Winter is here. There is snow on the ground and the tree is up with a couple presents already beneath. That is fine and dandy, but how is our net worth? Let’s take a look!
Net Worth: 2018-12-01
| ASSETS | 2018-12-01 | 2018-11-01 | % CHANGE |
| Cash Savings | $21,159.62 | $20,657.47 | 2.4% |
| Cash Back | $923.62 | $1,061.03 | -13.0% |
| Cryptocurrency | $1,673.39 | $2,965.57 | -43.6% |
| Retirement | $598,295.99 | $588,244.46 | 1.7% |
| MOST 529 | $5,856.31 | $5,646.53 | 3.7% |
| House | $305,000.00 | $305,000.00 | 0.0% |
| Cars & Boat | $42,645.00 | $45,495.00 | -6.3% |
| TOTAL ASSETS | $975,553.93 | $969,070.06 | 0.7% |
| LIABILITIES | AMOUNT | AMOUNT | % CHANGE |
| Credit Cards | $6,674.14 | $7,267.07 | -8.2% |
| Car Loan | $15,000.00 | $15,600.00 | -3.8% |
| HELOC | $24,000.00 | $24,500.00 | -2.0% |
| Mortgage | $179,999.06 | $181,275.48 | -0.7% |
| Student Loans | $209,304.44 | $209,503.15 | -0.1% |
| TOTAL LIABILITIES | $434,977.64 | $438,145.70 | -0.7% |
| TOTAL NET WORTH | $540,576.29 | $530,924.36 | 1.8% |
Cash Savings
We increased our emergency fund by another $700 last month, however our total cash balance is only up $502.15. The only thing I can attribute this to is that we paid more on credit cards last month.
Cash Back
We finally spent our $45 promotional Costco Gift cards, so this category is back to just including Cash Back on our credit cards. We also cashed in $162.03 from our Citibank Double Cash card. Even with the extra purchases last month we are down $137.41 from the previous balance.
Cryptocurrency
This is a good lesson in what not to do. I am beginning to believe that we have an 80% chance this will go to $0 before we ever make our money back out of our speculation on cryptocurrency.
Retirement
Not much happened last month. We are sitting in cash waiting for the fall. The increase we show is from selling the last of our TSLA stock after the first of the month. Funny thing is if we still owned our shares, we would be up another $23,000. We are definitely not opposed to owning TSLA, but would like to own it when the share price lines up more to the value of the stock.
You may wonder why we are sitting in cash instead of being invested in the market. A few years ago I took an investment class and began reading about how Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger made their billions. This research helped me discover other value investors. Most people would rather passively invest in Index Funds and be done with it. I prefer a more active investment strategy. When we finally reach our Financial Independence (FI) goal, I plan to invest and trade weekly options instead of working for someone else. Until we find wonderful companies to invest that in that we believe we can buy at a value, we are going to sit on our pile of cash.
MOST 529
These accounts will be fairly stagnant as we follow our Big Audacious Debt Payoff Plan and divert monthly deposits to paying off our HELOC.
House
We are keeping our home value at $305,000, which we believe we could sell it with little or no updating. Current home values in our area are quite overvalued. Here are the recent numbers for our zip code.
| 2018-12-01 | 2018-11-01 | % Change | |
| Xome Home Estimate | $350,264 | $350,107 | 0.0% |
| Zillow Home Estimate | $311,676 | $306,597 | 1.7% |
| Average Home Estimate | $330,970 | $328,352 | 0.8% |
| Median Home Price | $299,900 | $304,950 | -1.7% |
Cars & Boat
We took a hit in this category this month because we gave my old car to our youngest son. Kelly Blue Book has it valued at about $2,312 for the average Private Party Sale. We also drove my late-model car to visit my parents in New Mexico and the added miles on my car dropped the value a couple hundred bucks.
Credit Cards
We are doing better, but are not back to paying credit cards weekly. We paid the outstanding balances down $592.93 from the previous month. I would love to get them all paid to zero before the end of the month, but with the added goal of a $2,000 payment on our HELOC, we may just get the balances paid off plus a little extra. We could pay off the balances with our emergency fund, but I would rather not do that unless this is necessary.
Car Loan
Only $15,000 remaining on our 0% car loan. This works out to 25 payments (2 years 1 month) to pay off my car. After we pay off the car, we do not plan to ever take out another car loan. This includes our new Tesla, which will be the the next car we buy. Car payments suck!
HELOC (Home Equity Line of Credit)
Here is where we begin to show our hand with our Big Audacious Debt Payoff Plan. We only paid off $500 last month, but our plan is to pay off at least $2,000 each month to have the $24,000 balance paid by this time next year.
Mortgage
Our mortgage company shows our maturity date as 11/01/2028 which means we only have 120 more payments (10 years) to pay off our house. Our new plan is to pay it off in 6 to 8 years.
Student Loans
We made another minimum payment on this loan. At least we are paying off 0.1% each month!
As of the first day of December 2018, we have a net worth of $540,576.29 up 1.8% from our net worth of $530,924.36 last month and up 51.7% from our first of December 2017 net worth of $356,345.34. Our current net worth puts us in the top 31% at 213/692 bloggers on the Rockstar Finance Directory Net Worth Tracker.
Keep saving and swimming!
Mr. SoS
i raised our cash position from 3% to 18% back in october. i can live with leaving some on the table.
Good that you saw an opportunity to at least take some of your money off the table. It is tough seeing fellow bloggers down so much, but eventually we will all be back up.
Freddy, it always good to have cash to purchase wonderful companies as they go on sale. The worst thing is to be 100% tied up when everything is on sale.