We have snow on the ground outside and with the recent market downturn our portfolio looks chilly. We are warm inside, though, and we are in for the long haul, which keeps us even warmer.
~ Warren Buffett
It certainly is not an April Fools joke that we are down another 2.3% for the month despite having paid off my student loan. Our Brokerage, Crypto-Currency, and Retirement accounts are all down. Shall we take a look at the numbers?
Net Worth: 2018-04-01
| ASSETS | AMOUNT | % CHANGE |
| Cash Savings | $17,204.81 | 4.7% |
| Cash Back/Gift Cards | $1,720.16 | 6.1% |
| Brokerage/Crypto-Currency | $12,797.29 | -34.6% |
| Retirement | $429,038.91 | -2.8% |
| MOST 529 | $4,144.05 | 3.3% |
| House | $303,000.00 | 0.0% |
| Cars & Boat | $47,323.00 | -0.3% |
| TOTAL ASSETS | $815,228.22 | -2.2% |
| LIABILITIES | AMOUNT | % CHANGE |
| Credit Cards | $5101.00 | 11.5% |
| Car Loan | $20,100.00 | -2.9% |
| HELOC | $33,794.89 | -0.3% |
| Mortgage | $190,118.06 | -0.7% |
| Student Loans | $210,932.89 | -0.8% |
| TOTAL LIABILITIES | $460,046.84 | -2.2% |
| TOTAL NET WORTH | $355,181.38 | -2.3% |
Our assets and liabilities both decreased the same percentage. The goal, if you recall, is for our assets to increase in value and our liabilities to decrease. What happened? Keep reading and we will explain.
Cash Savings
Our cash savings increased for the sixth month in a row. This is a little deceiving, though, because we have some credit card balances to pay before they are due in the middle of April. That said, we spent less than we earned and plan to do that again this month.
Cash Back/Gift Cards
We are nearly up to our balance from February finishing the month at $1,720.16. We plan to continue accruing and use the money later this year for a vacation. As long as you make all your payments ahead of time, this is a great way to make a little extra money.
Brokerage/Crypto-Currency
It was a sad month for my stock and crypto. The good thing is that we only put money in that we were willing to lose. The bad thing is that we hoped to make some money on that money. When our stock gets back to where I bought it, I plan to sell and pay down on our HELOC. I have not made much money on options trades lately and I would rather not pay interest on that money.
Retirement
A couple of my stocks dropped and Dr. SoS’s little value stock is up. Unfortunately, the rise was not big enough to beat the fall and we are down again this month by another $12,434.67. This drop puts us back to the balance we had last October. We wonder if this is the new trend, but have faith that it is not.
MOST 529
Baby SoS’s little account lost money for the second month in a row. We put $200 in each month, but the account is only up $133.73, so even though the account is up 3.3%, it is only because of our deposit.
House
We switched this to a static amount to avoid the odd swings and our net worth swings anyway. Here is an update from our mortgage company.
| Description | Amount |
| Xome Home Estimate* | $317,835 |
| Zillow Home Estimate* | $299,432 |
| Average Home Estimate* | $308,633 |
| Median Home Price* | $268,700 |
| Median List Price | $350,000 |
| Average Days on Market | 85 |
| Median Price per Sq Ft | 118 |
| Houses for Sale | 6 |
| Median Sold Price | $213,500 |
| Houses Sold | 2 |
| List to Sell Ratio | 97.70% |
| *These are by zip code. The others are just our small town. | |
Cars & Boat
My car dropped in value by $462, but our other two cars and boat increased in value.
Credit Cards
It appears that we are in credit card debt, but I assure you that we are on top of these debts. I moved some money around to pay for the cards, but there is a delay. Our play is to pay all the cards except the $1750 at 0% Friday of this week. We do have tuition for Baby SoS this month, but we can use my Dependent Care HRA to cover most of that. This time next month will look better.
Car Loan
Only 33 payments or 2 years 9 months to go. I look forward to having this car paid off.
HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit)
We made more than the minimum payment, but only put a 0.3% dent in the balance. I received an annual salary increase and our plan is to apply that plus my old student loan payment to this debt each month to snowball it into being paid off faster.
Mortgage
We are down to 127 more payments or 10 years 7 months to go. It is pretty cool that our monthly mortgage payment is knocking off 0.7% from the principal each month.
Student Loans
My student loan was only $8,467.84, but we are happy to have it paid. It was a significant accomplishment to pay it off after twenty years of payments. This whacked 4% off our outstanding student loan balance. We still have plenty to pay off with Dr. SoS’s student loan, but her minimum payment increased 20%, which is 0.1% from the principal with each payment. It sucks that we still have so much student loan debt, but without it she would not have such a great opportunity to own her own practice. Our goal is to have this paid off around the same time as the house as we apply each income increase toward debt.
As of the first day of April 2018, we have a net worth of $355,481.38 down 2.26% from the March total of $363,693.75 and up 6.41% from our April 2017 net worth of $334,067.27. Our net worth dropped in the month of April last year. We are looking forward to turning the tide and having it increase this month. Our current net worth puts us in the top 42% at 225/539 bloggers on the Rockstar Finance Directory Net Worth Tracker.
If you have any questions, please comment or send us a message on our Contact page. Thanks for following along as we keep saving and keep swimming.
Here is to less chill and more heat!
Mr. SoS