Net Worth Update #9: October 2019
Hello FOGA Readers! Welcome to Net Worth Update #9: October 2019. October was a long and interesting month. Lots of things happened and I will go over that in another update. Long couple of weeks to say the least.
So, without further ado, onto the net worth update!
The Usual:
For anyone who is not aware, your net worth is your total assets minus your total liabilities. Also known as everything you own of value minus everything you owe.
Pretty much this, except I don’t count cars in mine.
I don’t share our specific income into these updates, but I am sure you will be able to tell the good months from the bad ones. I get paid twice a month if I have closings. If I don’t, I do not get paid. It tends to make things interesting around here.
Mr. FOGA has regular bi-weekly paychecks, so that keeps us afloat on my bad months.
Of course, there is not always going to be a lot of change with some of the sections here (like our house), but it will be helpful to see the fluctuations overall.
Let’s get into Net Worth Update #9!
Assets
Home- $265,000
The usual stuff: I don’t consider our home to be an investment. We live here, and that’s all. However, it does have a value, so I’ve added that as part of our net worth. Not to mention, since we have to include the mortgage, we might as well note the value of the home. Otherwise, our net worth is incredibly negative, and that’s no fun.
Our home is worth $279,900 according to Realtor.com and $290,398 according to Zillow. The appraisal we got when we refinanced our home put it at $254,000 back in April.
Two of the homes in our neighborhood closed and the last one is pending! There’s the one last month that closed for $285,990 on our street. It had on less bedroom but it was slightly bigger. The other one that has the same floorplan as we do just closed for $271,000. And now, finally, the last one just a few doors down the street is pending. They were asking $285,000, but I doubt they got it.
Due to all this great info and watching the other homes in the area, I am increasing the value of our home to $265,000. That would appraise with no issue. 🙂
Hooray for growth!!!
Investments- $104,642.50
Investments are finally over 100K!!!! Woohoo!!!!
Both IRAs went up since the last update. Now they are both over $12,000 which is awesome!
Both of our 401Ks did well and mine went over the 60K mark. I did learn that I probably won’t make the 401K max contribution this year due to some of my closings being pushed, but I will get close, so that’s awesome. 🙂
The IULs are doing their usual thing. Growing but not at a crazy rate.
Regular Info for IUL Accounts: IUL stands for Index Universal Life. It is a type of universal life insurance that is tied to the performance of a market index. We cannot earn less than 1% on these accounts. So, if the market is -10%, we are still earning 1%. The downside is that if the market is earning 20%, we are capped at 14%. It compounds annually. We put in after-tax money, so, like a Roth IRA, we don’t pay taxes on anything we earn. Also, once we hit a certain dollar amount or timeframe, we can withdraw money from them with no penalty or taxes, and we are also not required to pay it back. It also has a tax free death benefit for your beneficiaries, so they won’t pay death or income taxes. All around, pretty cool!
Emergency Fund- $30,138.86
The emergency fund is maxed out and just gaining interest right now. Ally’s interest rate has gone down again and is currently at 1.7%.
We have earned over $369 so far this year in interest in this account. That’s 24.6 books at $15 each or 61.5 lattes at $6 each. If you don’t have a high-interest savings account, you should definitely get one. If not Ally, there are a few places offer higher interest savings accounts currently. Some are higher than Ally’s 1.7% interest rate.
Savings- $4,000
Here is where we keep the rest of our savings. This savings account is essentially an immediate emergency fund. If something comes up, we have easy access to some money, but not ALL the money. This account is also the funds we use for projects around the house and vacations. It’s partially regular savings and a sinking fund.
We add $5 automatically every month. Then we add whatever it takes to get it to the next hundred. We normally have it at $2500, but we keep it growing for the extra stuff.
The goal currently is to get the account to $5500. Once that happens we’ll invest the $3000 extra into Vanguard, Schwab, or Fundrise. Or some combination of two-three of them. Hoping to be able to do that by the end of the year.
Car Fund- $4,000
The car fund is officially with the other assets. After a quick twitter poll, I decided to just include this here. The best reply was this one:
This means that one day my net worth is going to shrink about $25,000, but it will be an adventure. Plus, we’ll have a car that is newer and more useful, so that’s nice.
Total Assets- $406,031.36
Liabilities
Mortgage- $224,426.39
It’s going down. We pay $200 more a month towards the principal. If we keep this up, we will pay it off in 2038 (vs. 2044).
The goal here is the recast the mortgage once it would appraise at an 80% LTV ratio to remove the PMI or to refinance to do the same with a lower interest rate. It depends on what’s going on when that happens. Currently, we are $10,000- $13,000 away from either cash on hand or value. So, still got a bit to go.
We did check and we can pull taxes and insurance out of escrow if we refinance. Recasting is a little trickier, so I need to call to figure that out.
Total Liabilities- $224,426.39
Net Worth
Total Net Worth- $181,604.97
Made it to over $175,000!!!! We did it!!!! And we still have 40 days left in the year! Woohoo!!!!
So that was Net Worth Update #9. A great month, and we hit the 2019 goal.
Do you have a net worth update? If so, I would love to read it. Please put a link in the comments below.
If you like reading Net Worth Updates, check out these guys:
Money Hacking Mama
Our Table For Two
Poorer Than You
Walking to FIRE
Also here are some of my previous Net Worth Updates:
September: Net Worth Update #8: September 2019
August: Net Worth Update #7: August 2019
July: Net Worth Update #6: July 2019
June: Net Worth Update #5: June 2019
Otherwise, what did you think? Good? Bad? Any thoughts? Please share them below.
Until Next Time!
FOGA
Wooo congrats on hitting your 2019 goal, you’re doing a great job!!
Thanks! I hope you are having fun on your mini-retirement!!!
Thanks for reading!
I’m glad I found your site — the name is on point.
I didn’t even know mortgage recasting was a thing. I thought you were using a synonym for refinancing, but turns out they are different. Thanks for that. And congrats on exceeding your goals for the year!
I have a few questions about your emergency fund. Why so much in a savings account? That seems like a lot of money to have on hand, especially when index funds are still highly liquid and offer much higher returns. It seems like putting 20k into an index fund would give you much more love, and you’d still have 10k that would be immune to market volatility. I’m curious what your reasons are — I may need to rethink my strategy. Thanks!
Hi Lyle. Thanks for the kind words.
I work on commission (even if I get a W2) so my income is not guaranteed. We have a high E-Fund in case of bad months since they will come. If our income was more stable, we would probably have a lower e-fund.
Thanks for reading!