as closely but I probably should!
Well not going to lie I love looking at celebrity net worth! I need to start tracking the values of our retirement accounts so that I can get a better idea o our net worth. Although with student loans I don’t imagine the number showing up in green!!
Congrats on your net worth increase! Good luck in the future as well. I hope that trend continues for you. :)
Well done and yes your stocks did very well, that’s great for your net worth! I’ll be working on our net worth post for this Thursday to see where we are at. I chose not to make changes to the mortgage this year only because it made sense to us. If the market dropped like they keep talking about then we weren’t going to take much of a hit on our net worth. We have it at $329k in our Net worth bought it at $265 4 years ago but can sell closer to $370+ in our neighbourhood. I’ll adjust again in 2014. If we were that would be awesome!!! Have another great month! Cheers Mr.CBB
Way to buy closer to the bottom like that – you were smarter than us :)
Net Worth jumped up a bit as well, and I have been debating whether to take some of the gains in my funds and diversify? Can’t wait to see some pics of the new digs.
Great job! Any plan to take some profits from the Traditional IRA and possibly use the capital to increase the Roth? I did that a few months ago in order to hedge against tax-withdrawals in retirement.
Not at the time being (don’t have the money to pay the taxes on the conversion at this point), but I do admire those like you who have :)
Being a former active trader with my money (I was smarter than the market you guys!), I love to watch your non-managed fund continually lead your IRA stable.
That much of a net worth bump has got to feel good after getting gut-punched last month.
Congrats on the big month, J Money! I’m sure the costs and cash flow will improve as you’re focused on them. July was good for us as well…though part of me doesn’t know if I should be rooting for the markets to do well, or to tank for a few years so I can buy more. :)
Great month! Your net worth is up around 8%? That’s great in one month.
The property management is a bit strange. The one we use take 8% out of every month, I guess it’s about the same.
Ours takes 8% out every month too – but that’s just for the managing part of it all. They also charge us 1 month’s rent to get the person IN there for us. Which sucks.
Good job J Money! Moving always means your cash is going to decrease. It takes a month or two before expenses stabilize and you get used to the new routine.
Congrats on the net worth gain! :)
That’s a nice increase in net worth (just your monthly increase is about 5 times my net worth so… imagine that!) Keep up the good work and hopefully we’ll meet at 1 million soon! :)
Hooray for an up month! We’re currently at $460k. Only $40k to go until we’re halfway to the millionaire’s club!
That’s awesome!!!
Holy cow. What a great month for you! It kinda blows my mind how much your net worth is helped along by things out of your control like the equities and housing markets. Obviously, both have their down months, but passive income like you’re making is one of my dreams… Congrats :)
I guess it is all kinda passive, huh? And we just feed more money into it to help fire it?
Hey J –
Just curious – Are you guys still socking away an additional $2k/month towards your home’s mortgage or is that on the hold for now with the wife back to focusing on PHD stuff?
Congrats on the big month!
The Warrior
NetWorthWarrior.com
All on pause, my brotha. We’re no longer earning an extra $2,000 a month anymore anyways at this moment :( Having a baby and going down to 1 income kinda screws you in that department ;)
Baby Warrior and 1 income on our end are preventing LOTS of action on our part so I feel ya. Mrs. Warrior is at a second interview for becoming a medical office’s acupuncturist as I type this so hopefully my sole income situation changes in the next few hours . ;)
Stay strong and do what you can – – – – That’s my new ‘Im-a-new-dad’ phrase I remind myself of daily.
The Warrior
NetWorthWarrior.com
It’s a great line to live by! I’m right along there with ya, my man. Hope she snags the job!
Ours has been up about $50k over the past 6 months or so. mostly due to our housing market finally rebounding. Even though it’s phantom money, it still feels good.
Nice work, J$, and way to keep a cool head with all the ups and downs, especially while being self-employed!
Congrats! That’s great news that your net worth has gone up! Ours went up a bit too due to stocks and a big paycheck that came in for me. All my paychecks are like bonuses since we worked out our living expenses to be under only my husband’s income.
THAT’S BRILLIANT!!!
Great gain. Mine was another month of lower net worth do to unexpected expenses that I should have saved for. I was overzealous in paying down debt and left myself with no cash. Then things broke and I had to put repairs and replacements on credit.
One step forward two and a half steps back in July.
Blog consulting? Does that include how the he## someone actually gets one stinkin’ little ad on their blog?
Why yes, it does :) But unfortunately it’s not as easy as some people tend to say it is.
Congrats on a positive net worth! Last month tough, but you got through it and everything is working out for the better!
Congratulations! That’s a huge gain for one month.
I should add that I once got some great advice: don’t get too excited when the market goes up (or when your net worth goes up), and don’t get too bummed out when it drops. I thought I’d share those words, since most of your gains seem to come from this bull market that we’re in. Stocks will rise and fall; I think staying emotionally neutral about both gains AND losses is the best course of action.
Yes, it would be the best if we’re robots and can control our emotions ;)
You said you’re getting antsy being holed up in your house on the computer like some kind of conspirator, can you do any of your consulting out of the house? Just go to the library or something, internet cafe, starbucks (yea because a coffee shop will help you save money!) and just get out for a while.
Yep – have started to do that and it really helps. Actually came across this “coffee shop chatter maker” site too yesterday, haha… so I can feel like I’m at a place when I’m stuck at home for whatever reason ;)
http://coffitivity.com/
Just found your blog tonight and loving it! A new follower!
Must say though…was interested to see my net worth, so I did a little figuring…with sad faces to the end. Negative net worth. Ooofta, guess it’s good the man and I are living with the parents for a while longer to pay off debt and get that savings up!
You’re an inspiration though! Thanks for the motivation through your posts!
We all have to go through those same phases :) But we’re much better down the road so keep on sticking with it!