Hey Money Wizards,
We aren’t dead yet!
Every month For the first time in the last three months, I’m tracking my net worth to see how close I am to leaving my office job in the near future.
I’m currently 32 with the goal of $750K to $1 million bucks within the next three years. Let’s see the latest!
Life Update: October to January 2023
Busy stuff! Which pushed the blog a little lower on the priority list, unfortunately.
What can I say? The pay around here stinks!
In all seriousness, a big reason for the delay was that Lady Money Wizard and I finally started the process of combing finances.
Hey, only 1.5 years late! By that scale, this blog post is looking good!
What else? Get ready for the lightning round:
- November 2022: Thanksgiving festivities with family, Thanksgiving with friends, Thanksgiving with more friends, and I’m pretty sure another thanksgiving with friends? Almost like there’s a holiday this month…
- December 2022: Flew down to Texas for an early Christmas with my family, then flew back to Minnesota for a timely Christmas with Lady Money Wizard’s half of the family. Even reunited with some new friends from our big fat trip to Greece!
- January 2022: Battled some epic snow in Minnesota. Seriously, I can’t ever remember it being this snowy! Then escaped the snow with a trip to Florida to visit some family.
Net Worth Update: January 2023
And the details…
In November, the overall market gained about 5%, then slid back down 5% again in December.
The market’s final tally for the year 2022? Down about 20%.
Then in January, the market climbed another 10%, which means my portfolio is finally getting near its previous peak in October 2021, which was $615K.
Enough of a roller coaster for ya?
It’s easy to get bummed about a lost year+, but that’s only one pessimistic way to look at it.
The other side is that the market has, historically, recovered and rallied after times of great discount.
As I keep telling myself – it’s all about those assets! Because in that last year+, I’ve been buying up more and more shares of assets which should, one day, take off.
It’s building the base. Kindling before the fire. Dynamite for the explosion.
One day!
Account Changes
For the past three months, the checking account continued transferring $1,000 per month into my brokerage’s Total Stock Market Index fund, and the 401(k) kept getting the maximum allowed.
Moving forward, Lady Money Wizard combined our checking accounts, so I’ll play with the numbers and see how much to auto transfer to the brokerage moving forward.
My current strategy
In 2023, I still plan to max out the 401(k) and Roth IRA.
Now that Lady Money Wizard and I are combined, we’ll probably have more investible income, so I’ll probably have to play with how much we’re dumping into index funds. (I expect it to increase slightly.)
With the real estate market correcting, I’m also finding myself with an itch to become a landlord again, although regular readers will know I’m typically all talk in this area. We shall see!
Total Spending: January 2023
The rent category will need some adjustment moving forward, since we now share an account.
Otherwise, the big expenses in January:
Groceries and Dining Out: $821
Those food costs are killer right now!
Pets: $727
The Money Pup got his first ever dental cleaning, so that was quite the bill.
Travel: $467
The Florida trip, which was greatly reduced in price thanks to staying with family and using some companion credits.
How have you been?
It’s been a few months since one of these posts. Would love to hear from you!
P.S. – The New Year is a great time to start tracking your Net Worth, and Personal Capital is still my personal favorite tool to do so.
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Great to see an update!
My wife and I got married 2 years ago. We have both a shared account and separate and I track ours combined and separate in terms of net worth.
Despite contributing >50 percent of our incomes, we still ended up in the hole in 2022 (down 10k from 12/31/21 through 12/31/22). However, January is already been a great start and we are up 20k from our 12/31/21 numbers!
What saved us was that property values for our 3 properties largely appreciated a healthy amt despite the stock market downturn so our total net worth overall increased over 2022. Right now, about half our net worth is property equity and the other half is invested in the market and we are currently at just over 1.1.
Goal is to have my wife not work this year and I follow suit in a few years before we hit 40 and we can devote all our time with our toddler!
Here is to a great 2023!
Welcome back Money Wiz! Glad to hear things are good with you. I wouldn’t be upset if the net worth updates slipped to quarterly if that’s easier for ya. Keep ’em coming!
Yes, it is great to see you’re back! I agree. If quarterly is what it ends up being, we all understand. Life gets busy! But overall I love reading how you’re coming along!!! Your posts are so inspiring!!! Must say though, the dental cleaning for your money pup, did it come with braces??? Wow, never knew there was a market for dog teeth cleaning!
Great to see you back Sean! I’m happy for you both that you’re combining finances. It’s an adjustment but a good one, and it’ll be cool to see how that accelerated your journey to FI. I don’t have a crystal ball but it is fun to make predictions, so my prediction is the last $400k to the $1m mark takes you 2.5 years. With $150k of that being savings and the other $250k coming from appreciation of your investments.
I agree with the others that moving to quarterly makes sense. Honestly, when your net worth is this sizable, monthly is too granular anyway (and perhaps even counter to the “long term investment” message of this site). My net worth is quite a bit smaller, but I only track on a half year basis which is enough to see the general state of things.
That said, I love your other articles better than the net worth updates. Though looking over the past year, it’s been mostly net worth updates. But please only write when you have something to say, rather than just to “feed the beast”.
Lastly, I just want to say that your blog has quite literally changed my life. In 2018, my wife sent me your Business Insider article. At that point we had a negative net worth of $35K (albeit the debt was all low interest student loans, offset by a few thousand in savings and a few thousand being the value of our used car), were essentially spending everything we were making, and more or less saw saving as delayed spending without having any long-term bigger picture. After reading your BI article, I discovered your blog and read through all your blog posts, and then discovered Mr. Money Mustache, Afford Anything, and some others. Your blog is still my favorite, though. I love that, while you are pretty frugal, you don’t shy away from being transparent about spending money where you find value – going out to eat at nice restaurants, travel, and having a maid (haha!) – things that many financial bloggers scoff at. Anyway, here I am some years later – six figure net worth, multiple streams of income, frugal (and spendy) where it counts, and a homeowner. Thanks for the fantastic guidance you’ve provided over the years!
Welcome back Money Wiz!!!!!
I missed your valuable advice!!!!
You are an inspiration for me and my family!!!
Would it be wrong to say the Money Pup needs to get a job and pull his or her weight?
This is a great post. I also have my own goals lost that I put out for the public to read and review, in the hopes of inspiring others to Create their own goals for their own journey in life for success. I learned so much that i created my own website to help others just like you do, if you have but only a SECOND. I would love to show you, my website. Thank you in advance for your time. https://www.investingforbeginnerscommunity.com/
Confirmed blog = not alive
bring back the updates, man! 😉
I figured with the markets going up we might get an update…
Did he pass?
No updates for 7 months 🙁
Can we at least get a parting post?
Your readers who have read your blog for years really deserve you being honest and just saying that the blog is dead and that you have given up on it.
I agree, I feel like I owe the readers an update or ten…
I’ve actually been procrastinating reading the comments because I feel quite a bit of guilt. Hopefully I can get an update going and explain it all soon.