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Homenet worthNet Worth: November 2013 (with my 1st video)

Net Worth: November 2013 (with my 1st video)

Been enjoying my time here so far in the Belgium/Netherlands/Germany area. That said, it gets a little lonely sometimes since I am basically on my own for six weeks. Thankfully I have an iPhone and Instagram which I use often to entertain myself. Shot this gem while driving in Belgium…

 

Alright, now for the stuff you don’t care about. My net worth update…

A$$ets:

Cash: $24,501; -$1,996

At first glance it might appear like we blew through $2,000, but the reality is we made a responsible decision and contributed $4,500 of cash to our Roth IRA. So fear not dear friends, this $2k loss, is really a big gain.

Roth IRA: $47,453; +$5,535

Like I mentioned above, made my annual contribution to my Roth. The markets have been doing well, which helped add another $1,000 gain as well. I have this money invested in three different Vanguard mutual funds (NAESX, VTSMX, and VGTSX). Can’t wait for this account to have a seven figure balance. All I gotta do is remain faithful and wait about 3o years! Patience, grasshopper.

401Ks, Traditional IRAs, etc: $76,965; +$2,606

Man I sure do love my 401k account. Been contributing 10%+ all year-long and it’s really helped grow this baby. If your employer provides a 401k plan option PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE start taking advantage of it; especially if they provide some type of match. You’re literally throwing free money away by not contributing up to the match.

House Value: $357,000 (our purchase price)

Zillow’s going bananas when it comes to our homes value. When we bought the place Zillow had it valued at $320,000. Now it’s reporting a value of $358,500. One has to take Zillow numbers with a grain of salt, but I wont be pissed if they keep pushing the value higher. Based off recent comparable house sales and the work we’ve put in the house, my guess is we could sell for at least $375,000 (we bought for $357,000). Prices have only appreciated since we bought. But the primary reason I’m convinced we have about $25,000 in equity (if not more) is because when we put in our offer, there was a competing offer that would have escalated to $378,000 if needed. Basically someone was willing to pay for $375,000 for this house four months ago, when the market was lower and the house showed considerably worse. This makes me happy! Maybe we’ll sell the house a year from now just to capitalize on these gains.

Obligations:

Mortgage: $284,388 

Nothing exciting here. Paying our mortgage at regular payments as I see no benefit to paying this house off early. I’d rather have more discretionary income to save, invest, or spend.

Credit Card: $5,157 (change not reflected since balance is paid off each month)

Ouch is the only word that comes to mind. Bought Girl Ninja a $1,200 plane ticket to come out and visit me around Thanksgiving. Paid for new carpet in the basement for our tenet (this is tax-deductible). And just a million other house related expenses. Fortunately, now that I’m abroad our spending should be significantly reduce and our credit card bill should be at a more normal level of around $2,000 each cycle.

I’m really excited about this net worth update because WE’VE OFFICIALLY BROKEN OUR 2013 GOAL! If you look at our annual budget, you’ll see back in January I estimated we could hit a NW of $217,000 if we kept our stuff together.  That would have required a $54,000 increase in 2013. Well according to mint, our Net Worth is currently $217,715 which means we’ve done just that!!!! It’s ridiculous, exciting, and overwhelming to think about. Woohoo!!!

You can see all of my net worth updates here.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Wow! That’s awesome! Congrats! We’re currently negotiating on our house, so if we do buy it (high probability), we’re going to be bleeding money for the next 2-3 months. There are lots of updates we have to take care of.

  2. If you’re really lonely, I’m sure there are a few of us who’d love to join you over there for a few days if you felt you had more money than you knew what to do with (hee).

  3. I work with a lot of people who don’t take advantage of the employer match for our company pensions. Crazy, crazy, crazy. My employer will match up to 2% of your income if you contribute the same.

    I don’t include my home in my net worth. My goal was to reduce debt enough to have a net worth of ZERO by the fall but an emergency tuition loan from my HELOC to one of my sons has sunk that plan. It is almost the new year and I will be charging in to it with a fresh set of very aggressive financial goals.

  4. I am glad that you are using the sales price in you numbers because I find that Zillow and Trulia estimates to be completely worthless. Both only consider objective factors like proximity, frequency, and realative size of comparable sales to get the estimates. The numbers do not capture condition differences of the houses that is being sold. If someone builds a new high end subdivision near you and sell houses about the same size for twice the price your estimate would skyrocket. Yet if you tried to sell your house as is you would likely not get an offer near the estimate.

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