According to my Integrity Policy, I want to let you know that this post contains Personal Capital referral links. Personal Capital is a free service. They are looking for high-net worth individuals as possible customers for their financial advisory services, but the expense tracking and retirement planning tools that I recommend are free of charge.
This would be a slightly depressing net worth post were it not for a new way of reckoning our progress towards FIRE!
Account | Last Month | Balance | Change |
---|---|---|---|
Personal Checking | $7,367.27 | $48,661.74 | $41,294.47 |
Business Checking | $1,042.13 | $720.88 | $312.25 |
Real Estate Operating Account | $1,905.71 | $1,982.64 | $76.93 |
Real Estate Cash Flow Account | $99.56 | $99.62 | $0.06 |
Credit Cards | -$7,244.12 | -$10,066.18 | -$2,822.06 |
Retirement - HSA | $3,599.83 | $3,960.01 | $360.18 |
Retirement - After Tax | $36,269.37 | $37,162.43 | $893.06 |
Retirement - 401(k) | $173,639.93 | $181,251.72 | $7,611.79 |
Retirement - Roth IRA | $10,576.88 | $10,837.35 | $260.47 |
Retirement - Mrs. V's After Tax | $0.00 | $8,263.33 | $8,263.33 |
Retirement - Mrs. V's 401(k) | $0.00 | $125,610.97 | $125,610.97 |
Asset - Home | $500,000.00 | $500,000.00 | $0.00 |
Asset - Rental 1 | $46,327.00 | $46,327.00 | $0.00 |
Asset - Rental 2 | $72,000.00 | $72,000.00 | $0.00 |
Asset - Rental 3 | $85,000.00 | $0.00 | -$85,000.00 |
Asset - Cryptocurrency | $26,283.56 | $0.00 | -$26,283.56 |
Mortgage - Home | -$374,745.68 | -$373,645.14 | $1,100.54 |
Mortgage - Rental 1 | -$43,458.11 | -$43,458.11 | $0.00 |
Mortgage - Rental 2 | -$47,037.45 | -$47,037.45 | $0.00 |
Mortgage - Rental 3 | -$57,000.36 | $0.00 | $57,000.36 |
Student Loan 1 | -$20,098.35 | -$19,949.09 | $149.26 |
Student Loan 2 | -$12,493.62 | -$12,400.82 | $92.80 |
Student Loan 3 | -$3,127.24 | -$3,025.32 | $101.92 |
Net Worth | $398,906.31 | $527,295.58 | $128,389.27 |
In our September 2017 financial statement, our net worth increased by 32.18%!
Wait, what? Well, a couple of things happened. First, as I wrote about earlier this month, we sold one of our rental properties. That accounts for the increase in cash (plus my taking my investments out of the cryptocurrency market), but it reduces our monthly rental income a pretty good amount, too. Between the costs to make some buyer-mandated repairs to the property and the costs associated with any real estate sale, our net worth would have decreased this month…
… were it not for the fact that Mrs. Vagabond and I have decided to combine our retirement accounts for purposes of calculating our progress!
I’ll explain. When Mrs. V was first coming around to the idea of financial independence, we struck a deal: I would provide for our retirement cost of living with my investments, and she could use her own investments to pay for her personal “must have” expenses in retirement. It was a compromise that worked at the time, because it allowed her to start to see how her savings directly affected her long-term happiness, and made it less likely that anxiety about “missing out” on things she loves would strike when we were close to our retirement date.
As Mrs. V’s savings grew and grew, we started to rethink that deal, and ultimately decided that we would consider her accounts a part of our our “overall” retirement accounting, and simply continue to try to come to an agreement on how much real “spending money” we need to be happy in early retirement. I think it’s less for both of us than it would have once been, as more and more of what we find ourselves longing for is absolutely free: time with each other and the rapidly-approaching Baby V, our dogs, and the joy of adventures together.
There were some other large miscellaneous expenses for us related to our pregnancy this month. We prepaid for the baby’s delivery, and we have had ongoing costs related to a number of pregnancy complications. It has been a hard road, but things have been plodding cautiously along and Baby V is expected in the next couple months!
The net worth table above will continue to change in the coming months as we free up more cash towards something we’ll announce next spring. Stay tuned on that!
Blog Income
As I mention in my Integrity Policy, I want to make sure I share any and all professional relationships and compensation I make as a part of this blog.
In the month of September, I earned the following:
- $42.42 in Google Ad revenue
The blog didn’t make a ton this month, but it’s enough to cover the hosting, so that’s always good!
If you’re looking to start your own blog or web site, please consider using my referral link for BlueHost. I’ll get a little cash to help pay hosting expenses, and you’ll get a great hosting provider (the same one I use) starting at about $3.95 per month.
Retirement Update
Our net worth went up $128,389.27 last month. We’re hoping to get to about $550K in net worth by the end of the year, and hopefully to about 600-620K by April 1st, 2018.
With equity and bond accounts totaling $367,085.81 at the end of September, a 4% Safe Withdrawal Rate would allow us to take out $1,223.62 per month. Our rental properties, after all expenses, vacancies, and short and long term maintenance are considered, produce $522.00 of safe cash flow every month.
Safe Monthly Income: $1,745.62 (+$12.67 since Last Report)
% to Goal: 34.91% (+0.26% since Last Report)
Want to Know How to Track Your Expenses?
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.
I think it’s great you figured out what worked as a starting point, then adjusted from there! My husband and I have been married for 15 years now. There is no way we could have come up wuth year 15 plan year 1. Just figure it out as we go. 🙂 With steady communication and small pivots along the way.
Totally agree! No plan survives for that long without communication and adjustments! I’m actually really excited about this change, as it means are goals are more aligned than ever, and we’re that much closer to our shared goals. It’s a nice feeling 🙂
Can you explain how you break up your accounts for rental properties?
I am currently evaluating properties and I want to make sure all the cash flows will stay separate. How do you divy up the monthly income between an operating account and a cash flow account? Do you put everything into the operating account at the beginning of the month, and withdraw a calculated cash flow at the end of the month? Or do you simply break it up based on your ultra conservative property evaluation sheet and put your calculated cash flow into the cash flow account at the beginning of the month.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Hey there Dan– yeah, as you guessed, everything goes into the operating account, and a scheduled transfer of the calculated cash flow is transferred out on the 15th of each month, based on my evaluating a rental property spreadsheet.