A no-holds-barred approach to personal finance where we bare all our gory details, ahem, numbers. Anonymously.
Net Worth increased by ~$45k in March. The wild ride continues …
We’ve had a record breaking winter this year. Top 5 snowiest winter of all time. As I type this out on April 16, snow still continues to fall. The end is not in sight.
Here is a breakdown of March expenses.
A below average month, in terms of spending. (Which we are making up for in April – details in next month’s post).
Hope you are in nice and warm weather as you read this. Cheers!
Net Worth in February dropped by ~$24k.
Nothing good ever happens in February – the darkest and sullenest of months.
Let’s just keep it at that.
Hoping to a better March. (Though with SVB collapse that’s not going to happen. At least …we have sunshine! Before being hit by ANOTHER round of snow, to propel us to the top-5 snowiest winter – for our metro area – on record.)
All is well. Cheers!
If the first month of the new year is anything to go by (it’s not), then we have a good year in the making!
Our NW rose by almost $77k.
January around our neck of the woods has been …grey. Yep, that’s the word. The weather is cold; very little sun; and we’ve had different kinds of precipitation – snow, sleet, and rain – sometimes all in the same day! After the year end festivities, January is always a sobering month. Just looking forward to Spring.
Here is our January spending.
We spent a substantial amount in eating out and ordering takeout in January. I’m blaming it on the weather. The car category is just the yearly insurance premium for both our vehicles. We used to pay over $1,600 in two semi-annual payments but got onto a new insurance product, from the same place, which is cheaper!
Here’s hoping less grey weather for all. Cheers!
For the first time since we started this blog in 2017, we finished a calendar year with a lower Net Worth than we started. Ouch.
But these types of years are expected. They are part and parcel of normal economic and market cycles. The years of 2017 to 2021 gave us uninterrupted, and unprecedented, gains. Some pullback is only good.
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 6 full years, we are close to $1.3m. That’s lower than what we ended 2021 but still incredible!
We made the following contributions to our investment accounts:
In all, we contributed $62,714 to our investments in 2022.
The one big-ish trip we took in 2022 was to a National Park. We flew in and then rented a car to drive around for 4 days. We made a few road trips to visit family over weekends and holidays. A slow year in terms of travel for us. We are hoping to take at least one big – possibly international – trip in 2023 and a slew of road trips.
Again, setting no goals for 2023 but will possibly try to hit 2022 numbers. And more trips.
December, thankfully, brought close to a dismal year. Our NW dropped by almost $47k last month.
The weather in our part of the world has been, to put it politely, f**king insane. Record snow, blizzard conditions, icy roads, plummeting temps has made an awful start to winter. We traveled over the holidays but though we are all safe, conditions were frightful.
The new year apparently is going much like the past one. January already have had 3 school closures due to bad weather! Hopefully this will get better.
Life has been, otherwise, good around here. We’re engaged in activities that mentally and physically keep us in shape. We’re eating well. We aren’t worried about finances. We’re watching a lot of movies.
The year end review should be out before this month ends.
Hope your holidays were special. Cheers!
This is what we we made in 2022.
Our total yearly gross income is $163,520
Almost $10k more than what we made in 2021.
This puts us in the top 17% of US household income.
Rising stock markets, second month in a row, lifted our NW by $58k.
Life is good around the here. Late fall has been mild. There’s snow on the ground but temps have only once gone close to 0°F. That’s a win in our neck of the woods! Winter activities, mostly held in different domes around where we live, are on in full swing. Though going out on ski excursions will happen a couple of times later during the season.
Spending in November was more than the *average*.
Not very surprisingly, groceries have been on an upward trend. With inflation, this number is now closer to $600 monthly average than the earlier $500. Thanksgiving and being around extended family pushed this even higher. Expenses on activities/sports (registration, signups, gear), car (regular maintenance), and other miscellaneous stuff brought this close to $4.5k.
Hope you all are living the FIFA World Cup, which for the first time is being held in the (Northern hemisphere) winter. Till next time, when hopefully Messi and Argentina have been crowned world champions – cheers!
Again, almost 3 weeks into the month late …..I want ideas about *punitive* actions against us if we publish the blog post over a week late. Seriously 😀
Market gain gave us an increase of almost $79k for the month. Not bad. Quite a ways to regain all time highs.
Fall festivities are drawing near and we’ve been busy with fall/winter sports and activities. Though not as extensive as spring/summer sports, these tend to take up a lot of evenings during week nights and then some in the weekends. We are lucky to be involved in stuff that are near and dear to us.
Till (by the first week of December!) next time, have a great Thanksgiving! Cheers!
September provided us our second biggest monthly loss at close to $89k.
We’ll just leave it at there. Especially since it’s 21 days into the new month!
Outdoor fall sports have wrapped up in a blazing few weeks and weekends of activities. We’re still recovering from multiple tournaments and games and …fun. Winter sports will start up in November. We’re currently in the zone where we have all the evenings for ourselves. Doesn’t happen much around here!
Expenses for September was the average archetypal spend for us. Over the course of a full year, $3k would be the average monthly expenses.
Here’s hoping you all are having a nice and contended fall. Cheers!
NW decreased by $36k. All good.
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.
Hope you’re having a good start to fall. Cheers!
Net Worth, Anon 