How We are Growing Our Net Worth – April 2017

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We have officially been tracking our net worth for 2 years now!

Our net worth has grown by 24.5% since our first report back in March, 2015! That is an increase of over $100,000 in just 2 years. It is an awesome feeling knowing we are growing our net worth by $50K per year!

Over the past 2 years … we have started to see our assets really grow, while at the same time most of our liabilities decrease.

When you are building wealth and growing your net worth … that is exactly what you want to see. Grow your investments (i.e. assets) while lowering your expenses (i.e. liabilities).

Keep widening that gap (difference between liabilities and assets) so that more money can be used to buy assets and less money to pay for liabilities.

Now on to our latest monthly net worth update.

How We Track Our Net Worth

Before we move on to reviewing our latest net worth numbers, I wanted to point out that we are using our Personal Capital account to do most of the work.

We are tracking our net worth through this free account. This tool has made it possible for us to easily track our net worth at a moments notice.

Note: This post contains affiliate links.

[thrive_text_block color=”light” headline=”Personal Capital”]I highly recommend checking out Personal Capital and setting up a free account. It is the best tool available to help track your net worth and can even help with your spending.[/thrive_text_block]

So how did we do this April?

April 2017 Net Worth

As of April 25th, 2017 – our net worth is $541,483.41!

In the past, we didn’t want to post net worth updates every month. Instead we opted for posting updates every quarter or so. Since there are so many moving parts to calculating ones net worth, it seemed pointless to go through the exercise every month.

Well, things change … and now we plan to provide an update every month. We started providing monthly updates at the start of 2017 and plan to continue for some time.

So why did we change our mind? Our focus is now on saving a lot more of our income each month in order to invest it. And by reviewing our net worth once a month, I feel that it will help us stay motivated with our goal to save (and invest) more.

Here is our most recent update, compared to our last net worth post in March.

Our net worth in April 2017 increased by an amazing 2.6% compared to March (2017). That is an increase of over $13,000+ in just 1 month.

This month, the the majority of the increase was from our investments as a result of a bullish stock market. In addition … we were able to decrease our liabilities at a decent rate and we got our tax refund – both of which helped boost our net worth.

March 2017 Net Worth = $527,803.85
April 2017 Net Worth = $541,483.41

Net Worth Change = +$13,679.56

A high level breakdown of our assets and liabilities are detailed below.

Assets

We currently have 3 main asset categories that we are reporting on – investments, cash, and home value. We don’t like to report our automobiles as an asset, so those are only included as liabilities. If we really wanted to get detailed, I should probably start thinking about adding these assets in the future.

Investments

This category includes our dividend income portfolio, 529 plans for the kids, emergency fund accounts, retirement accounts, etc.

It is currently our highest valued asset and we are constantly working every single day to make it grow.

Since last October (2016), we have been focused on investing new money into the stock market. We want to grow our investment portfolio – with a heavy focus on growing our dividend income stream.

March 2017 Investments = $406,866.83
April 2017 Investments = $417,542.17

Investment Change = +$10,675.34

Investment increases made up the majority of our overall net worth increase last month. We invested close to $5,000 from our tax refund into stocks which accounts for about half of the $10K increase.

The other investment increases were a result of the bullish stock market and our investments growing overtime.

The value of our investments rose by 2.62%.

Overall, the health of our portfolio looks strong as we have built a solid cash flow machine.

Cash

Our current cash includes all of our checking and savings accounts. We don’t usually carry a high cash balance and like to move it into the stock market to purchase income producing assets. However, it is also important to have some cash on hand in order to cover unexpected expenses.

March 2017 – Cash = $3,409.67
April 2017 – Cash = $4,346.01

Cash Change = +$936.34

We were able to bump our cash balance up this month after letting it drop a lot in March. I like to keep a balance of $4,000 to $5,000 in our cash accounts and the rest gets invested.

Home Value

I have never been a big fan of reporting on our home value in our net worth. However, it is one of our largest assets so we need to include it.

We are currently using the Zillow estimate on our home, which is calculated directly through Personal Capital. This asset will likely see a bunch of ups and downs each time I report our net worth.

March 2017 – Home Value (est) = $331,269.00
April 2017 – Home Value (est) = $331,772.00

Home Value Change = + $503.00

A nice increase in our home value … although it doesn’t really mean a whole lot at this point.

Despite the limitations of reporting our home value, it is good to see the perceived value of our home increasing a little each time we report our net worth.

Total Assets

Overall, all 3 of our assets that we report on saw increases. Investments really helped skyrocket our net worth this past month!

Total assets rose by almost 1.63% since last reporting.

March 2017 – Total Assets – $741,545.50
April 2017 – Total Assets – $753,660.18

Total Asset Change = +$12,114.68

Liabilities

There are 3 main liability categories that we will report on. The first and largest is our mortgage balance. Then we have our credit card balances … which is how we pay for almost every purchase we make.

The last category is our car loan(s). We just took on more debt back in January, when I purchased a new car.

Mortgage Balance

One month at a time … we are working to pay down our mortgage debt. Fortunately, we have a reasonable mortgage rate and a monthly payment that doesn’t completely hold us down.

We have a 30 year mortgage on our home with a rate of 4.375%. That isn’t too bad of a rate, so we don’t normally pay any extra on the mortgage.

However, the past couple of months we started rounding our payments up the the nearest $100. That ends up being an extra ~$21 a month or so that goes directly to the principal.

Every few months, we consider refinancing to a 15 year mortgage … but the numbers never seem to work out.

March 2017 – Mortgage Balance – ($182,737.87)
April 2017 – Mortgage Balance – ($182,310.10)

Mortgage Balance Change = + $427.77

Car Loan(s)

At the start of the year, we took on a lot more debt after buying a second car … which I will refer to as “car loan #2”. My 16+ year old vehicle finally died, so I needed reliable transportation.

The good news is that we were able to purchase a new vehicle that gets over 35 mpg with a 0% financed loan. The bad news is that we took on $17,000+ in debt and a second car payment.

As far as our other “family car”, we have a very low rate and are on year #4 of the loan. We refer to this as “car loan #1”. Since our rate is 1.56%, we haven’t paid too much extra on it.

March 2017 – Car Loan #1 – ($9,248.63)
April 2017 – Car Loan #1 – ($8,861.28)

March 2017 – Car Loan #2 – ($17,463.95)
April 2017 – Car Loan #2 – ($17,217.98)

Car Loan(s) Change = +$633.32

The balance on both of these loans should drop a decent percentage each month going forward … especially loan #2 since it is 100% principal. And we have started paying extra on car loan #1 just to get it off the books.

Credit Card Balance

Since we are not paying any extra money on our mortgage and our car loan has such a low rate, our credit card spending is the biggest area for improvement.

Note – We have always paid our balance off every month on our credit cards.

March 2017 – Credit Card Balance(s) = ($4,291.20)
April 2017 – Credit Card Balance(s) = ($3,787.41)

Credit Card Balance Change = +$503.79

Our credit card balances fluctuate a lot month to month. However, we are really focused on spending less. Lower credit card balance is a good sign our plan is working.

Note – The balances shown above are at a point in time and don’t reflect the amount we spend in a month.

Total Liabilities

Since last reporting, our mortgage balance has dropped – as expected. It is good to know that each payment we make, we are paying less and less interest. Because of amortization, each payment we make … the principal drops at a higher and higher rate.

We also saw a good drop in our car loan debt as well as our credit card spending.

Which brings me to the most important point of all –

Growing your net worth is not just about increasing your assets. It is just as important to lower your liabilities at the same time.

The larger the gap is between your total assets and total liabilities is the key to financial independence and something my family is working towards.

March 2017 – Total Liabilities – ($213,741.65)
April 2017 – Total Liabilities – ($212,176.77)

Total Liabilities Change = + $1,564.88

Look at how much our liabilities dropped in just one month! That is basically the equivalent of a mortgage payment for us.

I never like to see our liabilities increase. Over the last month, we have lowered our liabilities by (0.73)% … which is a good thing.

As I like to point out every time we talk about net worth … there are 2 sides to the equation. So a decrease in liabilities by ~$1,500+ is just as important as increasing our assets by the same amount.

In fact … I actually get more excited now reporting on how we are lowering our liabilities instead of growing our assets.

Net Worth Summary

We plan to keep these net worth posts updated every month now, which is a change from the past.

After reviewing our net worth number for this April, it is clear to see where our huge gains were made … investments. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

We were able to lower our liabilities by over $1,500 which I think is awesome. If we were able to maintain that rate every month, we could increase our net worth by $18,000 for the year!

And besides lowering our debt, we were able to save a little more money last month and bump our cash balance up. Plus the estimated value of our home increased a bit … although we don’t get that excited about those numbers.

Do you track your net worth? What steps are you taking to widen the gap between your assets and liabilities?

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