Hey Money Wizards, welcome to October! Fall is firmly upon us, which only confirms to me that this year is completely flying by. Anyone agree?
If you’re new here, every month I get financially naked for my readers in the form of an in depth net worth report. Yes, I’m dedicated to the cause.
Of course, all of this is part of a broader plan to track my progress towards nearly one million dollars and an early retirement.
September was a fun one. On the internet side of things, this website continued to grow at a rate that’s mostly astonishing and partly terrifying. September saw nearly 65,000 page views, and we’re now at almost 1,000 Money Wizard email subscribers.
A big reason for all of this was this little website’s feature in not only Business Insider, but Forbes too! I’d like to say I saw this coming all along, but honestly, if you told me a few months ago that my opinion would be on the front page of not one, but two of the biggest websites on the Internet, I’d ask for a little bit of whatever you’re drinking.
On the real life side of things, I shed a tear as it turned to fall. Not only did the temperature start to drop, but my favorite summer seasonal beers were swiftly replaced by their fall counterparts. RIP Bell’s Oberon…
Things weren’t all bad though. September was packed with plenty of swan-song summer adventures. I caught a minor league baseball game, and this native Texan got his first dose of Northern Football.
I then felt guilty enough for cheating on my Texas football that I promptly flew home to Texas to visit family, before ending the month with a little weekend getaway to Seattle. Why Seattle? Why not Seattle!
Having never been, this trip was mostly inspired by my previous travels to the Pacific Northwest, which left me head over heels in love with the region.
Ready to confirm my suspicions, the girlfriend and I booked a short weekend getaway to Seattle – landing on Friday afternoon and leaving Sunday night. In doing my best Anthony Bourdain style Layover impression, my plane touched down and I immediately began my race against the clock to see all the city had to offer in a 48-hour window.
Like a good tourist, I started with a trip to Seattle’s world famous farmers market, where I confirmed they really do throw giant fish at each other…
I also stumbled upon the world’s first Starbucks. The storefront boasted a line out the door at all times, where eager consumers waited for coffee tasting exactly like every other Starbucks coffee.
I’m not judging too harshly though, since I promptly fell into the trap of this $15 Ferris wheel ride:
The rest of the trip was a wonderful blur of fun, adventure, and delicious food. I won’t bore you with all the details, but I will share this stunning view of Mount Rainier that I caught on my way out:
Truly, Seattle is an awesome city. The place features my personal favorite mix – an amazing big city feel, with the ever pleasant reminder of nature just a glance away.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah… onto the Net Worth report already…”
Okay, onto the reason you’re actually here. In September, my net worth increased $1,930. To the details!
September 2016 Net Worth Update
Cash Savings: ($775) No, this amount of cash is not preparation for the alien invasion. But it is preparation for the purchase of a new car before the end of the year. Man, I really need to just pull the trigger already. The lost opportunity cost of carrying this much cash for the past several months is killing me.
Because I pay everything on credit card, changes to cash are usually a reflection of the past month’s billing cycle. I had an unusually high CC bill in August, thanks to pre-purchasing a winter ski trip (to Whistler!) which explains the majority of the decrease. Septemeber spending fell back to a more normal level.
Vanguard Account: ($154)
A small decline due to market fluctuations.
I have received a lot of questions about the specifics of which funds I invest in. You’ve found it. After my automatic 401K contributions, all of my savings go towards just two funds in this Vanguard account.
- VTSAX is a Vanguard Index Fund which tracks the total stock market. All of my taxable savings go here.
- VGSLX is an index fund which invests in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs). All of my Roth IRA savings go here. Because I don’t own a home or any other real estate, this fund gives me some exposure to real estate.
As of September 30, I have $45,150 in VTSAX and $13,840 in VGSLX.
September is always a fun month for the Vanguard fund, because… quarterly dividends! In other words, I earned a $300 check for doing absolutely nothing last month. Investing rules kids, and yes, that was a Bill Nye the Science Guy impression.
Merrill Lynch: ($130) More market fluctuations here. I haven’t added money to this account in years.
401K: +$2,097. I love my 401K. I automatically contribute nearly 30% of my paycheck to this, and if I do say so myself, the net worth growth is beautiful.
About $200 of this month’s growth was market gains. My contributions and employer matching made up the remaining ~$1,900.
Rent Payable: (-$7) SERIOUS air conditioning savings of $7 this month. Just kidding.
Contrary to what’s been said in some Business Insider comments, I don’t live in a dump. I do, however, split rent with my girlfriend in a nice, spacious, two-bedroom apartment that’s walking distance to some pretty cool stuff around Minneapolis. Score one for choosing to live in a place with low cost of living.
Credit Cards Payable: (-$893) My past few months have seen some unusually high credit card bills, so it’s nice to be back down to a normal level. Biggest expenses in September were flying home to Dallas and the weekend trip to Seattle.
Calculate Your Own Net Worth
If you’ve never calculated your net worth before, or even if it’s just been a while since you’ve checked, give it a shot! Log into all of your bank accounts, dust off your 401K account information, search for cash under the couch cushions, and subtract your outstanding debts.
Analyzing your net worth can be an enlightening exercise, and you just may surprise yourself.
Conclusions
As the sun sets on another Net Worth Update, I leave you with a picture of the sun setting over Seattle. Bonus points if you can spot the night ferry in the water.
Update: It appears I’ve had some email glitches when responding from my phone. If you sent me an email and I didn’t respond, please send it again. I (eventually) answer ALL emails, so if you’re waiting a suspiciously long amount of time for a response, this is probably why! Sorry!
Wow congratulations on an awesome increase in net worth and getting published in two major news outlets! That’s amazing!
Thanks Julie! Shout out to the long time readers like yourself!
That’s awesome growth with the website! Congrats man!
Thanks Financial Panther, it’s definitely exciting to watch!
Congratulations!
Sadly in Germany we don’t have a 401k so I cannot count this to my net worth but your website inspired me to build an Excel myself a month ago and the end of September shows the first full month of asset growth. This motivates a ton to see ones assets grow and I can only recommend doing this. As you mentioned especially the dividends and coupon payments always brighten up the day 🙂
Good luck with your further ventures.
That’s awesome! Hearing that I inspire you, inspires me to keep writing! Good luck to you too, and keep on wizarding my friend.
I am also doing an excel of my in and outs, and like what I see. Thanks to smart people like yourself I can learn what I am suppose to be doing with my money. However, I do not know how to invest. What store do I need to log into so I can invest?
The net worth is looking good, but I’m more impressed with your Seattle recap since that’s where I live! If you’re ever out this way again hit me up and we’ll do a mini-money-meetup!
Very cool Ty! You live in an awesome city. I’d love to come back and check out Olympic National Park.
Thanks for sharing! Can I ask what your 401k is invested in? Sorry if you’ve discussed or talked about it already in previous posts/comments.
The 401K is invested in a mix of low cost index funds, with a little higher allocation towards small cap and international. Thought process being that the 401K will likely have a longer timeframe before withdrawal, and can thus be a little riskier.
That’s great!
Haha, I remember only a couple months ago when a couple hundred views in a single day was huge for you (Still is for me!) – now you’ve got over a thousand people who are notified of every post. 😀
Yeah, pretty crazy to think account! And shout out to the original readers like yourself! 🙂
I really like the blog, keep it going. There seems to be a lot of ignorance when it comes to long-term savings and the burden of debt in America. I will be recommending your blog to friends and family. I hope your blog brings more awareness to retirement saving.
Personally, I graduated with $35,000 of student loan debt, and now, at 27, I’ve paid it all off, and I’ve saved up almost $50k. I have no other debt to speak of from credit cards or even an auto loan. After a couple of recent promotions and recently selling my car, I am now living off of about 55% of my income, and saving the rest in retirement or non-retirement accounts, and there-in lies the crux of the issue for most people.
When I was in college preparing to graduate, having no source of financial advice besides Google, I read advice columns that suggested saving things like “15% towards retirement”, “10% of your take-home pay”, or they suggested to “obligate 20% of your take-home pay towards financial obligations”. Nonsense.
I believe that the secret to financial security, is to budget top-down, rather than bottom-up. After obligating 15-20% of your pretax income towards retirement, after obligating 10-20% of take home pay towards debt paydown, and after saving an additional 10-20% of take home pay for future obligations like buying a home, a wedding, your children’s college education, your emergency fund, or whatever you think your future obligations might be….only then should you start budgeting for things like rent, car purchases, or the new iphone. The way the numbers add up, people should really be living off of about 60% of their income. The catch-22 is that people budget from the bottom up and aren’t willing to give up their trendy neighboorhood or expensive cars in return for long-term financial security.
Awesome story Julian, thanks for sharing!
I agree, I think a big reason for the sad state of finances in this country is just poor one size fits all advice, like the ‘ole 10% savings rate you mentioned. It’s a huge reason I wanted to start this blog and get the word out to a new audience. Thanks for helping spread the word!
Love your approach to top down budgeting. Definitely a solid way to go about it.
Another solid month! Congrats on being picked up by the mainstream media.
Thanks TJ!
Hello,
Love the blog. Can’t wait for the October update!
Had a few questions:
1.Why do you favor the VTSAX over the VFINX. Just more exposure to emerging markets?
2. Are you in admiral shares of Vanguard?
3. You favor Traditional 401k over Roth? Could you give just a short explanation?
Sorry if you have answered one or all of these before. I assume you’ll answer them many more times with the blog’s success. Thanks!
Thanks Brooks, the October update is almost here! To your questions:
1) You can’t really go wrong with either. I like the broader diversification of VTSAX, especially because I have a decent amount of ETFs in my Merrill account that are more concentrated in S&P500 companies.
2) Yes, I believe they got transferred over to Admiral shares once they passes $10,000 in value. A sweet little bonus!
3) This is worthy of a post itself, and it probably will be one day. The short of it is that I like having the option of doing a Roth IRA Conversion ladder.
Thanks for reading!
Dear Money Wizard, you may want to add an FAQ section to this site. Thus you won’t have to repeat answers for new comers or people who may have missed your previous posts.
I really like that idea! Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi… I just started my financial journey reading blogs like yours keeps me motivated. Congrats on being picked up by Forbes and Business Insider.
Cheers
Rohan
Thanks Rohan!
I stumbled across this blog after reading a story on yahoo. First congratulations and good job. If I may tell you that I’m 32 years old. At 25 I was in a similar position with around 100k and everyone failed miserably around me. They couldn’t comprehend how well I was doing while they failed horribly with money. Many people crash and burnt bad. To help make you feel good about where you are at allow me to share where I am.
by 25 had around 125k personal networth with 60k in student loan debt and another 30k in auto debt. Was married at 23 my wife and I own a small business and she works full time.
at 32 I have 250k in brokerage account
40k in reit investments
99k in simple ira
48k in emergency savings
41k in local savings
85k in equity in house 1
400k in equity in house 2
87k wife simple ira
70k in equity in business
0 mortgage payments
0 car payments
0 student loan payments
I am hoping to be able to continue to max out both our simple ira plans until 38. Also investing in brokerage account. Hope to be able to retire at my own decision anytime after that. Live off brokerage accounts and let retirement accounts continue to grow until we are 60.
We require very little to live off of. Really looking forward to the future this blog really helps!
Outstanding!!
Thanks!
Hey Money Wizard,
I found you site last week and I think that this is awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this with all of us. I really hope to be able to use your tips when I am old enough. Someday you should write a book on this, I would love to read it.
Best wishes,
Ramsay