Assets and Liabilities

Here are the details behind what goes into our Assets and Liabilities columns.

Assets


Retirement buckets

  • 401(k) accounts

– We both have 401(k) accounts at our respective jobs, with all of our old accounts from previous jobs rolled over into our current accounts – this is, by far, the heaviest bucket
– W has a Roth 401(k) at work [very small component, not contributing anymore]

  • Roth IRA

– We both have individual Roth IRA accounts with Vanguard
– M has a Roth IRA account with CapitalOneInvesting Charles Schwab (a mix of individual stocks and Schwab ETFs – no new inflow of money). Surprisingly, the Schwab ETFs actually have lower expense ratios than Vanguard!

  • IRA

– M had a fully vested pension from two-employers back [small component in the overall scheme of things] – which has now been rolled over into an IRA at Vanguard [Aug 13, ’18]

– W has a IRA as well


529 college account

We have a 529 college account with Utah Educational Savings Plan, for our child. We also have different accounts for our nieces and nephews but those are not included in our assets column.


Bank accounts 

Pretty self explanatory. Only checking and savings accounts. We do not currently have any CDs.


Investments bucket

  • Individual taxable brokerage accounts with

– Vanguard – Main taxable brokerage accounts consisting of ETFs
– Computershare – Mainly “playing around” money. Computershare offers DRIP in major companies, a lot of them with no fee on buying.
– Fidelity – Necessitated by employer RSU
– Loyal3 – A commission free online brokerage platform, which also allows ordinary investors to take part in IPOs.
Update 5/31/2017: Loyal3 closed down and moved all accounts to FolioFirst. FolioFirst also offers commission free trades, on a larger number of stocks. They charge $5 monthly maintenance fee which is waived till August. We’ll see what we do.
Update 4/16/2018: Closed down FolioFirst and invested the proceedings in the taxable Vanguard a/c

  • HSA account

– W has a HSA account through work. We don’t technically use this as an investment account, as in we fund this monthly and take money out as and when we need it for medical expenses.

Bonds

A bunch of Treasury bonds given as present from grandparents. We let them go till final maturity.

House

Our primary residence. The valuation of $300k is from 2015 when we refinanced. The valuation of $325k is from 2020 when we refinanced. We know the property is quite a bit more than that, but we keep it conservative.
* A note on why we include the value of our home in assets as this is a point of contention in the PF blogging community. The reason for us is simple: because we include the outstanding mortgage in our debts assessment. The mortgage doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The home, and consequently the value of the home, prop up the mortgage. We’ll take the house off our Asset column when the mortgage is fully paid off. 

Note: We don’t count our cars as assets. The value of cars depreciate over time, thus making them not suitable for this category. If they were primarily used for business purposes then a case could be made, but they are our personal vehicles.

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Liabilities

Mortgage

30-year fixed at 3.875%  15-year fixed at 2.625% (June 2020)

Car loan

5-year fixed at 0.9% – Paid off in August 2020

5-year fixed at 0%

Student loans

Earnest loan at 3.25% ($14k on Apr 16 ’18) – Paid off on Aug 13 ’18!
Government loan at 6.21% (~12k on Feb 28 ’17)
Private loan at 4.99% (~15k on Feb 28 ’17)

Note: We have never, ever, carried any credit card debts. We use our cards for any and all purchase, for any amount, where ever they are accepted without any additional fee, and we pay off the full balance every month.

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That’s it. Those are all our assets and liabilities. To get Net Worth, subtract the total Liabilities from total Assets.

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This was initially written as a post here.