A day late, but hopefully not a dollar short (ba-dum ching), it is that time of the month to provide a net worth update and share those changes with…myself. Even last night, when I was talking to The Wife about the topic of our son’s bonds I found in our safe, her eyes simply glazed over, and the look of pure boredom was astonishing (long story short, they are still not worth anything, so back in the safe they go for another 10 years). Either way, I enjoy keeping my spreadsheet updated and sharing those results for me to see for years to come.
Feelings prior to calculating: I haven’t calculated yet, but when I opened up this window to start writing I thought January is going to be a good month given market returns…then I looked at the broad market for Jan:
Honestly, I didn’t realize the pull back in the markets as I was disconnected from the markets Thursday & Friday before going into the end of the month. With that newfound information my gut reaction is that my net worth will be about even month over month.
Calculating my Net Worth
My Family’s Assets
I will be writing an introductory post about most of the assets below, and update them whenever it seems appropriate.
- Cash Equivalents – I finally got this number to a comfortable number! It represents about 2 months of my family’s bare minimum run rate. It is also is probably the largest, “oh shit” number I would need access to within a day or two.
- My Trading Account – This one account is both where I invest in my dividend growth companies and risky speculative option trades.
- My 401(k) – My 401(k) has some terrible investment options that have ridiculous fees, but since I am getting a match at work I fund it to that match.
- My Traditional IRA – Just some companies that have caught my attention at some point or another.
- The Wife’s Roth IRA – Again, some companies that have caught my attention at some point or another.
- The Wife’s SEP IRA – Brand new account. The Wife was talking to my father in law who told her that she should have a SEP IRA, and since she is funding it with business proceeds, I was not going to argue. Just going to be sending $100/week to the account. Right now it is in cash but I am likely to just create a broad ETF Portfolio for it rather than individual stocks.
- Crypto Currency – A handful of years ago during the height of the first crypto mania I decided to put a few dollars into BitCoin (literally it was just $1k).
It felt like immediately after I made the transfer BTC took a nosedive. At that point, I made the decision just to ignore the account – and it is just back to above even. Upon talking to a buddy about Bitcoin and actually signing into my account for the first time in months/possibly a year, I found out that CoinBase allowed for periodic investments, so I turned them on. I did just $50 a month, figured it was an amount that if the whole thing crashes I am not going to be too pissed, and if it takes off, then at least I’ll have a taste (unless of course that happens tomorrow). - Life Insurance Cash Surrender Value – As described I own a number of permanent, cash value whole life insurance policies. Since the cash is accessible I include it in my net worth statement. This money is also accessible via a loan against the cash value.
- Physical Gold – A few years back I decided to start buying physical gold, I am hoping one day to be that crazy guy with a stack of gold I can swim through.
- My Rental Property – Every month I update a spreadsheet I keep for the minority owners of my rental property.
- My Main Residence – My Family’s home!
Currently, I do not include my investment clubs in my net worth.
My Family’s Debt
- Law School Debt – Overall this account is just not that large anymore, but at 3.5% fixed I just ignore it. I am hoping that President Biden kinda just eliminates it for me.
- Mortgage and Home Debt – I have a mortgage on each home and a home equity line of credit on the rental property. I wrote last month that I was, “still in my process of trying to refinance my primary residence” and damn it that is still true! I am hoping by the time that I write my next one of these posts I’ll be in underwriting.
- Revolving Credit Card Debt – The Wife and I pay off our credit cards every month for the most part. Granted we get behind from time to time, but that is the goal, month in and month out.
My Net Worth Change
- Month over month my net worth has increased 1.59%
- Since starting AA my net worth has increased by approximately $79,000.
I’ll take the gain given that the borad market was more or less flat month over month. Maybe I needs to start taking hail mary meme stock moves (a term I will absolutely have to look up in years to come).