Welcome to December! How’d ya’ll fair last month? Money go up? Down? All around?
Looks like we took a hit in the ol’ cash department but nothing too sexy outside of that. Not that losing cash is sexy – hah – but at least it was our own doing vs being a surprise :) You don’t often get too many good surprises with money, do you? Definitely not with managing rental properties.
“Yes, hello? Just wanted to call you and tell you HOW MUCH WE LOVE living in your house! Nothing is broken and we’re so happy we’d love to send you an additional $100 for being such a great landlord!” – Said no renter ever
Of course, now that we no longer have a renter and our place is up for sale, we don’t get any calls whatsoever. Even from our realtor because apparently no one wants to buy our house! (Goes to the corner and cries…)
Not all hope is lost however as it’s still early in the game and we’re under no illusion that it’ll be fun, but it is the reason our reserves took such a hit this month. No rent check in + a few things that needed updated before launching it out there (paint, carpet, the usual).
We’re bracing for good news this month, but please do send some positive vibes over if you can spare! I promise to put in a good word for you with Santa Claus ;)
Here’s how all of November broke down:
CASH SAVINGS (-$5,834.56): Mostly due to freshening up our place for sale plus not getting a rent check. Not gonna lie – it stings.
DIGIT SAVINGS (+$408.84): On a positive note, our Digit account got some extra loving this month! It took advantage of the cash I was xferring into my checking account to pay for the above and siphoned some out when I wasn’t looking, haha… But all fine by me. It knows I won’t be touching it so it’s forced savings for later :)
CHALLENGE EVERYTHING (+$317.66): Another great month here too! Though admittedly I’m not trying nearly as hard as last year with this challenge… Too many major balls in the air to focus on tweaking bills and decluttering right now. But fortunately most of this savings here doesn’t require me to lift a finger as it’s all automatic from previous me‘s doing – woop!
ACORNS (BROKERAGE) (+$28.17): A nice little bump here too, *tips hat*. Though all credit goes to Acorns for rounding up our transactions throughout the month and investing the pennies for us… I haven’t opened up the app all year to do anything outside of check its balance really.
MOTIF (BROKERAGE) (-$7.31): This guy’s gonna get the boot this month… Was kind of a fun challenge to take with some blogging friends back in January, but my non-attention to it since tells me it’s not something to keep around anymore. So, not surprisingly, all money shall be xferred over to our Vanguard account to intermingle with their long lost friends.
IRA: ROTH(s) (+$443.77): Speaking of our Vanguard account, a tiny little bump here too. Nothing too exciting, but then again all free money for doing nothing :)
IRA: SEP (+$1,977.76): Same with this department… Nothing new added but we tack on another $2k of goodness! Here’s the latest screenshot of how our funds have performed since switching over to Vanguard a year and a half ago:
AUTOS WORTH (kbb) (+$75.00): Not sure why this car keeps going up over the months (2nd month in a row! Haha…) but whatev. It only matters on the day we go to sell it (private party, of course). Here are the values per KBB, except for Frankencaddy who gets a lower amount due to its “uniqueness” ;)
- Plain Jane Toyota: $4,376.00
- Frankencaddy: $1,000.00
HOME VALUE (Realtor) ($0.00): We’ll hopefully know REAL SOON what the actual market value of our place is! Haha… And if not, well, we go back to renting it out and swallow the bitch of a pill it’ll be. But at least we’d have given it a shot and did our best amongst the circumstances, so I’m okay with losing a little money in the process to find out.
MORTGAGES (-$717.81): In the meantime, we keep paying these things off and get closer to that epic goal of having no debt INCLUDING mortgages! Maybe it’ll be tomorrow, or maybe in another 25 years, but at least we’ve gotten that front door paid off so far ;) Here’s what’s left on the two:
- 1st Mortgage: $262,759.55 (30 year conventional @ 5.5%)
- 2nd Mortgage: $25,421.64 (HELOC @ variable 2.8%)
The journey of our net worth this year:
And the journey of our two boys’ so far:
$7,000 away from hitting our goal of $500,000 this year! It’s a good thing we got another month left to see if we can pull through :)
How’d you guys do? Any big accomplishments for us to congratulate you on? Anyone hit early retirement outside of my mom? Say it loud and proud, baby. You know we love this stuff!
And if you want more net worth ogling, check out how 185 others are doing too.
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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Hi, I thought you’d be interested in checking out my Net Worth update for November
http://www.myricketyroad.com/2015/12/01/net-worth-update-november-2015-e1076/
Cheers
MrRicke
Congrats on the increase :) We’ll be getting your net worth on our Blogger Tracker soon!
You’re so close to $500k! Do you think you’ll hit it by the end of the year? I’m plodding along with my Ultimate Dream fund but I’m pleased with how it’s going :)
I hope we hit it, but no big woop if we don’t… We’ll reach it eventually :)
I like the name of your dream fund!
November was a pretty good month, both for my business and my husband’s. I think December will be a bit slower (even if we were surprised in the past with some pretty big contracts at the end of the year), but it’s OK.
Already making plans for 2016 and trying to start right.
A true hustler!
Not to bad, considering no rent and expenses associated to the update on the house. I wonder are the winter months typically good/bad for house sales? Either way best of luck with the sale of the house!
They’re worse from everything I hear :( If only our renters moved out in the Spring! (They were military and got orders to head out in the middle of their lease)
Hi JM,
I enjoy your writing and really look forward to you NW updates. May I suggest that you occasionally scrub the NW LIST/tracker of other bloggers? I used to like going over those but many … MANY of them are stale and haven’t been update in months if not many months/a year. I recommend striking those of the list that don’t do periodic updates. You will get more traffic.
Keep up the great work.
Glad you’re liking the blog :)
Definitely a tricky one w/ the tracker as not everyone updates them so frequently and it’s getting harder for us to update them so fast too since it’s pretty big now. I personally don’t mind the stale ones as it still gives you a good snapshot of a person’s money at that given point in time, but in a perfect world – yes. Would love it all to be as fresh as possible!
Let me think about the idea of scrubbing it though and see how it goes. We do kill the ones that go offline as we catch them, but it might be a good idea to put a cap in place too as far as length between updating. Thx for the note.
Glad you decided to sell! It’s tough to be without a renter (we were without one for three months before our previous place sold), but it’s good to be rid of the hassle.
We’re down just a touch this month too, but it’s due to kitchen renovations. Those suckers are expensive in when you DIY.
Hey sorry to hear about the small loss but we all know that not all months can be up. I had my second consecutive month of being in the black for the first time since I started tracking my NW over a year ago.
Good luck on the 500k mark, lets hope that the markets give us all a Christmas present this year and you hit it. I seem to remember a comment from you a while back saying something about shutting down the blog if you didn’t hit 500k this year, lets hope that doesn’t happen :)
*slowly backs away*
I don’t often literally laugh out loud when reading personal finance blogs, but your fake tenant phone call was a major exception! “Nothing is broken,” ha!
Having gotten that out of the way, I’m sorry to hear that you took a cash hit this month due to rental property issues. I hope you can find a new tenant soon.
Sounds like you had a pretty good month otherwise. Yay for Acorns! And I definitely need to go find out what Digit is ASAP.
Do it! They’re my current bff :)
Our November turned out to be a typical month, no suprises either way. Net income was up by $2,697.56 and our investments made us just $148.95 of that. Now I’m just hoping that the merkets finish strong for the year to give me an early boost towards my goal of $205,000 before my 29th birthday.
That’ll be a nice present!
Hmmmm….the Rental Biz….Welcome to “my world”….I’ve had units vacant for months, waiting for the “right tenant” in this shallow tenant pool. And carpet replacement costs is why I no longer go with carpet. I refinish the floors and go with area rugs. When the tenants move out rollup the rugs throw them away and buy new ones. Much cheaper and faster. Might want to alert your accountant about the carpet replacement because it gets crazy. As memory serves your carpet may be 3 years old and the tenants didn’t take the best care of it. So you replace it….BUT the IRS feels carpet has a 7 year life….I wish…So you have to add the leftover depreciation to the cost of the new carpet and depreciate the total …for 7 years…. So it seems to me one will never be able to recapture your carpet investment. Been there …done that This IS a tough time of year to sell a place. BUT your Realtor should keep in touch.
Good idea about the area rugs! Fortunately we only have carpet in one area so it wasn’t as expensive as doing the whole house (we have hard wood everywhere else now). And hell yeah – def. alerting my accountant of the carpet $$$ as it’s all over my head when it comes to taxes and depreciation!
Congrats on continued good progress :)
I didn’t hit a goal this month but I set one… Have always subconsciously had a target of £1m net worth by 45 and it has always seemed a very long way away, to the point of impossibility.
Well this month, after a debate with the wife who said it was impossible without taking more risk, i plotted it all out on a simple spreadsheet with some pretty realistic/pessimistic assumptions around investment/income growth. Lo and behold, thanks to the power of compounding and living below our means we can hit £1m by 46 according to my excel wizardry! Not quite 45, but that’s without even changing strategy.
Easier excel’d than done of course, but I really feel like I’ve got something to aim for now instead of just meandering along!
Good luck to all trying to accomplish the same.
“Easier excel’d than done” – this is my new favorite quote! :)
Goals are great. Stretch goals are great too. Someone else I’m too lazy to Google said “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.” Not exactly physically correct, but the point is well taken.
I aimed to be a millionaire by age 30 and missed. I was counting on a bunch of real estate appreciation, and then 2008 happened. But I hit $1M at the age of 31 WITH the help of my new husband who contributed in the low/mid 6 figures.
Love y’alls goals!!! You’re turning me on with all that Excel talk!! :)
My Vanguard screen shot isn’t nearly that pretty, but I’m so happy I made the entire switch. I think my favorite thing about this post is the fact that you continue to reap the benefits of your Challenge Everything work prior to this month. We really can find other ways to make our money work for us, can’t we?
Now at $603k and up a little over $8k (which is a few hundred dollars of what we invested this month). Frustrating that the market is struggling so much this year, but at 35, so, so thankful to my 26-year-old self who invested her a** off when money was tight. The gains from my late 20s are carrying our net worth.
As someone who is 30, I’m so jealous of those extra 5 years you have! I felt like the market was basically flat (except for last year).
Agreed that my early working years coincided with a very tough time for the stock market, but I will attest that when we were eating ramen and racking up student loans, it was discouraging to put money in the market only to see it disappear the next day. I hope that next time we have a big crash(and with the loans now paid) , I will continue to be employed and have enough cash on the sidelines to make some serious investments, but who knows?
Obviously I wasn’t in the stock market then, but I think that it’s a blessing in disguise when it’s going down. Those stocks are on sale and you really see the huge returns when it bounces back.
Coincidentally enough that was when I got super into investing too. And it didn’t hurt having an employer who was matching 100% of my 401k contributions too! Double whammy!
Awesome! We were up over 4k this month. Not all of it was stock market, but a good portion of it was. Keep on growing and chipping away. We get an extra paycheck in December but that savings won’t hit until January since all the checks clear then. Will be a good way to start the year!
You are definitely very close to hit your goal this year. I’m constantly working on increasing my own net worth as well. One thing I have noticed is that I need to increase my emergency fund. Just too many unexpected things come up that you don’t plan. These might not necessarily be emergencies, but rather just expenses. For instance, I have had couple conferences where I didn’t plan going, but things changed and flight + hotel + all the other things adds up and don’t let to hit my goals. Makes sense to create an extra emergency fund for those kind of expenses as well.
PS: I love your net worth updates, always very inspirational :) Keep up the good work.
Thanks for always reading, Reelika! And commenting! :)
One of the dangers of tracking month to month is that it’s easy to let it get you down, especially as your assets increase. Small percentage changes in investments can have a big impact on your net worth, but it sounds like you aren’t letting the gyrations bother you. That’s huge and takes time getting used to.
Sounds a lot like my year is shaping up to be, largely flat. Well, it could be worse, it could be down, so I guess you have to look at the bright side. Hopefully you’re setting the stage for future, more substantial gains. Good luck with the house.
The NW tracker is great. Hooray for Vanguard! $500k is a big milestone! When you hit it, what are you going to do to celebrate?
As for a congratulations, I’ve been helping my dad plug away and track his goals for the past several years. He hit a few bumps in the road that got him off track for a bit. It isn’t the early retirement everyone dreams of at 30, but we just found out he is going to be able to retire next year (3 years earlier than he intended). Super excited and proud of his efforts! I’m also selfishly excited about some free babysitting…
Haha awesome news! And so nice of you to help him out and realize it for him!
I’m gonna crack open a beer when we hit $500k. And then promptly get back to work after ;)
Feeling pretty good to see that as of November, our net worth has doubled in just one year, from $74k to around $151k.
Now, there’s some fuzziness in there (mainly the Zillow price for my rental property which keeps going up tremendously, plus purchase price of the condo we bought this year, which I’m using for the value of our primary home even though we are still early enough in that we’d probably not get all of that if you factor in closing costs, etc.)….but regardless it’s nice to see we’re on the right track. With a strong December and (hopefully) a nice end of the year bonus, we should really see things accelerate even more positively in 2016!
I’d say you’re definitely on the right track, congrats :) Over time you’ll probably find a better route to track your real estate stuff. I’ve tweaked our net worth handfuls of times over the years when things have changed or my beliefs have. Gotta keep it as relevant as you can!
Wow, you guys are doing amazing. Just looking at your vanguard account and seeing $33k of appreciation, that’s amazing! The compounding you guys must be getting on your invested money must really start to look like livable passive income.
Congrats to you!
USSFI
So close to $500K! You’ll be there in no time :)
I actually did great in December with a 3.5% increase in our net worth! What’s my secret? Well, nothing miraculous, just my end-of-year bonus, which all went into the stash. Nope, I don’t have a secret stock that overperformed everything else, but it’s still great progress for us!
I’m sure you’ll reach 500k by end of year, let’s trust the “santa claus rallly” :)
Love that you put it all in the stash! That’s hard for most people to do (though I shouldn’t be surprised since you’re on a finance blog, haha…)
Nice update! As we know, small red numbers aren’t so bad since it’s the long game that counts.
But hold up for a hot second — you’re choosing to sell your home in December? Homes typically sell for thousands of dollars more in the summer time.
You’re effectively selling at a time when demand for buying houses is at its lowest levels because 1. Houses are ugly this time of year and 2. Families with school-aged children don’t typically move during the winter (and they all move during the summer).
I hope this is at least something your realtor brought to your attention given that if I recall, this sale is not immediately pressing and you were debating whether to sell at all.
Always a pleasure to read, and looking forward to upcoming articles!
-Matt
Yup, fully aware of the downfalls of selling in the Winter, but as you know it’s never only about the money with big decisions like this ;) Gotta make sure it makes sense emotionally too, right? And if we fail, well, we just go back to renting it out again… Having a lease end smack in the middle of the winter will make it hard to sell at a later point anyways, so timing-wise we’re all screwed up right now.
J$,
Still killing it. Still controlling a net worth that’s far more than many will ever see in their lifetimes. And you’re doing what you love. Living a dream!!! :)
Keep it up, man.
Cheers.
Looks like your net worth is up by about $30k from last year, not too bad in a flatlined market.
Appreciate you saying that! I get hard on myself comparing it to previous years when I was killing it more, but then I have to calm myself down by remembering all the different variables in our life now… kids, living off 1 income, change in business focuses, etc. I should add this list into my monthly spreadsheets so I stop my brain from wandering! Haha…
Sorry to hear about the rental challenges J$. I was going through that myself this last summer – and as you say, it definitely stings. A lot! Keep your head up and stay positive though! You’re doing the right things and even if you don’t hit your NW goal for the year, you’ll likely be pretty darn close!
BTW – If you wouldn’t mind adding my NW to your tracker, that’d be much appreciated!
Thanks man!
And of course! I’ll make a note now to include it the next time we’re in there updating it. Thanks for wanting to be a part of it – always fun to add in new people! :)
J$ You might keep this tidbit in mind when you get an offer. I am currently selling my rental property and it is in escrow. The buyers needed more time to close so I gave them an extra 10 days with a caveat. For each day that it went past the extension there was to be a $100/day diem. After all it was a condo and prorated association fees, taxes, etc costs me money.
Hopefully we will close this Friday. Since the lender made mistakes they are paying the per diem. It’s an extra 7 days so $700 extra in my pocket as part of the closing. Yea!
Oh wow – I’ve never heard of that before! Way to pull that off!
Did it all go down on Friday okay? I hope so! :)
Yes! It did close on Friday and I did get an extra $700 credited in my closing costs. Picked up the check on Monday and walked into the bank with a big smile on my face.
” said no renter ever” Hahah
” cries in the corner” :) got me laughing before you dropped the numbers. Well it looks good even with the loss.
I can’t wait to be bringing in 2k in just interest/ dividends. Good thing market seems to be back up.
maybe you should decorate the outside of the house with holiday cheer set on a timer. draw them in with lights. ;) Crossing fingers house makes some movement.
Hahahaha… BEST IDEA EVER
Ha! Nice progress paying off the front door. I’m not sure we’ve even paid off the doorknob yet… loooong journey ahead!
Good luck with your home sale. Don’t forget about tax on that. It probably won’t be that bad because it was only a rental for a year. Probably not the best time of the year to sell a house either. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll get some offers soon. Great job on everything else.
Oh don’t worry, I’ve got my accountant on standby to handle it all :)
Wishing you the best with December house offers!
Thank you Fervent!! I’ll take all the good karma I can get!
Unsolicited advice on selling your house – realtors still write listings like they’re paying for a telegram, and it just doesn’t match the emotional element of home buying, or the fact that most buyers look obsessively online. This means that they’re falling in love – or out – with you’re house online. All the house selling articles talk about in person selling (classical music, bake cookies), but don’t talk enough about your listing.
So I recommend 2 things:
1) Write your listing for the realtor.
Write enthusiastically (without purple prose) and evocatively, remembering buyers’ hopes and emotions. Include nearby interest (walkable to groceries, park, major commuting). S/he may cut it down, but guaranteed you will have more time and motivation to put into a kick-ass listing than someone with 30+ listings.
2) Post your full listing on craigslist, and keep renewing it.
When I like a listing, I look at multiple listings to squeeze out all the info (so many realtors are laaazy!!). You will give a buyer all the info they want, for free. You also are not bpund by the same regs as realtors (eg you can say it is a great friendly neighborhood). Include address, MLS #, and pix.
3) For god’s sake, do NOT half-ass the pictures!! De-clutter, take down all personal pix and items, clean thoroughly, and photograph in warm light at a minimum (so many people fail at this!).
Even better if you paint (I like a very light buttery yellow everywhere – neutral but grabs sunlight and *glows* in pix), do some repairs and high-visual upgrades, and do basic staging. The pictures bring people in!!
That was 3 things, sorry. I should mention that I have successfully sold 2 places at significantly more than the rest of the market was getting. So this is part personal philosophy, which I applied and seemed to get good results with.
LOVE THESE! Our realtor is REALLY good w/ the writing so we got that part down already, and same w/ the photos actually (he hired a professional team to come in and they were so good I stopped for a second and considered moving back in! Haha…). There’s no one living in there so it’s 100% clutter fee, but I’m not sure on the Craigslist posting actually – that’s a damn good idea. Gonna look into that and if there isn’t one we’ll add one up there! I can’t believe I hadn’t thought of this considering I SELL STUFF ON CRAIGSLIST EVERY WEEK! #FAIL
I echo what superbien said. I took the same quality photos that they used in my listing and did my own ads in multiple counties on Craigslist. Renewed them offer. I noticed an increase in showings when the ads were renewed especially before the weekends.
I was able to track this since my realtor was Redfin (don’t know if you have them where you are). They track the number of viewings on their site, etc.
They also do a 3d walk through on their site of your property which was very cool.
And did I mention realtor fees? I paid 2 1/2% for the buyers agent but only $5,500 (about 1.7%) for my sellers agent. Redfin charges 1.5% or a minimum of $5,500. Saved a bundle over a traditional agent and got better service.
Disclosure: I am not a realtor or have no affiliation with Redfin. Just like using them however.
Thanks for the info! Way to go!
Great ideas. If there are specific things that you would like in the online listing, share it with your realtor. Our Multiple Listing Service (MLS) will only let me enter a total of 700 characters of text. That is not nearly enough space for all the details, but as your listing filters out through zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, etc. agents can go in and really enhance your house on the sites, but most don’t. Sad, but true. I would enhance the heck out of all the sites. Also, I would also have houses under contract quicker, if I did the showing myself…I mean, next to the sellers, I knew the house the best. Or if I couldn’t be there, I would call the buyers agent to go over house features. The other agents appreciated it and I think that always helped sell my properties quicker, as well. I know you’re all set with professional photos and staging. That’s great…makes a huge difference. First showing is online. Ok, love talking real estate. Best of luck for a full price offer soon.
My NW is continuing to increase as well. Of course the market continues to attempt to derail me… Great savings rate so far in 2015, I hope to continue it for another 6 months when I leave my FT job.
Oooh nice!!! Only 6 more months away, eh? Early congrats :)