Hiiiiiiiiiiii friends!!
This is your monthly reminder to update your net worth, and then bask in all your glory from all those years of hustling!! Remember when you didn’t know a lick about finance or even what “net worth” was?
Someone on last month’s update asked me why I always feel bad for publishing these as I should be PROUD of my net worth, which I am, so I’m taking ’em up on it today and reminding myself just how far we’ve come over the 10+ years despite feeling icky at times sharing these around. It’s never to brag or boast how well we’re doing, of course, but to motivate others to track it too and hold themselves accountable! It’s been such a game changer for our finances since stumbling across this community!!
So whether this is your 1st time tracking it, or your 129th, congratulations! Stand proud and squash your inner critic for a hot second to reminiscence on how far you’ve come! Let’s all hope it continues forward! :)
With that said, here’s how the month of September went down for us… Nothing *too* juicy going on, but we did cross the $900k milestone which was kinda cool. Just one more Big One to go!
Net Worth Update #129: $902,133.51
[Click here for a list of all 129 net worth reports]
CASH SAVINGS (+$9,505.41): Up and up! But don’t be fooled – half of it came from shutting down our Spavings Fund last month, may it rest in peace ;) Though we didn’t do too horrible saving more than spending this month either, which was nice.
SPAVINGS FUND! (N/A): This will be the last time this shows up on these reports, but wanted to give it one more shout out as the $4,040.50 it got us was well worth the pursuit this year. Huge thanks to The Lady In The Black for inspiring this challenge over 10 months ago, as it really opened my eyes to just how much “savings” we come across on the daily!
THRIFT SAVINGS PLAN (TSP) (+$558.49): Just the Govn’t continuing to match my wife’s retirement contributions month in and month out, as she tries to make a difference there for our country! Lord knows it needs as much help as it can get these days, ugh…
BROKERAGE (+$134.88): Nothing fancy here, just the markets doing their thing as we haven’t added anything new to it lately. It’s basically our “catch all” account for any extra money we come across outside of our “sleep happily” number in our savings ;) As many of you know, I’m a firm believer that not every dollar needs to be optimized all the time, so that’s why we’re cool with keeping so much stashed that isn’t earning much interest… This brokerage account is our attempt to balance it all a bit better!
ROTH IRAs ($497.86): Same story here – nothing new added, and it’ll be that way for a while so we don’t make the same mistake we did last year and illegally contribute to our Roths! 😱
SEP IRA ($1,425.51): Similar case here as well – been left alone for a while now as we only contribute once a year in a nice chunk to max it all out once we know what we’re able to contribute (SEP rules are based on business profits). Here’s a fun screenshot though of how our investments have fared since switching over to indexing four years ago – it hasn’t sucked!
CAR VALUES (-$259.00): Lastly – the cars, which almost never appreciate! Unless apparently you own a Ferrari, as one of our commenters recently pointed out? But something tells me that’s just wishful thinking and a nice excuse to go out and buy one, haha…
Here are the current values of our two (paid off) cars via KBB:
- Lexus RX350: $8,080.00
- Toyota Corolla: $2,477.00
Total change in net worth this month: (+) $7,822.65
Inching closer to that milly milestone! Only 10 years in the making so far, haha… Don’t think this $hit happens over night ;) I’ve got way more gray hairs and kids than I ever envisioned starting out on this journey!
Speaking of, here are their net worths too – mashed up with a pic of my youngest babe who recently turned 4 mos old (look at those squishy cheeks!!!). Always a great reminder of why we care about money as we do – so we can LIVE OUR LIVES more! Because surprise surprise, the money ain’t about the money at all.
And then here’s how the past 12 months have gone, which also shows that this stuff doesn’t happen over night… That jump there in the beginning is due to selling off Rockstar Finance – which I’m still 100% happy about, although I do miss the community!
And that’s September!
How did you do??? Anything new or juicy to report? How far have you come since you first started paying attention to this stuff?
As always, some quick tools and spreadsheets can be found below if it helps you with your mission, but as I mentioned above – BE PROUD OF ALL THE HARD WORK YOU’VE BEEN PUTTING IN! Even if it’s more in your *brain* than it is your *wallet* at times ;)
I’ll be right there too trying to keep the perspective going… As you saw in our Never Have I Ever game the other day, I’ve come a long way from disrespecting my money over the years! 95% of that post was inspired by true facts from yours truly, haha..
And if this Joe Schmo can do it, I have no doubt that anyone else can too.
Keep on keeping on!
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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That’s a big milestone indeed, those kinds of things give lots of mental energy! Congrats man, and it was great meeting you at FINCON!
Yeah dude – excellent meeting you too and putting a face to the blog! Thanks for introducing yourself – I swear FinCon badges need our little icons so we know who each other are :)
Squishy cheeks indeed!!! Congrats on this big new milestone! Anything planned for the $1 milli coming up soon?!
Yeah – another blog post! ;)
Big month for us, I have my kid’s college fund fully funded! (insert roaring applause here) Now, I plow all savings into a FY$ account. With no debt, we’re looking towards a retirement in less than 5 years if we stay on track, but I’m trying to live in the moment ya know? Not sure where we are going to grow passive income in retirement, part-time passion/job, real estate or stock market. We’ve spent so much time getting to where we are right now, we don’t have the next steps fully researched. I am trying to readjust to that next research phase. Love the blog and the baby pics.
Well it’s a pretty damn good place to be in, that’s for sure! Congrats!!! If it makes you feel better, I don’t have much of a plan for the future either :) I kinda just do my best with what I’ve got every month and then go back to living life… I agree it’s important to live in the moment as who knows when our time will be up.
I’ve fallen back into my bad habit of reading without commenting, but I had to stop in to congratulate you on the milestone! Awesome job!
We’ve increased our net worth by about $164,000 since we started tracking, but alas we’re still in the negative. Can’t wait for the day we break 0 lol!
Love the baby pic! He’s gotten so big! Quick question: what money do you guys put in the boys’ savings accounts? Do you put a set amount in? Is it money they receive as gifts from others? Trying to figure this out for my own little ones.
Thanks for popping back in! You’re gonna have quite the comeback story later on – love it :)
And yup – the kids savings is pretty much just gifts that people give them throughout the year, and then when it crosses over a threshold (usually $50 or $100) we throw it into their 529s for safer keeping… They don’t get anything else from us other than love and everything they need to survive ;)
Nice going! You’re almost a financial black belt on my net worth ranking system :)
Haha… I’ll gladly accept that one!
Your September, proportionally, looks a lot like mine. Just a bit less than a 1% increase. It’s great to see 10 years of consistent net worth updates! I need to dig in the archives and check out some of the early ones for inspiration.
Congratulations on passing $900K. It won’t be too long before you hit the big $1M! We’re nearing $1.9M in assets and oh-so-close to $1.75M in NW. Keep on tracking.
Nice!!! Almost as much as your name ;)
Congrats on the NW!
We are $160 away from $200,000, so close it was almost painful to not be able to say we hit that milestone. Although, looking back since we got married and started tracking our joint NW (I tracked my own for years before), we have increased ours by an average of $4,500 per month. A lot of that is thanks to market gains and purchasing a home, but it still feels good considering we are both salaried employees with no side hustles, and paying a ton in daycare expenses for a 19 month old.
Oh hell yeah – that daycare is no joke.
I always enjoy missing a milestone so close like that though – gives you one more month of anticipation so you can appreciate it more before you move right onto the next milestone ;)
Congratulations on getting over the $900k threshold! What an incredible achievement. It’s so important to track your net worth. It really helps to see how much progress has been made at the end of the tax year to stay motivated!
It looks like Personal Capital is only available in the US, is that right?
Yup, that’s right :(
But good ol’ spreadsheets work anywhere in the world! :)
Hey, you should look at doing a backdoor Roth contribution for your wife.
Basically, if your income is too high to contribute to a Roth you contribute to an IRA instead. Since your income is high you will not receive the deduction for it. Then convert the whole IRA to a Roth. That’s basically it. As long as you don’t have any other IRAs this isn’t taxable and ends up working almost exactly like a Roth. Note, this wouldn’t work for you since you have a SEP IRA because of how the IRS determines taxes on a conversion. Best of luck!
Ahh yeah, was about to ask how it works w/ a SEP on board, dang…. But yes to the creative hacking! I see a lot of people doing that in our community but just haven’t taken the time to really research it thoroughly – mainly because this was the only time we’ve ever made “too much” (which I’ll gladly take as a problem!).
Its crazy to think I’ve been reading your site since 2013, I remember the seemingly endless stretch of the mid 300s. Hard to believe that was 5-6 years ago… I feel invested at this point, once you finally hit 7 figs its going to feel like a win for all of us
I had a stretch where I was flirting with a 500K net worth, but than a delay in payment for my business really hit my number hard, that and every fall/winter Zillow knocks the value of my home down by 30K only to have it go back up in the spring/summer (I do include my home value in net worth, but don’t consider it for my retirement number). Right now I am at about $420k after hovering in the 450s for most of the year and in the 490s for 2 months. I also do not consider 529s but those are around $125K.
Mostly I just look at my retirement accounts though, which finally made it to $250k Since I can draw from them for 22 more years I’m optimistic that if I never put another dollar in (which wont be the case) this will be a mil by retirement.
Oh yeah – for sure. Any amount of money invested will grow massively if you have decades for them to marinate on! At least if they’re diversified in some manner :)
Let’s see if we’re all still on this blog by then! Haha… I made it to one decade, but like the net worth, there are times I stall pretty hard!
That’s every job. Even when you work for yourself. I’m the type of person that likes to move around, I can usually last about 3 years and then I need to find something else because boredom sets in hard. Its just I’ve got to the point where I can’t make the type of money I do if I leave so I feel stuck. Partly because of debt choices (i.e. housing), partly because I am the only one that contributes financially, and a small part because if we decided we needed to reduce our housing expense I really don’t know where we would go, so I just stay put. Maybe one day I’ll grow a pair and just bounce somewhere and take a risk. It’s just with Kids, Maryland’s public school system is #1 in the US and Howard County is #1 in Maryland so…its like the best possible scenario for them and us without having to pay for private.
I hear ya man… def. takes balls, but plenty of people have found other areas to live in that’s good for both the kids and themselves, for whatever it’s worth… I cannot WAIT to get out of this state and back to somewhere more lowkey… Only 10 more months to go!! Come join me!! ;)
HAHA. Where I live is pretty low key, just not cheap. I’m half way in between Columbia and Frederick. 20 minutes to either but I’m in the nothing in between sweet spot. The problem is whenever I go anywhere outside of my bubble I get frustrated with all the people. Although, when I do go anywhere I prefer Frederick or Eldersburg over Columbia, because Columbia has become just an awful place over the last 20 years.
Congrats on the BIG milestone man!
I actually posted my first “Net Worth Update” today and had the same similar guilty feelings about posting it. I did give your blog a shout-out in it as well, just in case others were interested in reading about other bloggers who post their updated net worth’s!
As always, keep up the GREAT work.
heyyyy very cool!
congrats on posting it up for the first time – that’s pretty ballsy! :)
love seeing the other net worths in there too – as i’m sure your readers will as well because people love seeing real life #’s!!! makes this stuff more *real*!
J – Congratulations on the $900k milestone!
The stepping stones that occur on the journey to the milestones are so important to keep the motivation and deserve to be celebrated.
Our last month has been a month of adjusting to 1 income while my wife is out with the new baby. We ended up positive overall in our net worth, but getting the cash burn into cash growth is the goal for October.
Keep up the inspirational work!
Well congrats on the little one :) It won’t be the first he/she sucks up money, but they’ll probably inspire you to bring more balance to your life and work even more efficiently :) Mine completely changed my life and my finances for the better!
Great job! You’re closing in on the million dollar mark. Keep at it!
We did pretty well in September. Our income was great and the expense was low, what else can I ask for? Well, our net worth didn’t change much, but that’s okay. It’s just the market.
You totally inspired me to start tracking our net worth! I’ve now just done it for two months, but already I’m noticing changes in how I think about allocating our dollars. When we chose to have me stay at home with our kids and went down to one income, we had to stop our retirement funding. Now that my husband is getting another raise this month, we plan to put that money almost all in retirement, just because I’m so much more motivated to after tracking these numbers! Thanks for the idea :)
YES!! GOOD!!! It’s all about the *mindset* with this stuff. You can’t help but think about it every time you whip out your credit card or go on a hustling spree. Every last action you take gets reflected in the net worth – so keep on doing it!! I’m excited for you!
Well done with the “keep on keeping on” as they say, that’s how it is all accomplished, steady continual efforts. No voodoo magic here folks :) I love the interface of Personal Capital but isn’t available in the great white north so for now I keep on running with Mint.
True true… Mint is pretty decent though, especially if you don’t care to deep dive into investment analysis like Personal Capital is more set up to do.
When are you going to share your net worth?? I wouldn’t mind getting a private note if you’re not keen on opening it up to the world ;) (and I wouldn’t blame you!)
You are such an inspiration! I’ve recently come back to budgeting and it’s creepy strange how it makes me think about everything I purchase – it’s like the imp on my left shoulder saying “do you really need that?” I’m practicing for my retirement in 3-years to see if I can really live on less money.
For this recent post, I’m curious about your Net Worth chart, I see that you’ve included your vehicles but no house. Perhaps I’ve not read enough of your posts to know but don’t you have any equity in your house? Maybe you’re already at the 1-mil mark . . .
Welcome back to budgeting!! I agree it makes you double think all your decisions, similar to tracking your net worth :)
I actually updated the graphic up top to show a line for my liabilities as I got a pretty snarky email sent to me this morning saying my picture isn’t complete since I left them out, but the reality is I don’t have any of them anymore. Cars and credit cards are paid off, don’t have any outstanding loans, and I don’t “own” a home since I rent, so no mortgages on the books there either.
it’s just us and our saving/investment accounts – nice and simple :)
Congratulations J. I’m going to have a beer and do a flip on your behalf here just to celebrate with you…
Okay! That sounds like the perfect way to celebrate :) I might have to crack one open too! Lord knows I won’t be doing anything too crazy to commemorate it, haha… Maybe I’ll even treat myself to a nice movie out or something! (*gasp*)
Wow $900K!! Don’t forget about us small fry’s when you soon reach that milli milestone ;)
I’m a little over a year of real time tracking my net worth (even before I started the blog) and I owe it all to you and other bloggers who post their net worth. You’re right it really does show how real this whole money thing is!
Good job! I guarantee your $$$ is up more than it would have been had you not been tracking :) So keep going strong!
Congrats! Just calculated mine and I’m almost at the $400K milestone (<$10K) thanks to you and all the awesome personal finance bloggers.
Beautiful!! Half way to the Big Number over there!
So if we buy a Birkin bag AND a Ferrari, then we can sell them in ten years and live off the proceeds, yes? :D
I was looking back ten years these past few weeks and I’ve realized that by combining our powers, I went from my paltry piddlin’ $20k in savings to a full year of expenses in cash, among other improvements. We still have a long way to go for me to feel free but we’ve also come a long way. Cheers to your $900k milestone!
A year of cash – pretty impressive!! Maybe one day you can use it to take a break from all that working and spend some good quality time with yourself :) And then come out with the Next Big Thing as well as you’re chilling!
Basically a flat month for me – up only around 0.2%. Had to get new tires so savings took a hit. I’m expecting next month to also not be all that exciting and for numbers to go down. Just got the tax bill in the mail today (goodbye $3000) and going on vacation in a couple of weeks so vacation fund will go down – ah, life! Your youngest is still very adorable- love those squishy cheeks.
Yeah – I always exclude my “taxes” account here just so it doesn’t annoy me every three months :) I figure it’s not really *my* money anyways, i’m just the current holder of it until the gov’t receives it!
Wow! It’s always exciting to hit a new milestone. My numbers are not nearly as exciting but we are moving in the right direction. Our small increase was surprising to me as it felt like we were bleeding money in September. We had a car accident ($500 deductible) and some medical bills nailed us (no big deal, just a few hundred dollars SEVERAL times) all in September. Weirdly nobody was hurt in the accident but we still had unrelated medical bills. I guess it could be worse. I hate seeing our money go out on stuff like that but I’m finally at a point in my life where we at least have the money to pay for stuff like that. Ten years ago, a month like that would have destroyed us.
TOTALLY!!! And that’s really the point of money right?? To help us through our lives and keep us physically and mentally safe! Good job being able to afford such annoyances as they come up.
Oh you’re gonna be so proud, J. Money…
I’ve been tracking my net worth for 4 months… and have increased it by about $30K!! There’s a lot of student loan payoff and hustling in there, but still! Tracking my net worth has been an incredible motivator!
YOU ARE MY NEW FAVORITE PERSON OF THE DAY!!!!
YOU ARE KILLING IT!!!
!!!!!
!!
How old are you and your wife? When did you start hardcore saving? I love this tracking system my husband and I started tracking our money better because of this so thank you!!
Rock on!
We’re 38 and 36 now. Started back when I was around 28 – so about 10 years :)
You inspired me to start tracking my networth. On month #3 and I can’t believe I waited so long!
Good for you!!! Your money will forever be changed! :)
This is amazing! I need to start tracking my net worth too. Might help set better financial goals for myself
Also feel like better financial goals would motivate me towards being more proactive with investments etc instead of letting money sleep
where can I find the posts explaining your “baby” accounts. I have a 6 month old and would like to start similar saving plans.
hmm… I don’t think I have any in-depth posts around it, I just basically funded each of the 529s with a few thousand dollars when each kid was born, and then I set up automatic $50/mo investments into each one going forward after that. As well as dumping any extra bday or xmas gift $$$ they get into it as well over the years.
each one is invested into index funds that I just set up once, and then promptly forgot about and now just keep adding to :) I haven’t calculated how much each account will probably amass over the next 12-18 years, but I’m assuming that some of the kids will get scholarships of some nature, and by then my own $$$ will be larger too so it should be a-okay come college-time. But I should probably be better about checking things as the years go by, haha…
Wow mate, that $1M mark is getting in sight eh? Well done!
Way to go! I just found your blog and love getting to read real people’s monthly updates with their money.
I just started my blog about my path to FIRE and it was a net worth monthly update as well.
I look forward to reading your updates and seeing where your financial journey takes you!
Hey, very cool – just checked it out! It’s fun to put it all out there, right?? Definitely holds you more accountable too knowing that people will be watching and judging ;) Looks like we’re both stay at home parents with 3 kids too!