When I first started my zero net worth experiment I was curious how long it would take me to double my net worth. Well, as the title indicates, 13 or so months later I finally did it! As a reminder on January 18, 2011 I took my positive net worth and made it zero. This way I can share my progress as I grow financially. I am well aware of the negatives of the system the main one being that you, as a reader, do not know if I went from $20,000 to $40,000 or $200,000 to $400,000 over the past 13 months. My usual reply is that you are still sharing in my growth regardless of how big or small it is monetarily. Every month since that post I have provided my growth both in terms of month to date & year to date.
Calculating my Net Worth
The assets I include are:
- My Cash Savings Accounts – This has been my main focus for over a year, as we will need all the cash we can get when we upgrade our living situation. Just a reminder our current home went on the market 30 days ago.
- My 401(k)
- Random Non-Qualified Investment Accounts
- The Wife’s Roth IRA
- My favorite personal finance item, my small but Awesome Dividend Investment Portfolio
- Value of my House – I have kept this constant choosing to ignore this variable. It should be interesting to see whether I close north or south of that number and how that will affect my net worth since this is my biggest asset (even net of liabilities).
- My Traditional IRA – Which I started actively trading last month using a Covered Call Strategy and even created a page to track all my gains (and loses)
The liabilities I include are:
While I am lucky to only have 2 main liabilities, they are very significant.
- Law School Loans
- Mortgage
What is missing?
- Car loan – My car is paid off and I don’t consider it an asset and The Wife leases her car.
- Credit Card debt – Don’t have any except a revolving AMEX account so no reason to put it up
- Checking Accounts – Always changing and moving besides I keep my checking accounts artificially low.
My Net Worth Growth
- From March 1, 2012 to April, 2012 my net worth has increased 6.18%
- Year to Date my net worth has increased 20.02%
- From January 2011 to April 2012 my net worth has increased 107.37%
A lot of my gain this month was attributed to paying my taxes. We owed a couple hundred bucks, but since we thought we were going to owe a lot more we had a cash surplus built up in an account that I don’t count…so a lot of the gain was moving that from a shadow account to long term cash savings.
My future promise to everyone here: I will get a lot more transparent if:
- I remain anonymous
- I am still blogging and I hit 400% (25% on the way there)
How did you do the past month? Feel free to leave your link the comments!
Congrats on you progress and achievement! Mine is still in the negatives and it’s really depressing.
I was in the negative world for a LONG time, but what I have found is that it is all about consistency. If you are consistently doing the right thing (like you are with your blog) eventually you’ll wake up one day and be surprised about how far you have made it!
that is awesome evan congrats!
Thanks Jeff! As you can tell I am pretty pumped.
Very nice – I copied your format and zeroed out at the beginning of the year. I also added a little info that mine is more than my salary (I’ll soon add what percent of my annual salary it is – probably next month – just forgot to do it this month). I think that’s a happy medium between revealing #s and the zero sum.
Here’s my link:
https://www.stepawayfromthemall.com/2012-goals-update-march-2/
Wow you are killing it! I never really thought about it but I bet the Net Worth > Annual Salary is a fantastic first metric to get over for people
Congrats! I haven’t actually put it down in numbers to see what mine is. But off the top of my head I know its positive (not by much) and has been growing steadily for the last 2 years.
I started this blog writing down all my credit card debt and trying to eradicate it. It kept me really focused then I took about a 18 months to realize I should do it with the net worth also.
It doesn’t matter how much it grows by as long as it is growing in the right direction!
Congrats! I need to take a look at my net worth.
Don’t just talk about it! Get it done and share
That’s pretty crazy man. 2x in 13 months is phenomenal! Hope you can do it again.
Congratulations! Mine keeps going up, too, but it seems inflated since according to Mint, my car is an asset that is worth what I originally paid for it, and though I’m no mathematician, I see flaws in that calculation.
Congrats! I did pretty good this month. Bought a house so my savings dropped significantly, but my overall net worth increased.
Congrats! Your journey gives all of us a blueprint to follow. Keep it up.
I will be posting about our net worth this month. I posted a goal pertaining to our net worth for 2012 so I definitely have to share where we’re starting from so y’all can track the goal I’ve set for myself. The growth you guys have experienced is amazing! Congrats!!
I adjust my home value as part of my net worth on a monthly basis. The source for my value is questionable though, as Zillow.com is not completely accurate. Doesn’t matter though, as I am not planning to sell anytime soon. The value is close enough and gives me a good idea of my total net worth. Just glad that my home value is finally back on the up-trend! These last four years have been brutal.