March 2023 Net Worth
We made it through the first quarter of 2023! An interesting time to be sure. Real estate in my area is still going pretty strong and stocks seem to have leveled out from the last dive that they took, so let’s see how that all went.
Then: December 2022: $708,000/$273,000
We ended 2022 making our stretch goal of $700,000 net worth. This quarter work has been quieter in regard to closings, but not in regard to sales. My last paycheck was on January 31st. We’ve just been coasting on January income and the tax return that we got. Also, my father-in-law passed away, so we have been working through all that. (Random Fun fact: Did you know that Florida has TWO death certificates? 🙃)
So, given all that, how did we do?
Now: March 2023: $740,000/$305,000
We went up $32,000 in both categories. For the first time in a long time, all our investments (index funds, IRAs, 401s, etc) went up. The only things that went down were the real estate, but even that was only by $5,000. Our savings has gone up as well which is awesome. 👍
Financial Independence Milestone: BallerFI
We have upgraded to BallerFI, which is over $100,000 invested. The next step is HustlerFI at $150,000 invested. 👍
A reminder: We only use these accounts (index funds, employee stock, & IULs) since they are the only ones we have without age restrictions. The IRAs and 401Ks cannot be accessed until we are 59.5 so, we don’t include those in this factor. Although with just my 401K, I should be a millionaire without contributing another penny (assuming it doesn’t go down too far this year).
If you are wondering what the hell I am talking about with this, check out Guac’s awesome post about these particular milestones here.
A pretty strong start to 2023. This will also be the last net worth update that seems even remotely normal to me. With my father-in-law dying, there is now the figuring out everything with his estate and getting it split between Mr. FOGA and his siblings. Inheritance is a weird, emotional, and long process. Huge shout out to the Women Personal Finance community for keeping me sane throughout the last month. 💙
But, for better or for worse, it’s definitely going to change a lot of stuff for us in the future.
How did you do in quarter one of 2023? Did your net worth go up or down?
Photo by Gábor Juhász on Unsplash
Our net worth has perked up this month but it’s been going up and down for months. Mostly I see it slowly trending upward, which is nice, but we still haven’t progressed very much overall in the last year. We’re about $300K away from a new milestone if we can get there AND make it stick. I enjoy Darcy’s milestones list but it doesn’t work for us because we have four people and live in a HCOL and the numbers just don’t go as far for 4 as they do for 1 or 2. If I assume we’re also cashflowing half of college for 2 kids, they definitely don’t go as far! 🙂 While we may have the option to move to a lower COLA later, I don’t want to bank on it as part of our requirements.
Getting to a new milestone and having it stick is definitely the hard part right now. You’re right about the Guac Scale not working for more than two people. Not a lot of the FIRE calculators do. They typically assume that it’s just one to two people alone. Should have more options for sure.
Me being slow: What does COLA mean?