Each month I’ll be keeping track of our net worth on this blog. The reason for making our net worth public is to not only hold myself accountable, but to provide a record so I can review my progress over time. I’ll be giving a brief analysis on our results for the month and what changes I’m thinking of making.
Here’s how our net worth looked for August:
Assets |
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| Checking | $23,152.46 | $22,132.55 | -$1,019.91 | -4.4% |
| Retirement accounts | $543,029.69 | $544,526.88 | $1,497.19 | 0.3% |
| 529 accounts | $8,677.89 | $9,764.90 | $1,087.01 | 12.5% |
| Brokerage accounts | $1,330,536.43 | $1,337,396.18 | $6,859.75 | 0.5% |
| Private equity | $200,000.00 | $200,000.00 | $0.00 | 0.0% |
| Rental properties | $855,069.00 | $855,069.00 | $0.00 | 0.0% |
| Primary residence | $1,540,000.00 | $1,540,000.00 | $0.00 | 0.0% |
| Assets total | $4,500,465.47 | $4,508,889.51 | $8,424.04 | 0.2% |
Liabilities |
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| Credit cards | $2,271.61 | $1,815.03 | -$456.58 | -20.1% |
| Rental mortgages | $528,647.98 | $527,817.81 | -$830.18 | -0.2% |
| Primary mortgage | $771,097.99 | $770,074.04 | -$1,023.95 | -0.1% |
| Liabilities total | $1,302,017.58 | $1,299,706.88 | -$2,310.71 | -0.2% |
| Net worth | $3,198,447.89 | $3,209,182.64 | $10,734.75 | 0.3% |
August was a decent month. We paid down a total of $830.18 of principle on the rental property mortgages and our brokerage account was up 0.5%. That’s actually pretty good considering that the S&P 500 was -0.12% for the month. Due to the size of our portfolio vs the amount we can invest each month, the market will have a much stronger effect on our net worth than any new money we invest. The 529 accounts are small, so the $500 contribution per account per month will overshadow the performance of the actual investments. That’s why they were up 12.5% for the month.
I plan to adjust the value of my rental properties and primary residence on a quarterly basis. That should help smooth out the monthly fluctuations I see from Zillow estimates.
The private equity investments are difficult to value so I’m leaving them listed as valued at my original investment.
As I mentioned in my recent post, the stock market is substantially overvalued. As a result, I’ve made some changes to my portfolio, which involves selling some of my lower quality holdings and building my cash reserves. I plan on holding a significant amount of cash until I find an attractive place to deploy it. That might be purchasing some new real estate investments, it might be finding some attractively valued stocks, or it might be paying down existing mortgages (which, in this market, might be the investment with the highest projected return for the next 5-10 years).
Overall we were up a bit over $10k for the month, for a .3% total increase in net worth. We reduced all of our liabilities and increased all of our assets except for our checking account (which was used to pay credit card bills).
How did everybody else do this month?