With the start of a New Year and New Month it is time to update some of my net worth numbers to see how I did month over month, and more importantly year over year.

Funny, last month I wrote:

To say I am not looking forward to calculating my net worth this month, would be a complete and utter understatement. I haven’t felt this type of dread since February 2020, and it is shocking to me (maybe not others) that it is for the same fucking reason…covid. Two or three days ago news came out about the “omicron strand” of the virus and it sent the markets into a complete shit storm

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Between the shit market, we went away to Nashville to celebrate my 40th, so my guess is that is going to be nasty, 

and this month I feel literally the opposite. All my trades were controlled and that particular account came back hard. In addition, I received an okay bonus at work which cleared up a lot of the debt issues I was feeling.

Thoughts before calculating: Feeling good about this month. As I mentioned above I received an okay bonus at work which clears up a lot of the spending that is built into Christmas time. In addition, my trading account came back hard after I was able to roll out and then shut down some of ITM naked puts I had. Way more important, year over year, will also be up despite closing costs on a refinance of the main residence.

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*. Earlier this year I wrote a post about moving a good amount of this month towards my rental property’s HELOC. I did that with 40%, utilizing amount 10% to pad my main checking account. We’ll see how this looks going forward.
  • My Trading Account – This one account is both where I invest in my dividend growth companies and risky speculative option trades. This is going to need some attention over the next 5 to 7 days! I was able to rehab this account over the month of December and hit an all time high.
  • 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 a little bit above the match. Two months ago I wrote, “this was down hard this month“ and then last month I wrote, “now it is way up!” This correlation to the market without any real control is both a struggle and also probably a MASSIVE benefit.
  • 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 – The Wife was talking to my father in law early this year 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. Plan is to just buy a broad based equity ETF (VOO) and a smaller position in a dividend-focused ETF (NOBL).
  • 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. I couldn’t check this month because I got kicked out of the authenticator app with the purchase of a new phone. Going to have to figure this one out over the next 30 days!
  • 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. These values now have a loan against the cash.
  • 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 – Refinanced a few months back at 2.6%, probably going to ignore the account for a while.
  • Mortgage and Home Debt – I have a mortgage on each home and a home equity line of credit on the rental property.
  • Revolving Credit Card Debt – Carry a small balance which I will probably get rid of this month or next month when the refinance goes through. Two months ago, I was able to write that I was debt free, and over the past two months debt creeped back into my life. I am pretty sure I’ll be able to most, if not all of it, with my bonus payment this year. I didn’t get all over it, but made a pretty good dent.

My Net Worth Change

  • Month over Month my net worth increased 4.2%
  • Year over Year my net worth increased 16.5%
  • Since starting this AccumulatingAssets my net worth has increased $168,000

Not a bad year at all! I am a bit bummed that my debt is actually up year over year. Taking a 30,000 foot view it has to do with two things:

  1. Refinance of my home – I went from 3.85% and PMI costs down to 2.875% without PMI. That move is not without massive closing costs in the great State of New York! I should be under my Jan 2021 debt levels within another three to four months.
  2. Finishing up my pool. I took a cash surrender whole life insurance loan to finish it up. This is getting paid down at $1k/mo payment. It should be done sometime late 2022 and when it is I will deploy that $1k into another long term debt vehicle (likely my student loans).

Net Worth

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