August was a kick-ass month. I’m not even kidding!
OK, so my net worth down a little bit, and the goal of finally ticking over the magical $100,000 in investments mark moved a little further away. However, I bought as scheduled, so even though my investments are worth less, I have lots more shares, purchased at a steep discount. The market continues to drop, so this month’s purchases (to occur today) look like they’ll be at a great discount too.
Since I did my first monthly statement on the 8th of last month, I had already been paid for the month, and had already made payments to all my debts. This means that a few of these balances didn’t go anywhere since then. Starting this month, all the changes in net worth should be accurate and should move in the right direction monthly.
Luckily, I needed to spend less on my credit cards this month (I never carry a balance past the statement date, so this is always just inter-month float) so that balance came down. My properties also rose in value, so that went a long way towards keeping the net worth as high as possible.
The bottom line is that my net worth dropped by $1,060.74 this month, which doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I’m snapping up more shares whenever possible, and buying them at a lower price rocks!
I did a little bit of extra side work this month, and intend to buy a little extra. Quarterly taxes are due this month too, so that is going to drive my credit card balance way up this month, but I’ll explain why I use the credit cards for tax payments in another article. I won’t accrue any interest since I pay my cards off in full, right away.
Next month should bring at least modest increases. I’m putting $3,100 into my investments tomorrow and hopefully will put $1,500 more in later in the month. Hopefully the property values continue to go up, though I expect it to cool off a bit as we enter fall.
August 2015 Financial Statement
| Account | Balance | Last Month | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal Checking | $3,467.51 | $8,298.02 | -$4,830.51 |
| Real Estate Operating Account | $1,378.30 | $1,235.65 | $142.65 |
| Real Estate Cash Flow Account | $1,199.25 | $1,027.54 | $171.71 |
| Credit Cards | -$5,335.68 | -$3,920.69 | -$1,414.99 |
| Retirement - After Tax | $37,620.60 | $39,886.48 | -$2,265.88 |
| Retirement - 401(k) | $49,763.70 | $53,294.18 | -$3,530.48 |
| Retirement - IRA | $4,177.55 | $4,576.98 | -$399.43 |
| Asset - Home | $401,716.00 | $393,573.00 | $8,143.00 |
| Asset - Rental 1 | $54,429.00 | $53,040.00 | $1,389.00 |
| Asset - Rental 2 | $72,584.00 | $71,456.00 | $1,128.00 |
| Mortgage - Home | -$383,946.75 | -$384,166.24 | $219.49 |
| Mortgage - Rental 1 | -$44,965.24 | -$44,965.24 | $0 |
| Mortgage - Rental 2 | -$48,687.25 | -$48,687.25 | $0 |
| Student Loan 1 | -$23,285.27 | -$23,411.37 | $126.10 |
| Student Loan 2 | -$14.474.75 | -$14,553.14 | $78.39 |
| Student Loan 3 | -$5,429.47 | -$5,411.68 | -$17.79 |
| Net Worth | $100,211.50 | $101,272.24 | -$1,060.74 |
Retirement Update
With retirement accounts totaling $91,561.85 at the end of August, a 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate would allow us to take out $305.21 per month. My rental properties, after all expenses, vacancies, and short and long term maintenance are considered, produce $441.00 of safe cash flow every month.
Safe Monthly Income: $746.21 (-$20.64 to Last Month)
% to Goal: 14.92% (-0.41% to Last Month)
Want to Know How to Track Your Expenses This Closely?
It’s really easy. Sign up for a Personal Capital account, which is completely free. It’s how I track my balances across time, and allows me to project all my retirement progress without doing any work at all. As a disclaimer, if you sign up with Personal Capital, this site may get a referral fee depending on the size of your portfolio.