I must admit. Once again, I’ve been behind with my net worth update. (Here’s the last one.) Our financial plan calls for it every 3 months. But that may have been a bit aggressive. Now it’s been over a year. Don’t judge me! Regardless, this is our new net worth update!
And while we are not quite there, we are almost millionaires!
Our net worth increased from $410,000 in September 2021 to $792,907 in April 2023!
At last check, we crossed the “0-line” to go from negative to positive. So seeing this additional huge increase was an amazing feeling.
It has also served as an illustration and great reminder that creating and following simple, healthy financial habits really makes a HUGE difference.
Related Post:
The Simple Habits That Will Make You Financially Successful
That’s even the main reason that we track our net worth update. Remember, net worth is your personal finance scorecard. So by studying the scorecard, we can see what is helping and hurting us. Then, just do more of what helps and less or what hurts.
Just 3 years ago, we were in a huge financial hole
In fact, our financial situation at the end of my training is the worst I’ve seen.
And I mean that.
I have yet to meet someone starting off in a worse spot. And don’t get me wrong, I started off so bad 100% because of my own doing – poor financial decisions and even less knowledge. I was scared to learn and intimidated by my mistakes. More on that here.
And that’s a big reason why I started this blog. To show that if I can do it, so can you!
What I think makes our relationship so special is that I am right on the same journey along with you.
I make mistakes. (Here are my top 11 mistakes!) And then sometimes I make good decisions. Just like all of us. But we are in it together!
Anyway, what I would like to do is share an analysis of my net worth update to show you all how we made this massive change in our financial health and well-being!
Net worth update
As always, I promise to be totally transparent!
Let’s first look at my net worth trajectory since I started tracking it in June 2020 at the end of my training and the beginning of my financial education.
Let’s hit some of the major points:
1. Yikes, when I first started tracking my net worth update, things were bleak. In fact, this doesn’t include when I first, first did a rough check in Spring 2020 and it was >-$520k. I hated seeing these numbers. But it gave me a starting point so I could work to make them better.
Moral of the story? Personal finance is scary at the beginning. But looking the big bad monster in the face is the best thing you can do! You’ll realize it actually isn’t as scary and difficult as you thought and can start making positive changes!
2. You can see that I increased my net worth by a large amount before I even received my first attending paycheck in mid-August 2020.
Here’s how.
I point this out to show that no matter your situation, you can improve your net worth. Even if you are not looking at a big increase in pay like I was going from a trainee to an attending.
In fact, here are 5 steps to increase your net worth right now.
3. From October 2020 to November 2020, this is a big jump in net worth. This happened after we bought our first investment property and forced appreciation on it.
I always say that real estate in a wealth accelerator. This is proof. More on that property and its cash flow here.
Related Post:
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4. After that, a looonnngggg break before another net worth update check.
But after that last check in September 2020, we crossed the fabled red line of $0 net worth and got into the positive!
5. And now, here we are. With another $300,000+ increase in net worth by following our written financial plan.
You will notice that the slope of the line did flatten out a bit (nerd alert!). This is bound to happen from time to time. The economy has stalled. We have been mired in a bear-type market. But this really doesn’t matter. We are well on our pace to meet our financial goals and don’t need to stress!
Let’s dive deeper into this most recent new net worth update!
Here are my assets and liabilities:
Some of these numbers are obviously estimates, like our household items. I kept this on the conservative side. I even dropped the estimate down from the previous net worth update.
Also, this is a snap shot in time. That’s our cash and savings at that moment. Also at that moment, we had $1,526 on a credit card that we will pay off completely at the end of the month.
Here are graph formats showing the same information:
The key to building wealth is to maximize assets and minimize liabilities. Let’s see how we are doing…
Let’s start with assets
Our biggest assets are our primary home and our investment properties.
Now I know, I am totally on the side of saying that your primary home is not an asset. And we don’t treat it that way. But we do include it in our net worth calculations.
Investment properties on the other hand.
They have made a HUGE impact on our assets. Cash flow and forced appreciation resulted in home value gains of near $100,000 for at least 3 properties. However, we don’t even count the forced appreciation values in our net worth calculations. We just include the market values. We would rather under than overestimate. Either way, real estate investing has been the single biggest positive influence on our net worth.
And this doesn’t even count the tax benefits.
Here are insider looks (with full numbers) of investment properties #1, #2, and #3.
Retirement savings is a relatively small 7%. But this is a huge improvement over the previous 4% and the 0% before that.
Related Post:
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The rest are relatively small potatoes.
Moving on to liabilities
Again, our biggest liabilities are the mortgages on our primary home and our investment properties.
But…
Notice that our primary home is about a wash when comparing our assets and liabilities. It counts as 31% of our assets and 34% of our liabilities.
Meanwhile, our investment properties count 57% towards our assets and only 48% towards our liabilities!
That, my friends, is the power of leverage!
Lastly, student loans remains a big part of my liabilities. However, they are a much smaller percentage (18%) than previously as we continue to pay them down aggressively. Each month, we pay huge amounts from our 43-50% savings rate to pay off my student loans. Each $1 we pay off is $1 that our net worth increases. Here’s my debt pay off strategy.
It also helps that we have no auto loans or other consumer debt. This is because we pay for every big purchase in cash after we have saved enough. Or we pay on our credit card to get points and then pay off the entire balance at the end of the month (or else the points aren’t worth it!).
How our net worth compares to what it should be
I go in depth about how to calculate your expected net worth here.
Based on that formula, my expected net worth is $241,000. So, we are doing really well at greater than $500,000 more than expected net worth!
I fully attribute this growth to a few things:
- Learning how the wealth building game works,
- Committing to the small financial habits that create big wins, and
- All of you in the PPS community who teach and inspire me and keep my accountable!
The bottom line
This is why looking at your net worth helps.
You can analyze and see what you are doing. You can pick out the things that are making it better. And choose to do more of those things.
You can also pick out the things that are making it worse. And choose to do less of those things.
Here are the major take-aways:
- Calculate your net worth – it’s your personal finance scorecard (there are tons of online calculators to use)
- Review/analyze your net worth at least a couple times a year
- Maximize your assets (things that put money in your pocket)
- Minimize your liabilities (things that take money out of your pocket)
- Create and follow your financial plan so you can put things on auto pilot and enjoy your life! (Use my template here to create your own.)
What do you think? Have you ever checked your net worth? Do you update it regularly? Let me know in the comments below!
Congrats dude! Dominating work!