July 2013 Net Worth Update

June 2013 to July 2013 has been a pretty flat month for me in terms of net worth.  I think this mainly has to do with when some payments clear (i.e. not paying my mortgage till the first of the month, etc.).  This may make July 2013 look way better than it should, but maybe not if the market doesn’t cooperate since more and more these net worth snapshots depend on the market.

My short term goals are moving along nicely since starting them at the beginning of July:

1. Contribute $500 to my Traditional IRA – 45%
2. Save $500 into my Son’s 529 – 10%
3. Save $1,000 in cash towards a future investment property purchase – 7% (the lowest on the priority list)
4. Invest $1,500 into my Dividend Portfolio – 26.67%
5. Save up $750 to allocate to my whole life insurance policies – 8%
6. Save $750 in the house repair fund – 36.67% although this may get invaded soon

Would love to finish these goals up much quicker, but my online income slowed down hard last month and these are funded through that and my small, tiny law practice.

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. A few months ago I came up with a round number that I am going to use going forward.  It is sort of a multiple of my monthly nut.
• My 401(k) – Just keep throwing part of my paycheck at my 401(k) even though I sort of hate my 401k.
• 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.  The dividend watch list was tweaked and updated mid June.
• 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 – The mortgage on our old home was a 40 year note with a 5.875% interest rate while the current mortgage is 30 years and 3.375%…so I am shocked to see how much principal I have paid down already as compared to what we paid back over 7 years in the old place!
• 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.  My first set of financial goals included an extra $500 payment (which I made) I left it off this time around.
• Credit Card debt!

I haven’t had credit card debt in 3 or so years, but with the house purchase came a lot of fix it up purchases as well as furniture.  So as we were buying the house I called up all my dormant credit cards to see what they could do in terms of 0% on purchases until June 2014. It may be needless to say, but the card will be paid off prior to that date.  While I have the liquidity to pay off the debt I prefer not because I respect liquidity way too much and the debt is at 0%.  The debt isn’t as much as when I started this blog (~$18K) but it is a damn good amount.  With my short term financial goals I keep throwing money at the CCs too.

My Net Worth Growth

• From June 2013 to July 2013 my net worth stayed basically the same increasing only .25% 
  
• Year to Date my net worth is still negative but only 4.15% (from 4.36%).

I think next month is finally the month I get back to even year to date!