Another month, another money update!
It feels quite funny rejoicing about our jump in net worth here when we’re about to unload $18,000+ in the very near future, but I guess for right now we can smile one last time before it takes a dive, right? :) Technically we’re still up since we haven’t paid anything yet! Haha…
All that aside though, May was a perfect snapshot of what an ideal monthly update SHOULD look like. Savings and investments were up, mortgages and car values were down (as to be expected), and overall everything plopped into place exactly like they’re supposed to be when you rock your money. If it weren’t for what’s to come I’d totally be doing cartwheels naked down main street! It’s too bad you’ll have to miss that ;)
Here’s how May broke down:
MONSTER CASH (+1,585.72): The first big jump in savings in quite some time. I was peering through some past few updates we’ve had, and 75% of them were all down months. We had good reasons for most of those times, of course, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been bleeding cash over the past handful of months. Something we’ll def. have to be cautious of going forward from this point in time – now that all our major stuff will be out of the way
529 College Savings (+$125.99): A nice uptick from money already invested and being left alone.
IRA: SEP (+$2,157.97): And same here!! Nothing new added, yet the account still continues to grow while you sleep :) My favorite type of making money! (Until the market turns psycho, of course…)
IRA: ROTH(s) (+$2,375.77): Same. Nothing new added but a nice increase nonetheless.
IRA: TRADITIONAL(s) (+$5,259.04): This one too! Five large ones from just sitting back and watching the money grow! WOO! If that’s not proof socking away money is smart, I don’t know what else is. And here’s how they’re all broken down too, still with our IRA Test in the works (with no definitive end in site still… cuz I’m lazy):
- IRA #1 (NOT Managed): $71,664.75 **Leader for over a year
- IRA #2 (Managed, USAA funds): $67,606.7
- IRA #3 (Managed, ALL funds): $68,308.81
AUTOS WORTH (kbb) (-$597.00): My Cadillac literally went down ONE dollar, haha… that’s awesome. Though not so much dealing with insurance now after our latest car incident, ugh… Gonna be blogging about that one in a bit… Not a fun decision about to be made :(
- Pimp Daddy Caddy: $2,159.00
- Gas Ticklin’ Toyota: $7,218.00
HOME VALUE (Realtor) ($0.00): This one remains the same as it has been for a while too – set at $285,000 when the last home in our neighborhood sold. It’s quite possible it’s increased a tad since then, but I’m not going to bother with looking into it yet until we need that info for something specific down the road. Like maybe selling our house or something… Better for it to remain lower than it should be than the opposite! :).
MORTGAGES (-$633.85): This is the mark it hovers at when we’re not putting Operation Kill Mortgages into effect. AKA knocking away $2,000 extra in principal each month. It’s safe to say we won’t be getting back to that anytime soon with all these moving/housing expenses we’ve been coming into. And honestly, not even sure it makes sense to continue to pay down much right now since it’s now an investment property? I’ll have to give that some more thought and see how I feel about it – it’s all kinda been on pause lately.
- 1st Mortgage: $278,962.12 – 30 year conventional @ 5.5%
- 2nd Mortgage: $29,553.42 – Maxed out HELOC @ a variable 2.8%
That’s it for this month! How did you guys do? Anyone else feeling mildly uncomfortable knowing large expenses are looming around the corner? We can all commiserate together and feel better about ourselves ;)
In all seriousness though, I do hope your tracking and paying attention to all this stuff is really going well. It’s an incredible feeling knowing your hard work and patience is paying off each and every month – all helping you get to your goals that much faster. It’s not always fun or that exhilarating at times, but every time you do that update it should hopefully be motivating you to keep on going strong.
At the very least, it’s important to know *where* all your money is at all times. You’d be amazed at how many of your friends can’t even tell you that!
Your friend in wealth,
———————
PS: How sickening was Game of Thrones this week??? My word!
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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Great month J Money! Anytime you are up over $10k in a month, you should be pretty happy. Have you tried to get the mortgage refinanced off from that 5.5%? I have a feeling you have, but have had problems because you are just a bit upside down? Have you considered taking some of that monster cash and turning right side up so you can drop that moster mortgage down to 3.5%ish? That should give you $300-500 more per month to play with. You could probably rebuild the amount you spend fairly quickly.
great minds my man, read this ;)
https://budgetsaresexy.com/2013/01/my-new-refinancing-plan-brilliant-or-stupid/
and then the follow up:
https://budgetsaresexy.com/2013/03/bye-bye-american-refinance-plan/
Yeah man, love it when a plan comes together and the good guys start to kick some pirate booty. Wait – what? Anyway, I’m doing a cyber cabbage patch for you (in a strictly cool way).
We’re doing well over here due to a recent move – from 75 miles away from work to 6 miles. Sold two vehicles, and a pile of other stuff to the tune of about $12k in the past 6 weeks or so. Riding bike everyday. Locked in another 2-year lease for our best tenants. They successfully negotiated a cheaper rent, but they’re awesome — which is valuable to us.
When you tack on $11k in net worth in a month, you’re doing something right. Well done.
Yeah doggy – work it! I might be car-less here too in the near future all depending on what happens with my car and insurance (got in a wreck last week). Always gotta be hustling!
My net worth went up during my last update and recovered from buying our house, so that’s good. It’ll be slow growth or small declines until we finish fixing up the rental property and get it rented out. Then I think I ‘ll be headed up up and away at that point.
Hopefully those upgrades increase the value of your home a bit, but I never was good at factoring renovations into my net worth. I guess I always figured I’d realize the gain once I sold.
That sounds awesome about your rental house and net worth man, way to go :) We’ll most DEF be seeing a loss next month cuz of our renovations – I agree you can’t factor them in as they’ll pay (or not?) pay off in the future, either with monthly income or when you sell. And hopefully it’s the latter!
Great month! And in answer to your question I HATE knowing that there are big expenses just round the corner, I set aside money for them and pay them as soon in advance as is physically possible, that way all the money that is left is mine to do whatever I wish with! (I do this method with paying every bill including saving £500 a month)
Great way to do it indeed. If we don’t have the option of putting it on the credit card (for rewards), then we just usually pay it ASAP too. Lingering debts are no fun!
Congratulations on another month of solid progress in building your net worth.
I’m nervous to do my update, its gunna be bad and I know it so it makes me not want to do it at all lol
haha…. better to pull that band aid off now, baby!
Looks like another great month. The stock market had another decent month and it shows in your net worth. It looks like June may take a step back (through 3 days so far), but hopefully it doesn’t fall too much. As long as you have the cash, I wouldn’t worry too much about the large expenses upcoming. Hopefully it raises your house value by at least the amount you’re putting into it (net zero affect on net worth).
Hopefully :) Though we won’t see the gain until months – if not years – later. Which is fine really to me, as long as our worth overall is on the right path. I don’t need it to show sexy numbers sooner than later, though it does make me feel better :)
Rock on with another good month! Leslie and I didn’t do as well as we wanted, but we’re happy for the learning opportunity May gave us. Things will work much more smoothly this month!
nice post, love it. a suggestion would be another coloumn showing =/-%
+/- % month over month
That would be a good idea actually :) Though for me I’m better at understanding real dollar amounts than %’s, but it does add another level of scrutiny which is kinda nice… I’ll add it to my thinking list.
Wow good job with the net worth increase!
Congratulations on your net worth increase. My wife and I spend a little extra in May as compared to the previous month. The unexpected expenses poured this month. Nonetheless, we still managed to increase our savings. :)
Know the feeling. We had some hefty gains in may in our cash account but on the last day of the month had to get a new AC installed in our duplex. Ouch. They still haven’t billed us, so the gains are there for now, but are going to be gone pretty soon.
ouch indeed! don’t even wanna know what that costs in a duplex :( it’s a good thing y’all are smart w/ your money!
Got to love the slope of the line over the last 6 months. Finally rewarded for the overweight in equities.
haha.. overweight to *some* of you, at least ;)
Good stuff. Keep ticking away.
Congratulations! That’s wild — your jump this month is almost the size of my increase for the entire year :)
Hey, at least you’re getting an increase every year! And I bet you’re much younger than us too ;) And an “I” vs. a “we” – all things to keep in mind my man.
Nice work on increasing that net worth. I actually just saw your youtube vid on Fincon 12. Working on increasing this online income so I can knock out this mortgage and get a rental property.
hah, really? the one where i was drunk and trying to make sense? haha…
I wrote a $16,000+ check this month, so not so good. :)
You did? I haven’t seen it yet? :)
It’s a great month when the money in your accounts grow on their own!
Your mortgage considerations seem right on point–great to see so much attention to detail, as always.
Woohoo congratulations! It’s inspiring to see that go up! I have yet to update my net worth for the month but hopefully tomorrow I can! Took a hit though with getting a new car! We’ll see…
uh-oh, a brand new car or a new-to-you car? those are fighting words here in the personal finance world, haha…
New new car! I know, against personal finance sense! We ended up getting a Prius v though because the regular prius is too small. We explored the used option according to finance sense, but its so new there aren’t any used ones. Then we tried for a 2012 model, no special financing and dealerships weren’t giving us a good deal. Finally we went for the new Prius v 2013, 0% APR for 5 years, and we were able to get it for less than the invoice price.
Well looks like you’re working the angles! That’s really what’s important w/ car buying – doing your research and feeling like the end decision was right for you. So yay!
We only grew 0.75% in May. It was a slow month because I sold off a bunch of equities. I’m waiting for a big market correction before I get back in. It’s a lot of stress and I really like trying to do it this way. I’ll probably go back to buy and hold after this.
You’re doing a great job though.
It’s less stressful taking it out and then putting it back in later??? Oh man, that’s MORE stressful to me, haha… I suck at knowing the right times to move money! I get it wrong 99% of the time.
Net worth has been fun in this past year. With home improvements and the housing market uptick, we’ve gone up about $40k! Kinda nuts, especially since we haven’t done a TON of savings at all. I don’t really count it, though, because it’s mostly our house, which can swing wildly back down if things go south again. But it’s fun to watch when things are going great!
How are you including home improvements into the housing value? Or is the uptick mainly on the real estate environment there? Either way – better up than down! :)
“Operation Kill Mortgages” — I like that name. That’s an operation I can definitely stand behind! And I think its great that you’re flexible enough with yourself that you can back off of the anti-mortgage offensive when you need the spare cash (i.e. when you’re moving) but you can still throw money at your mortgages when you’ve got the cash available. Anyway … your net worth update shows you’re going strong, and you’ve made a ton of positive headway, so nice work!!