One of my goals in 2014 was to have a conversation with the partners at my firm about my base pay. It was amazing how easy they made the conversation! We came to a very agreeable outcome. I still believe I am being paid under what I might be able to get elsewhere, but I am so happy with my job! All those reasons I mentioned years ago about why I like my job are still so present, and the relationships even stronger. One goal down many to go!
Every month I take a look at my assets and expenses, as well as, a quick look at my short term financial goals.
My Short Term Financial Goals
To keep myself focused I create short term financial goals to allocate $5,000 among several places. Last year, I was able to complete 2 of these goals. This is not my only savings and not all goals show up on my net worth statement (for example my son’s 529 is not found on my balance sheet). This is the first month for these goals as I finished up my last batch in December of 2013.
- Save $500 to emergency fund – 0% to 35%
- Save $750 to Vacation Fund – 0% to 70%
- Save $2,000 to Dividend Fund – 0% to 10%
- Save $500 to Son’s 529 – 0 to 5%
- Save $750 to Traditional IRA – 0 to 3.33%
- Save $500 to home improvement fund – 0% to 30%
While I was able to make some moves on these goals the market tumbled in January 2014 with the S&P down 3.56%!
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 is not included, but the funds I have saved (plus some) will be converting the house from oil to gas soon (see my calculations behind converting from oil to gas).
- My 401(k) – Just keep throwing part of my paycheck at my 401(k) even though I sort of hate my 401k. This past month I made the decision that the market pull back was deep enough to change my recent allocation from cash to a standard diversified allocation.
- 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. Like always, I updated my dividend champion watch list. For the first time, a few months back, I made the proactive move of selling a dividend champion that is overvalued. - 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%). Last year (I bought the house in Jan of 2013) I just used my purchase price – think I am going to do it for 2014 again.
- 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. I started to actively trade this account lol.
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!
My Net Worth Growth
- From January 2013 to February 2013 my net worth stayed near flat at -.63%
How was your month?
I ended up negative for January in spite of saving pretty heavily. No worries though as the markets were due for a change in direction. What helps me get through those down months though is that my dividends keep increasing through savings/investment and organic growth. -0.63% is pretty good considering how bad the markets performed.
I didn’t get many dividend payouts so I didn’t even have that! These net worth updates keep me motivate but do bum me out once in a while. I wish I were investing as much as you were per month but my monthly nut is just too high and I don’t see it coming down anytime soon. Frustrating, just have to increase earnings then!
This month was my first month ever getting a gas bill – I can’t even figure out what the heck the gas is being used for? I mean, I know the stove is one item, but I used it ONCE this month. It’s got to be heating up water or something or those were the most expensive cookies of my life. :oP
Probably your hot water and heat?
Evan,
How do you calculate your networth anyway?
In the link about your 2014 goals & objectives, you mentioned you don’t count 401k “as well as a few other items” as part of your networth.
I mentioned in my link above, that I don’t count my house in my networth more so because I must live somewhere and rent is like a never-ending rarely going down, drain. That isn’t to say that renting is a bad thing of course.
Chris I include my 401K.
Why wouldn’t you include your home? Do you include the debt associated with that asset? Everytime you make a mortgage payment you are increasing the equity in your home. Ignoring it only makes sense to me if your goal were not to create a balance sheet but rather a current net asset sheet