Our lives are going on swimmingly though. Schools have reopened. Sporting activities have necessitated us being out in the fields on most evenings. Fall is here. I’m in the camp who believes that fall starts when we kick off September. Or when the NFL starts. Either works.
Markets have tumbled further in September. We’re still contributing in our 401(k), IRAs, and taxable brokerage accounts – in boring old index funds and ETFs. Nothing has changed.
The market rose by around 10% in July and with it our NW gained $83k. Not bad.
We finally made a dent in the cash buffer (that has been borderline crazy) that we keep. These were some ways we burnt through cash last month (besides the regular stuff):
$6k to I bonds
$1k to brokerage
About $2k to pay for flights, car rental, and part of a hotel stay for an upcoming vacation
$823 on semi-yearly premium of vehicle insurance
Here is a break down of July spending:
Most of the recurring categories are at their average.
July ended in a blaze of …sunshine and sports. Many an afternoon and evening were spent cheering, or coaching, competitive youth sports. We are truly blessed to have such wonderful clubs, facilities, parents, coaches, and players where we live. These are the days and times we live for in the often frozen American Midwest.
Hope you all have been able to enjoy summer. Remember it’s already two-thirds gone!
This is the 100th post on this blog. Here’s to a 100 more. Cheers!
Well, June didn’t turn May’s respite into something more 🙂 Instead, our NW ended up falling by over $72k.
Few things to note:
Value of (all) retirement accounts fell below $900k for the first time since Mar ’21. Oof
Value of 529 accounts fell below $40k for the first time since Apr ’21.
Cash positions at $92k is still insanely high. A few reasons for that,
Summer months are typically low income months for M (as schools are off)
The *impending* recession
June has wrapped up in a spectacular burst of activities, even by our standards. Weeknights and weekends were all spent outside. We’re all sporting various levels of tan, sun burns, and sun rashes!! We were very glad to have a long and relaxing weekend of July 4th (but even that ended up with some travel to visit some family!) Activities for the spring/summer session will draw down by end of July. The next season will start back up in mid-August.
Markets turned a bit positive in May with us ending up a little higher than April, where our NW plummeted by ~$100k. June, so far, is turning out to be an even bigger hole. It’s still all good 🙂
Spending for May
With the current inflation, groceries, eating out/takeout, gas, and virtually everything else cost higher. We bought a new set of all weather tires for one of our vehicles.
We’re firmly in summer now. Weather wise, activities wise. School is over. Most evenings are spent outside in sporting events. Temperatures for end of May and beginning of June were pretty mild (refreshing) but the heat is turning up. We hit our first 100° day yesterday. Bugs are out in full swing.
Here’s wishing you all have a great summer ahead of you. Cheers!
We “suffered” our worst month since we started tracking way back in 2017. Almost $100k in red. It’s ok though 🙂
The way this first week of May is going, we’ll be down a couple of hundred thousand more soon. It’s still ok.
Spring is in full bloom here. We’re enjoying 60° days and cooler nights. Outdoor activities are on in full swing. Literally six nights out of 7, we are out playing/coaching. Some weeks we’ll be out all seven days. This will be the default state of affairs till end of June. Wish us luck!
Hope all you get to spend a lot of time outside. Cheers!
We crossed a thin red line last month ….we have over $100k in bank accounts laying around! That’s unpardonable 😠
W got a nice bonus paid out in March. We have some plans to burn through some of that cash.
First, there is some amount earmarked for “donations” to Uncle Sam in April 😜
Second, when you look at our spending for March below, there are some eye popping numbers that we spent (on credit cards). This is planned and we will pay off the balance.
Third, the rate reset on I Bonds will happen on 1st May, and it’s increasing to 9.62%. Though some commentators are urging to lock in the blended rate of 8.54% for the next 12 months, we’re going to wait for the new rate and purchase some at the higher rate.
Here is spending for March.
We spent a sh*t ton on “Household” last month. The two biggest culprit was 1) Home insurance premium of $1,500, 2) An absurdly big TV (I promise, the viewing is a pleasure!) we got for $1,300. I’ve been following the prices of TV for a few months and a few weeks after the Super Bowl, a lot of one-time-use TVs are returned. For obvious reasons. I got this one for about $600 off. That’s a steal in my books!
The next biggest category was “Activities/Sports” which included fees paid for D’s various sporting and cultural activities, subscription for the family for a community based group, and concert tickets.
The April showers are in full swing where we are. Outdoor activities which were already supposed to have started have been postponed by a week. We are all geared up for the fun.
Mar 19. Nineteen days since February ended. Better than close to the end of the month, though still couldn’t get this out before half the month is done! Baby steps …
Net worth tumbled by another ~$20k in February, following January’s massive fall. All good. We see this as an opportunity for a fire-sale.
We really should be updating the current value of our home as the county/city assessed it at almost $100k more than the number we have here. But we probably won’t.
Weather in our part of the world has turned into an unseasonable, unanticipated, and wondrously mild spring. We’ve hit 50s already and about to hit 60 tomorrow! We had our first grill out tonight.
Life has been good for us. The busy spring season with activities are poised to start so we are savoring the last few days of low key days.
Hope that all of you reading this have a blessed spring. Cheers!
I have no clue where the month of February went. And here we stand on the penultimate day of the second month of the year 2022, trying to get the update of January in! If we were to get grades on posting updates on time, we’d end up with a big, fat F 😒
Anyway, January was a month to forget, in terms of how the markets performed, which directly correlates to how our NW is trending. More of that in February, and by the looks of the impending WWIII, for the foreseeable future. But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
We started off the year with a loss of $55k which brings our NW down to the level from last October. I’m not complaining, just bench marking.
Here are our expenses from January.
Mostly expected numbers but for the Car category. We had the double whammy of paying our 6-month insurance premium for both our vehicles and we got a new set of winter wheels and tires for one of the cars. I don’t know why I haven’t gotten this sooner based on where we live – we average 50″ of snow and bitter cold every winter. Driving with this new wheels has been a dream!
I don’t remember a lot from January but our days were full – learning, doing things we like, which include a lot of (indoor) sports. The events of the last week or so is looming overwhelmingly in our minds. Our hearts go to to people of Ukraine.
Hope the next update is not too late in March and the world is a better place than it is right now.
A solid year for us. Our net worth increased by $289k. Our FI funds crossed over $1.2m.
Scratch that first sentence: it was a SPECTACULAR year! And this was our second full year with us going down to effectively a single-income family.
Is this the real threshold to becoming millionaires?! 😀
Since we started tracking and documenting our financial journey from beginning of 2017, we’re amazed how far we’ve come. In January 2017, our net worth stood at $458k. In 5 full years, we are at over $1.4m. That’s incredible!
We made contributions to the following accounts:
401(k) – $14,157 (only for W) – a little lower than the 15k we thought we’d do
IRAs – $12k (combined for both) – made goal
Brokerage – $8,675 – handily cleared the goal of 3k
529 – $2,700 – aided by Child Tax Credit advance payments, we were able to clear the goal of $2k
HSA – $6,200
Bonds – $3,000 – I-Bonds
Crypto – $1,066
We did manage to take a few road trips last year. One was a 3,000 mile trip to visit friends and family during the summer. Days in spring, summer, and fall were brimming with sporting activities.
We’re not going to set any goals – financial or otherwise – for 2022. Maybe we’ll be guided by the contributions of last year. One thing this pandemic has taught us is to be prepared for the unknown. For the most part of the last two years, we’ve done just that. We’ll take what this year has in store.
And we’re done with the year that was known as 2021.
Another high water mark for Net Worth and FI funds. The markets rebounded nicely from the November drop.
We’ve been slowly buying I Bonds from the Treasury. Currently they have a yield of 7.12%. The Physician on Fire has a detailed post how to buy them.
Weather in our part of the world have been a bit crazy with multiple days of below 0 highs. All par for the course though 🙂 We have been able to spend some time with family and that is always nice. The holidays at the end of year were mostly uneventful and relaxing, with lots of movie and football watching.
I’ll try to get the year end post in a couple of days …one can have wishful thinking, right?
Net Worth, Anon 