It was a rough month spending wise. Shortly after we bought our new house earlier this year The Wife and I lit our first fire. The next day we noticed that the entire house smelled of smoke. We chalked it up to a dirty fireplace and decided to ignore it till the late summer when we could get a cheap rate on a cleaning. The chimney cleaner came and told us that the top of our chimney was a disaster and is likely to fall over with a good storm! My response was that of any man, “Yeah, bullshit guy! I wasn’t born yesterday.”
Well, 3 appointments later with 3 different individuals with 3 estimates (but all the same prognosis) it was determined we had to tear down 6 rows of brick and build it up another 3 or 4 feet. So on top of normal spending we had that bill. But that’s why The Wife and I have an emergency fund!
My Short Term Financial Goals
I finished the last of my $5,000 goals in June and gave myself some new ones:
- Contribute $500 to my Traditional IRA – Finished this up last month
- Save $500 into my Son’s 529 – Went from 45% to 65%
- Save $1,000 in cash towards a future investment property purchase – 12% to 22.5%
- Invest $1,500 into my Dividend Portfolio – Finished Last Month!
- Save up $750 to allocate to my whole life insurance policies – Went from 17.21% to 23.2%
- Save $750 in the house repair fund – Went from 50% to 73.3%.
I am pretty disappointed in myself on how long this set of goals is taking. I don’t talk a lot about my side hustles here, but one of them took a HUGE hit for the middle part of this year so that hurt us financially. That being said, we are back on track and killing it!
Calculating my Net Worth
My Assets
- My Cash Savings Accounts – I only really count my emergency savings since everything else is ear marked to be spent elsewhere. For example, the above house improvement fund isn’t included. I had to invade the emergency fund for the chimney but as soon as I am done with my short term goals outlined above I will get going on replenishing this account asap.
- My 401(k) – Just keep throwing part of my paycheck at my 401(k) even though I sort of hate my 401k. I plan on making some moves on it next week.
- Random Non-Qualified Investment Accounts
- The Wife’s Roth IRA – This account only holds to 2 funds. An index fund of the market and a dividend paying fund.
- My Dividend Investment Portfolio – Easily my favorite part of my financial
empirehut. I recently undated my dividend champion watchlist. - Home Value – A lot of bloggers seem to stress over home value. In my old place I just rounded to a number that I thought I’d sell for (I was off by less than 1%), I think I am just going to use my purchase price for the year and look at comparable home sales next year.
- My Traditional IRA – Have been trading using my covered call strategy, but I have waived the white flag on the strategy and just finished up betting against my first stock. This account is going to be pure passive by the end of the year hopefully.
My Liabilities
- My Mortgage – Every so often I think about putting money towards the mortgage but I always back off.
- Law School debt – While I recently paid off the much smaller of the loans I have a while before this category makes any significant moves.
Credit Card debt!
While I respect liquidity way too much The Wife had different feelings. Despite all the debt being at 0% she wanted it gone. It gave her a sense of security and let her better focus on what was actually being spent each month since there was no balance to worry about. Since it wasn’t like I was making a bad financial move we paid off the card 2 months ago. 
My Net Worth Growth
- From October 2013 to November 2013 my net worth increased .95%
- Year to Date my net worth is up 2.04%
How did you do this month? Share your links below
Good to hear the side hustle is back up and making money (tell us more)! Tough news on the chimney. Unexpected expenses like that can really derail a financial plan if not properly prepared for them. Emergency savings have huge benefits during times like these for the ability to move quickly and make the right decisions. Even as someone who is very investment focused I am absolutely a big believer in emergency savings.
Given the overall rate of increase in the stock market this year how would you rate your overall improvement of 2% for the year-to-date? Understandably life throws many a curveball, just wanted to hear your thoughts.
My accounts are WAY up, but I bought a house in January so I took about 100K of investable assets and put it in the walls of the home that I haven’t been growing(20% down on a 500K house)…I then took probably close to 20K and burned it through closing costs. Then throw in new carpets, furniture and boom = 2% gain despite a crazy ass market.
Now you have depressed me!
Fair enough, I knew I was missing something! And I can certainly relate to the house down payment. Closing on a house with the little lady in December. And sorry for the depression, but just think, today is Friday! 🙂
Nice progress! Evan, you are smart to pay off the debt in order to make your wife happy. It makes her feel like you are respecting her, she is a full partner, and “net worth” isn’t just on the balance sheet.
My thought on the down payment, is that any reduction of mortgage principal and home debt can have an imputed rent/equity value. It may feel tough, when the stock market goes up 20%. But when the market goes down 20% and you are paying off a 4% loan, you will sleep extra sound.:-)
btw, the fireplace is great! In my house, it is actually a source for entertainment and brings people together in the same room; we have great conversations that often start off, “the fire is so nice!” Sorry for the unexpected repair bills, but hopefully you will enjoy fires for many years to come there.
Interesting you tried the ‘covered call’ strategy for your IRA. That was a popular strategy during flat periods, in the past. There was a pop-finance figure, Wade Cook, who made millions selling instructional CDs and books on it. Long story short, Cook went to jail. And like any strategy, it works until it doesn’t. Continued success to you!
I made a few forays into covered calls and decided that I didn’t like the strategy because it was “betting against” the stocks I had purchased with the hopes of increasing earnings, dividends and therefore, price. I don’t like having to buy back a stock I want to own at higher prices if the stock gets called.
I have found that I really like cash covered puts, because it is aligned with my objective of buying stocks at a lower price than the market has valued them. I retain my cash, get a very respectable return, sometimes capture a stock I want to own with the put-premium discount attached to the position.
I’m in favor of paying off the debt. Debt is leverage, working against you in tough times, since the payments are due irrespective of your earnings status. Debt may be cheap if the interest rates are low, but not as low as no obligation whatsoever.
I was up 2.8% this month due largely to the markets. I will be curious how it goes this month as we are working through several emergency repairs on the CC + Xmas presents + DW’s birthday presents + charitable giving. Holding my breath.