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March 31st, 2024 at 07:06 pm
An exciting milestone: Our assets reached $2 million! I joked that we're multimillionaires but of course A) That's just assets, not net worth and B) There are 3 of us, so each of us has less than a million to our name. Still, it was a great one to reach!
A couple of interesting property things have happened that I'm not counting toward net worth: My dad transferred all his West Virginia properties to his kids. AS and I now each own 1/8th of the property that's my dad's main vacation destination, and I own 1/4th of three undeveloped properties in WV. They're not worth much and I wouldn't be able to sell them even if I wanted to, so I didn't count them. But the uninhabited ones especially may yield future deals with energy companies, so they're worth holding onto. (My dad also changed the title on his Virginia home to a "transfer on death" deed with me and my 3 sisters the eventual owners, but I'm hoping that doesn't change anything for many years!)
Another kinda cool thing: I checked our CoastFIRE calculations and realized I'd estimated our rental income to be $1500, but it's actually closer to $1700. When I lowered the monthly amount we'd need in retirement from $66,000 to $63,600, our right-now CoastFIRE number decreased from $916,186 to $882,871! We're at $874,651 in retirement savings right now, so in that light, CoastFIRE is much more within reach.
I mean, we're kind of Coasting now anyway; with AS and I still working to build our business up to income levels we're happy with, we've barely been able to put away any retirement income since June. NT has some amount going to retirement--$250 a month maybe?--with the 401(k) for his part-time job. Even just that little amount takes us to 3 years from CoastFIRE!
That's very good news, because even though running my own business is hard, I do not miss working for someone else, and I'd love to be able to keep doing this. The income isn't predictable, which is the main challenge. But knowing we don't need to be going full-tilt on retirement contributions makes it a lot more feasible, especially in these early days of it when we're still building a roster of ongoing clients.
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
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|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$122,319 |
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NT's Roth IRA |
$81,688 |
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NT's SEP IRA |
$6,965 |
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|
NT's AAC acct |
$2,654 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$30,627 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$114,269 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$82,262 |
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|
AS's Nevada acct (approx amt) |
$380 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$264,417 |
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|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$88,216 |
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|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($588,000 value -6%) |
$552,720 |
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TOTAL ASSETS |
$2,019,571 |
retirement only: |
$874,651 |
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Debt |
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Main mortgage |
$339,495 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$382,569 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$731,064 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth March 2024 |
$1,288,507 |
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February 2024 estimate: |
$1,265,728 |
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Change in net worth |
$22,779 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
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1 Comments »
March 1st, 2024 at 04:08 pm
It was an exciting month for net worth! NT got an inheritance from his grandma that enabled us to pay off our HELOC ($30K), I checked our rental property value and it's currently $30K higher than I had it valued at, we paid off another $2K or so of mortgage principal, and our retirement accounts went up about $25K. All told, we gained nearly $89K in net worth and our assets are $1700 away from hitting $2 million!
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
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|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$119,016 |
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NT's Roth IRA |
$79,471 |
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NT's SEP IRA |
$6,768 |
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NT's AAC acct |
$2,136 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$29,809 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$111,045 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$80,030 |
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AS's Nevada acct (approx amt) |
$380 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$258,057 |
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CJ's Roth IRA |
$85,823 |
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CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($588,000 value -6%) |
$552,720 |
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TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,998,309 |
retirement only: |
$853,389 |
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Debt |
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Main mortgage |
$340,390 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$383,191 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$732,581 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth February 2024 |
$1,265,728 |
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January 2024 estimate: |
$1,176,784 |
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Change in net worth |
$88,944 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
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3 Comments »
February 1st, 2024 at 06:15 pm
Our retirement accounts basically stayed stagnant and we didn't manage to contribute much, but we eked out a $3K increase in net worth due solely to two things: our regular mortgage payments and my getting info on two small retirement accounts that NT and AS have. So we're roughly where we were last month, but that's not terrible.
Money is tight here at the beginning of the year as projects for my new business have been slow to get started, but I'm talking to a lot of clients and prospects, so it looks promising that it'll get busy (and profitable) pretty soon!
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
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SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$114,924 |
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NT's Roth IRA |
$76,708 |
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NT's SEP IRA |
$6,515 |
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NT's AAC acct |
$1,628 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$28,809 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$106,882 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$77,248 |
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AS's Nevada acct (est amt) |
$300 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$251,129 |
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CJ's Roth IRA |
$82,839 |
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CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
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TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,940,796 |
retirement only: |
$827,836 |
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Debt |
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Main mortgage |
$341,282 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$383,810 |
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HELOC |
$30,000 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$764,092 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth January 2024 |
$1,176,704 |
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December 2023 estimate: |
$1,173,612 |
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Change in net worth |
$3,092 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
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5 Comments »
January 1st, 2024 at 01:37 am
What. A. Year. It was rough net-worth-wise until nearly the end, but the last two months of market gains and some debt paydown helped us end on a good note. Better place than we were at the end of 2022 but not as good as where our net worth was at the end of 2021 (our assets are higher but so is our debt compared with 2 years ago).
Snapshot of the past two years:
Dec 2021 assets: $1,579,801 ; Dec 2022 assets: $1,801,176 ; Dec 2023 assets: $1,939,211 Dec 2021 debt: $370,966; Dec 2022 debt: $791,694 ; Dec 2023 debt: $765,599 Dec 2021 net worth: $1,208,835; Dec 2022 net worth: $1,009,482 ; Dec 2023 net worth: $1,173,612
Since I haven't been blogging as regularly, I can't as easily sum up the whole year's financial activity. But the big things were: I got laid off in June, started my own business with AS, NT increased his hours at his job but we're still working to build to an income where we can comfortably afford the lifestyle we'd like and figure out how much we need to gross so it's enough after taxes.
One bright spot: I just did our CoastFIRE calculation and things are looking good. We don't have a regular cadence of retirement contributions anymore, but I ran a few different scenarios and $150 contribution per month would get us to where we need to be by 65 (16 years), and $2K per month would get us to CoastFIRE in one year! So whatever we manage to contribute this year as we build our business should help a lot, assuming the market doesn't crater again.
December net worth update:
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
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SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$114,993 |
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NT's Roth IRA |
$76,737 |
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NT's SEP IRA |
$6,518 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$28,829 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$106,930 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$77,277 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$251,243 |
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CJ's Roth IRA |
$82,870 |
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CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
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TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,939,211 |
retirement only: |
$826,251 |
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Debt |
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Main mortgage |
$342,172 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$384,427 |
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HELOC |
$30,000 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$765,599 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth December 2023 |
$1,173,612 |
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November 2023 estimate: |
$1,134,569 |
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Change in net worth |
$39,043 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
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0 Comments »
November 30th, 2023 at 11:00 pm
Finally some gains! After our values sliding for many months, we finally clawed back some net worth. A bit was Roth contributions and debt paid off but most of it was market gains.
I'm scrambling with tons of catchup on my tasks and chores after finishing NaNoWriMo, but I'll post a longer life update when I do my end-of-year net worth update next month!
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
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SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$109,378 |
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NT's Roth IRA |
$72,727 |
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NT's SEP IRA |
$6,191 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$27,428 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$101,331 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$73,489 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$239,754 |
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CJ's Roth IRA |
$78,559 |
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CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
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TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,902,671 |
retirement only: |
$789,711 |
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Debt |
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Main mortgage |
$343,060 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$385,042 |
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HELOC |
$31,000 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$768,102 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth November 2023 |
$1,134,569 |
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October 2023 estimate: |
$1,078,398 |
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Change in net worth |
$56,171 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
0 Comments »
October 31st, 2023 at 08:34 pm
All our retirement accounts went down again, but due to a silly error last month, the pain is a little less on our balance sheet. Seems like last month I typed in one of NT's retirement account balances incorrectly--in fact $10K less than the actual balance. So last month it appeared we lost $25K in net worth but actually "only" lost $15K. This month we lost $15K but because I corrected that error from last month, it looks like we only lost $5K. The net result is, we've lost $55K of net worth over 3 months, or $30K over the past 4 months (because 4 months ago we got a $25K boost).
I know 3 months of losses isn't that big a window of time. Sure feels like a long time since we had a win though! At least our shared net worth is still over a million; hopefully we can cling on to that until the market turns upward again, but I don't take anything for granted.
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
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SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$100,930 |
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NT's Roth IRA |
$68,617 |
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NT's SEP IRA |
$5,698 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$25,328 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$93,013 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$67,792 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$222,575 |
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CJ's Roth IRA |
$72,230 |
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CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
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TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,849,997 |
retirement only: |
$737,037 |
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Debt |
|
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Main mortgage |
$343,944 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$385,655 |
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HELOC |
$33,000 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$771,599 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth October 2023 |
$1,078,398 |
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September 2023 estimate: |
$1,083,831 |
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Change in net worth |
-$5,433 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
1 Comments »
September 30th, 2023 at 05:00 pm
Dang. In July I was all excited over a $25K increase in our net worth. Well, between August and September we lost $50K in net worth (most of it this past month), so we're now DOWN $25K from where we were in July.
Oh well. I haven't been able to contribute to retirement with our recent shifting around of job situations and income streams, but I took advantage of this low market and threw $300 in each of our Roths and a couple thousand in each of our kids' 529s. And soon, hopefully, we'll get a chunk of income that will allow me to pay down $3K or so of the HELOC. So hopefully next month will look brighter!
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
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AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
|
|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
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|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
|
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NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$104,053 |
|
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NT's Roth IRA |
$58,617 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$5,883 |
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AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$26,100 |
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AS's Roth IRA |
$95,733 |
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AS's SEP IRA |
$69,890 |
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CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$228,671 |
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|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$74,163 |
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CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
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CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
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|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,856,924 |
retirement only: |
$743,964 |
|
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Debt |
|
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Main mortgage |
$344,827 |
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Rental property mortgage |
$386,266 |
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HELOC |
$33,000 |
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Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
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TOTAL DEBT |
$773,093 |
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Current Estimated Net Worth September 2023 |
$1,083,831 |
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August 2023 estimate: |
$1,120,955 |
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Change in net worth |
-$37,124 |
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Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
2 Comments »
September 1st, 2023 at 12:19 am
Well, it was fun while it lasted! This month we lost roughly half of the giant net worth gain we had last month. I can't really complain too much since we haven't been putting away for retirement or paying down extra debt principal.
Our financial life feels like it's slowly getting on track; I have two steady clients for my freelance business, though I probably need one or two more to bring in the level of income I'm going to want once my severance runs out in the next few weeks. AS is starting a 3-month contract job next month that might turn into something longer term; if not, we're building an LLC together so she can go back to freelancing. She's been having fun doing consulting work for $125 an hour and is also making kits and ebooks of some of her presentations she's done over the years to try and sell those online as well. NT will up his hours at his part-time job next month, which won't be a huge bump because they're offering benefits so the hourly rate is going down a bit. But it's exciting to have a 401(k) again and we'll see if the health insurance is better than our Obamacare that I got after my layoff.
I had just started to build up our EF again but we had some discouraging bumps that will wipe it out again (and then some possibly): $500 car repair, $1300 ceiling repair, and we filed a claim with our insurance for hail damage on our rental property's roof, so we'll see what that costs us. Oh well, I'll try again next month with seeding our EF. At least we did have that money so these expenses won't be as much of a strain on our regular budget.
Assets |
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NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
|
|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
|
|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$108,264 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$71,427 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$6,128 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$27,155 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$99,726 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$74,509 |
|
|
CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$237,315 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$77,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,895,538 |
retirement only: |
$782,578 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$345,707 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$386,876 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,000 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$774,583 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth August 2023 |
$1,120,955 |
|
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|
|
|
|
July 2023 estimate: |
$1,133,060 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
-$12,105 |
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
2 Comments »
July 31st, 2023 at 03:36 pm
It was a month of gains in the retirement accounts even though we didn't manage to contribute anything to them. Between stock market gains and mortgage paydown our net worth went up over $25K!
In terms of CoastFIRE, it's hard to do a calculation since most of our income is now freelance and I'm not sure when or how much I'll be able to contribute. My freelance business is slowly building at this point so I'm not at a point where I have anything left over after bills, but I hope to get to a good place in another month or two.
So I plugged in some random numbers. If we put in $500 per month we would not reach our retirement goal. If we contributed $1000 per month, we'd reach Coast FIRE in 9 years when I was 58. If we put in $2250 per month, which is what I hope to get to in a few months, we'd be at Coast FIRE in 4 years, or age 53.
It's hard to predict when my freelance will bring in enough for that, but it's good to see the different benchmarks, very motivating to get to that point! (Although on the flip side, if we can manage to keep our work scaled back from the 40-hour work week, we're basically achieving the lifestyle I hoped to get out of reaching Coast FIRE!)
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
|
|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
|
|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$110,849 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$73,152 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$6,283 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$27,795 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$102,247 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$74,509 |
|
|
CJ's trad. rollover IRA |
$242,191 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$79,065 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,909,905 |
retirement only: |
$796,945 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$346,584 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$387,483 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,000 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$778 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$776,845 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth July 2023 |
$1,133,060 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
June 2023 estimate: |
$1,107,245 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
$25,815 |
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
1 Comments »
June 30th, 2023 at 05:04 pm
Lots going on in the ceejay household! As reported last month, I was laid off from my longtime job and my last day was June 2. I was the last person in my household with a full-time job; AS left hers about 10 months ago and NT was laid off during lockdown.
AS has been doing freelance work and talking to someone about a possible job opportunity; that will start in September as a 3-month contract, and if it works out it could become a full-time gig. NT has a half-time job and manages our rental property; he might look at going up to 3/4 time at his job in the fall. I'm currently on severance through August, and I've been booking some freelance clients. I actually think I could beat my old full-time salary with part-time work if I play my cards right! I have two clients already and that's without much networking or hunting. Both say they have tons of work, so if they like what I do for them initially, they could both be pretty regular/substantial sources of income.
Our rental property was vacant in May but we managed to rent out one half of it in early June. We're finalizing details with some renters who should move into the other half in mid-July. So we lost some ground but it's looking promising that we'll be set for a year.
My dad randomly gifted us $10K without even knowing about my layoff and that was a HUGE help in covering expenses and not accruing additional debt while the rental property was vacant. I was even able to pay off some appliance debt from our kitchen reno where the deferred-interest promo period was about to end.
On top of all that, the market is up, so it's been a great month for net worth--we're up nearly $40K! I checked CoastFIRE and while we don't have any set retirement contributions right now, if I managed to put in $500 each per month in our Roths and 10% of our projected gross income, we would be 5 years away from CoastFIRE, a considerable improvement. I have to go through and work out our budget through the end of the year with severance, booked contract income and new healthcare premiums figured in, but I'm hoping things look stable enough to start putting some toward retirement. We do need to also be rebuilding our EF and paying down our HELOC after our giant tax bill last year, so I won't be able to ramp all the way up probably, but I'm encouraged we might be able to make progress after spinning our wheels on retirement for nearly a year. (I did have my 401k going during that time but most everything else was put on hold.)
Honestly, even if we don't get to Coast that fast, if we're able to scale back from full time work and still be contributing to retirement, it'll almost be like we're ALREADY Coasting!! I am now prepared for whatever curveballs; I feel like I've fully accepted that we're not in control of our destiny, but it feels hopeful to try and control what we can, barring unforeseeable circumstances.
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 25,760 pounds (new number 22,000) |
$32,200 |
|
|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
|
|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$106,697 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$70,370 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$6,034 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$26,771 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$98,185 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$71,675 |
|
|
CJ's 401(k) |
$235,958 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$76,057 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,885,561 |
retirement only: |
$772,601 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$347,450 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$388,088 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,000 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$778 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$778,316 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth May 2023 |
$1,107,245 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
May 2023 estimate: |
$1,067,604 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
$39,641 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
COAST FIRE: |
https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/ |
|
|
retirement goal |
$1.65 million by 2039 (CJ age 65) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current age: 49 |
|
|
|
Retirement age: 65 |
|
|
|
Annual spending in retirement: $66,000 |
|
|
|
Monthly contribution: $2,250 |
|
|
|
Investment growth rate: 7% |
|
|
|
Inflation rate: 3% |
|
|
|
Withdrawal rate: 4% |
|
|
|
Current invested assets: $772601 |
|
|
|
Coast FIRE number at current age: $880,948 |
|
|
|
Current status: 5 years from Coast FIRE number: |
$1.072 million |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Coast FIRE budget |
|
|
|
Housing $0 (rents covering prop expenses) |
|
|
|
Healthcare $1,500 |
|
|
|
Groceries $1,000 |
|
|
|
Fun $1,500 |
|
|
|
Travel $1,000 |
|
|
|
Utilities $500 |
|
|
|
Giving $500 |
|
|
|
Home improvement $500 |
|
|
|
Gifts $250 |
|
|
|
Transportation $250 |
|
|
|
Monthly $7,000 |
|
|
|
Minus rental income -$1,500 |
|
|
|
Total monthly $5,500 |
|
|
|
Annual $66,000 |
|
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
3 Comments »
June 1st, 2023 at 12:22 am
Well it's been another eventful month! I got laid off at the beginning of the month from the company where I've worked for 17 years. I guess they're shrinking the marketing arm even more because the profits aren't there.
The good news is I got a decent severance agreement. I got 3 more weeks of work (my last day will be this Friday), 12 weeks' severance pay after that, and health insurance through June. (After that it's COBRA or Obamacare for me, NT and the kids, so I know that expense will go up.) I should get a bit of money from accrued unused vacation PTO as well. Seems they'll also hook me up with a job-finding consultancy that can help with resume building etc., so that's nice.
Even though I'll essentially get paid through the summer, I'm starting to look around at employment options now. I've got a call tomorrow with a former boss who may be able to give me some freelance writing work. Even if not, it'll be good to connect with her for networking's sake. A few other people have expressed interest in hiring me for freelance writing; I'll follow up with them once I finish out this final week of work. I figure this summer will be a good time to test the waters of freelancing/self-employment and see if I've got the temperament (and enough connections to make it a going concern).
We've been having trouble finding tenants for our rental property, but it seems we've got renters starting in early June for one side of it, and applicants who seem serious for the other half, maybe able to move in July 1. Fingers crossed on that as it's over $5K of income, over $3K of which goes to cover the mortgage and utilities, so having it empty in May really dragged down the already struggling budget!
AS's potential job thing continues to look very interesting and we should know more in a couple weeks, but she's essentially being asked to create a proposed job description and salary, and they'll see if they can make it happen for her. Meanwhile she continues to pull in freelance work, so while income is slow to come, she's definitely racking up future payments that'll help. And if this create-your-dream-job thing really comes to fruition, that'd be a massive weight off. She might even be able to put the kids on her health insurance! (Not NT because they're not legally married, but she IS legally the parent of both our kids. So then I'd just have to worry about NT on my insurance.)
My dad out of the blue decided to gift each of his kids $10K! This was a massive help to our budget deficit for May and June due to the empty rental property. We don't have the money yet but my sister is working on getting it to us. We've had to take money out of the HELOC but thanks to my dad will be able to pay it back in soon. And it'll cover the cost of a new computer, which I had to get because I've been using my company computer and need to turn that in at the end of my employment.
But for now, our HELOC debt is $7K more, we haven't been able to put away much for retirement, and the markets are slightly down from last month, so our net worth went down by about $8500. I didn't bother to do the Coast FIRE calculations since I know it'll be the same or worse compared with last month.
But, if I were able to make this freelance thing work, I could potentially be working a less than 40-hour week and pulling in the same money as before! My Coast FIRE goal was to work fewer hours but I'd have to wait until I could draw less income. This way, I could almost reach my Coast FIRE goal of less than full time before I've even reached my retirement savings goal! So we shall see.
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 25,760 pounds |
$32,200 |
|
|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
|
|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$102,733 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$67,698 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$5,793 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$25,793 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$94,262 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$68,954 |
|
|
CJ's 401(k) |
$224,297 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$73,170 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,856,514 |
retirement only: |
$743,554 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$348,332 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$388,691 |
|
|
HELOC |
$40,000 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$2,887 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$788,910 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth May 2023 |
$1,067,604 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
April 2023 estimate: |
$1,076,060 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
-$8,456 |
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
6 Comments »
April 30th, 2023 at 07:30 pm
Pretty good gain in retirement, about $10K this month. Coast FIRE now showing as 10 years away vs. 11 last month!
It's a very interesting and weird time for us financially. I wish I had time to blog here more frequently about it, but I've got so many things going on that I never get around to it! Let's see if I can sum up...
- Both units of our separate rental property are going vacant May 1. We think we have a renter lined up for June or July for one side; the other side's had some interest but none of it has come to anything. This means about a $5500 per month budget deficit.
- We're netting around $3500 on tax refunds and have $2K in the EF, so we can just cover the one month without borrowing. If both units aren't filled June 1, we may have to dip into our LOC.
- AS has freelance work lined up over the next several months, about $25K through September. Most of it won't start paying until June, but we know it's coming so may be able to help the budget shortfall (or at least help us pay down what we take from the LOC).
- I got a 3% raise, which honestly feels like a joke even as a cost-of-living raise since our expenses have gone up more like 20%-40% over the past year (utilities and groceries especially), but it's better than nothing. Netting about $150 per month more.
- AS is having some verrrry interesting talks with a guy she met through her publishing job; it's still too early to say anything definitive but she may have an exciting and lucrative job in a few months. It'll take a while for it to take shape and we're not sure when it'll materialize or what it'll mean financially, but it's super promising.
Long story short, our finances are feeling shaky and sketchy right now, but we're feeling pretty good about them turning around a bit (or maybe a lot) by the end of the year. Which is good since we still owe quite a bit on the tax bill and kitchen reno because of inflation and these income headwinds!
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 25,760 pounds |
$32,200 |
|
|
SW: 31,522 pounds |
$39,403 |
|
|
AV2: 7,401 pounds |
$9,251 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$103,807 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$68,171 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$3,625 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$26,068 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$95,015 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$69,691 |
|
|
CJ's 401(k) |
$224,407 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$73,702 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,858,300 |
retirement only: |
$745,340 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$349,202 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$389,292 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,000 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$2,992 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$783,486 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth March 2023 |
$1,074,814 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
March 2023 estimate: |
$1,063,843 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
$10,971 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
COAST FIRE: |
https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/ |
|
|
retirement goal |
$1.65 million by 2039 (CJ age 65) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current age: 49 |
|
|
|
Retirement age: 65 |
|
|
|
Annual spending in retirement: $66,000 |
|
|
|
Monthly contribution: $1,451 |
|
|
|
Investment growth rate: 7% |
|
|
|
Inflation rate: 3% |
|
|
|
Withdrawal rate: 4% |
|
|
|
Current invested assets: $745,340 |
|
|
|
Coast FIRE number at current age: $880,948 |
|
|
|
Current status: 10 years from Coast FIRE number: |
$1.304 million |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Coast FIRE budget |
|
|
|
Housing $0 (rents covering prop expenses) |
|
|
|
Healthcare $1,500 |
|
|
|
Groceries $1,000 |
|
|
|
Fun $1,500 |
|
|
|
Travel $1,000 |
|
|
|
Utilities $500 |
|
|
|
Giving $500 |
|
|
|
Home improvement $500 |
|
|
|
Gifts $250 |
|
|
|
Transportation $250 |
|
|
|
Monthly $7,000 |
|
|
|
Minus rental income -$1,500 |
|
|
|
Total monthly $5,500 |
|
|
|
Annual $66,000 |
|
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
1 Comments »
April 1st, 2023 at 08:20 pm
Slightly better retirement gains this month, though our CoastFIRE date moved from 8 years to 11 away...probably because I turned 49. Oh well.
It's been a pretty meh year financially so far... we still have $33K of debt for the tax bill and $3K owed on our kitchen and only $1500 in EF savings. The renters on our new place are leaving at the end of this month, so if we don't have both units rented by May 1, we may have to clean out our little EF and some other pockets of money. Hopefully it doesn't go vacant or if it does, only for a month or two.
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 22,397 pounds |
$27,996 |
|
|
SW: 30,864 pounds |
$38,580 |
|
|
AV2: 7,567 pounds |
$9,459 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$102,614 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$67,367 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$3,581 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$25,767 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$93,874 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$68,869 |
|
|
CJ's 401(k) |
$224,407 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$72,832 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,848,306 |
retirement only: |
$735,346 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$350,070 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$389,292 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,000 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$3,101 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$784,463 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth March 2023 |
$1,063,843 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
February 2023 estimate: |
$1,056,650 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
$7,193 |
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
0 Comments »
March 1st, 2023 at 03:24 am
Not a very interesting net worth update... our net worth went up by about $1300, mainly due to debt paydown, which means no Coast FIRE progress. Not much ground gained on paying down our tax bill but other than that things are fairly stable. Hopefully we'll make some progress worth writing about sometime soon!
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 22,397 pounds |
$27,996 |
|
|
SW: 30,864 pounds |
$38,580 |
|
|
AV2: 7,567 pounds |
$9,459 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$101,983 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$66,203 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$3,559 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$25,103 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$90,936 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$67,084 |
|
|
CJ's 401(k) |
$229,223 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$70,451 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,843,537 |
retirement only: |
$730,577 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$350,935 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$390,488 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,250 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$3,214 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$786,887 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth February 2023 |
$1,056,650 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
January 2023 estimate: |
$1,055,281 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
$1,369 |
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
2 Comments »
January 31st, 2023 at 09:13 pm
Finally a more positive net worth outlook than we've had for a while! Our retirement accounts went up in value about $40K, we paid off a bit of our tax bill, and our COAST Fire timeline got 4 years shaved off: It now says we could reach it in 8 years vs. 12!
Assets |
|
|
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
|
|
AV1: 22,397 pounds |
$27,996 |
|
|
SW: 30,864 pounds |
$38,580 |
|
|
AV2: 7,567 pounds |
$9,459 |
|
|
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$101,983 |
|
|
NT's Roth IRA |
$66,203 |
|
|
NT's SEP IRA |
$3,559 |
|
|
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$25,614 |
|
|
AS's Roth IRA |
$92,544 |
|
|
AS's SEP IRA |
$68,444 |
|
|
CJ's 401(k) |
$224,767 |
|
|
CJ's Roth IRA |
$71,634 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
|
|
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
|
|
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,843,743 |
retirement only: |
$730,783 |
|
|
|
|
Debt |
|
|
|
Main mortgage |
$351,798 |
|
|
Rental property mortgage |
$391,083 |
|
|
HELOC |
$33,250 |
|
|
Appliances CC |
$3,331 |
|
|
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
|
|
TOTAL DEBT |
$788,462 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth January 2023 |
$1,055,281 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
December 2022 estimate: |
$1,009,482 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Change in net worth |
$45,799 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
COAST FIRE: |
https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/ |
|
|
retirement goal |
$1.65 million by 2039 (CJ age 65) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Current age: 48 |
|
|
|
Retirement age: 65 |
|
|
|
Annual spending in retirement: $66,000 |
|
|
|
Monthly contribution: $1,451 |
|
|
|
Investment growth rate: 7% |
|
|
|
Inflation rate: 3% |
|
|
|
Withdrawal rate: 4% |
|
|
|
Current invested assets: $730,783 |
|
|
|
Coast FIRE number at current age: $847,066 |
|
|
|
Current status: 8 years from Coast FIRE number: |
$1.159 million |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Coast FIRE budget |
|
|
|
Housing $0 (rents covering prop expenses) |
|
|
|
Healthcare $1,500 |
|
|
|
Groceries $1,000 |
|
|
|
Fun $1,500 |
|
|
|
Travel $1,000 |
|
|
|
Utilities $500 |
|
|
|
Giving $500 |
|
|
|
Home improvement $500 |
|
|
|
Gifts $250 |
|
|
|
Transportation $250 |
|
|
|
Monthly $7,000 |
|
|
|
Minus rental income -$1,500 |
|
|
|
Total monthly $5,500 |
|
|
|
Annual $66,000 |
|
|
|
Posted in
Tracking Net Worth
|
2 Comments »
January 1st, 2023 at 08:41 pm
I'm going in to 2023 with far fewer expectations about how life will go. It's just too unpredictable. However, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying! On the financial side, since we have 1.5 steady incomes (plus rental property income), there's only so much I can say we'll be able to do with any amount of certainty. So I've set up a snap shot of "good," "better" and "best" scenarios and laid out how much extra income gross would need to be made (mainly on AS and her freelance business but also anything NT and I might pick up outside our regular jobs).
I don't know if this chart will make sense to anyone else, but it really helps me and AS when we're thinking through what we might be able to get done this year! Basically, I think we can save $5K to our EF, $9K to our Roths, and have small amounts for travel, home improvement and giving on my and NT's regular income, and if AS grosses $41,667, we should also be able to pay down $30K of tax/kitchen debt. If she made double that, we could get quite a bit more money for each of those categories. And in the best case scenario, if the three of us could pull in $139,769 gross between us in addition to our regular income, we could achieve everything on my financial wish list. That's a highly unlikely scenario but I wanted to put a price tag on our ideal state, so to speak. We're not shooting for it per se but it would be exceedingly cool if we could get there!
GOOD |
|
|
BETTER |
|
|
BEST |
|
Min Coven $150 |
|
|
Min Coven $150 |
|
|
Full Coven |
$1,650 |
HELOC/CC payoff |
$30,000 |
|
HELOC/CC payoff |
$39,000 |
|
HELOC/CC payoff |
$39,000 |
EF savings (min $5K) |
|
|
More EF savings ($15K total |
$10,000 |
|
More EF savings ($20K total) |
$15,000 |
Roths (min $9K) |
|
|
More Roths ($15K total) |
$6,000 |
|
More Roths ($18K total) |
$9,000 |
Renos (Min $1200) |
|
|
More Renos ($2K total) |
$800 |
|
More Renos ($12K total) |
$10,800 |
Vacays (min $5K) |
|
|
More Vacays ($6K total) |
$1,000 |
|
More Vacays ($12K total) |
$7,000 |
Giving (min $1200) |
|
|
Giving (min $1200) |
|
|
More Giving ($3600 total) |
$2,400 |
Family fun |
$0 |
|
Family fun |
$0 |
|
Family fun |
$6,000 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Net |
$30,000 |
|
Net |
$56,800 |
|
Net |
$90,850 |
5% retirement |
|
|
10% retirement |
|
|
12% retirement |
|
Gross |
$41,667 |
|
Gross |
$84,776 |
|
Gross |
$139,769 |
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January 1st, 2023 at 08:24 pm
Hi everyone! It's been about four months since my last update. Financially not much has changed; we paid down some debt and lost some more value in our retirement accounts, so we gained $1,900 in net worth over 4 months.
Lifewise, AS is doing a LOT better mentally after quitting her high-stress job and has restarted her freelance business. It takes a bit to build future work so income has been slow to come this year, but she's got tons of work booked for the first part of 2023 so things will be looking up soon. NT got a part-time office job and likes it, so that's some steady income in addition to the rental property he's managing and the bits of money from other side hustles. The kiddos are getting great grades and doing well.
I've had a lot of ups and downs myself. My job and creative pursuits are going well. But my mom went into the hospital in late November and died on Dec. 1. I was able to travel to Virginia a couple days before; she was barely aware of her surroundings but I'm glad I could help my dad and my sisters. It was really really awful and hard. We buried her the next week in West Virginia on our family property and had a beautiful ceremony. I wish she could've been there for that part instead of the days of suffering in the hospital! I feel like I'm doing okay most of the time, but it's only been a month so the grief is still fresh when it hits me at unexpected times.
Anyway, it's been a real mixed bag of a year. Financially, we didn't get much farther on paying down the tax bill or the remainder of what we borrowed for the kitchen, and we haven't built up the EF yet. Coast FIRE is way, way off track since we haven't been able to put much to retirement for the past 6 months or so. But, in good news, I'm restarting our monthly Roth contributions, 50% of the max so $750 per month. If AS's freelance income is good I'll fill in with more contributions, but I also have to think about paying down the tax/kitchen debt, which is currently at about $39K, and rebuilding our EF, ideally to $20K. We also have to fix an electrical issue at the rental property that will be a few thousand. So we shall see.
I'll put our detailed current net worth and Coast FIRE calcluations below, but here's a snapshot of how things changed in 12 months:
December 2021 assets: $1,579,801 ; December 2022 assets: $1,801,176
December 2021 debt: $370,966; December 2022 debt: $791,694
December 2021 net worth: $1,208,835; December 2022 net worth: $1,009,482
CURRENT HOUSEHOLD NET WORTH
Assets |
|
NT's UK pensions: |
|
AV1: 22,397 pounds |
$27,996 |
SW: 27,225 pounds |
$34,031 |
AV2: 7,567 pounds |
$9,459 |
NT's trad. rollover IRA |
$96,417 |
NT's Roth IRA |
$62,307 |
NT's SEP IRA |
$3,358 |
AS's trad. rollover IRA |
$24,231 |
AS's Roth IRA |
$87,073 |
AS's SEP IRA |
$64,675 |
CJ's 401(k) |
$211,230 |
CJ's Roth IRA |
$67,439 |
CJ/NT/AS house ($630,000 value -6%) |
$592,200 |
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($554,000 value -6%) |
$520,760 |
TOTAL ASSETS |
$1,801,176 |
|
|
Debt |
|
Main mortgage |
$352,659 |
Rental property mortgage |
$391,083 |
HELOC |
$35,500 |
Appliances CC |
$3,452 |
Loan from friends (main house) |
$9,000 |
TOTAL DEBT |
$791,694 |
|
|
Current Estimated Net Worth December 2022 |
$1,009,482 |
|
|
August 2022 estimate: |
$1,007,582 |
|
|
Change in net worth |
+$1,900 |
COAST FIRE STATUS
I use this Coast FIRE calculator (https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/) and according to it, our retirement goal is $1.65 million by the time I'm 65 (17 years). It says we're currently 12 years (I'd be age 60) from our Coast FIRE number of $1.356 million. (That's with our 50% Roth contributions and my 401(k), which are the only two savings baked into our budget at this point.)
Here are the Coast FIRE parameters I use:
Ideal budget Monthly
Housing $0 (rents covering prop expenses)
Healthcare $1,500
Groceries $1,000
Fun $1,500
Travel $1,000
Utilities $500
Giving $500
Home improvement $500
Gifts $250
Transportation $250
Monthly $7,000
Minus rental income -$1,500
Total monthly $5,500
Annual $66,000
I'm in between my spouses' age, so I used my age but our combined retirement investments.
Current age: 48
Retirement age: 65
Annual spending in retirement: $66,000
Monthly contribution: $1,451
Investment growth rate: 7%
Inflation rate: 3%
Withdrawal rate: 4%
Current invested assets: $688,216
Coast FIRE number at current age: $847,066
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August 31st, 2022 at 05:16 am
Last time I checked in (April), I was eyeing the possibility that we were only a couple years away from Coast FIRE. We had about $26K we'd taken out from HELOC and a zero-interest card for the kitchen reno, but I felt confident about paying it off.
Fast forward to early June. We expected we'd owe some taxes on the sale of the UK flat, but we'd already paid about $5K to the UK for capital gains, so we didn't think it'd be much in the US once they factored that in. We were wrong. We owed over $45K to the IRS and state.
We were able to pay it with our EF plus $30K on the LOC. I made the painful decision to make some cuts to our budget to pay pay down that amount on the LOC and save up $20K to rebuild our EF. We cut all retirement except my 401k, home improvement savings/repayments and charitable giving, freeing up about $4500 per month, so we figured we could have it paid off by March 2023 and restart retirement. The loss of 10 months toward Coast FIRE would be painful but not ruinous.
(Meanwhile of course our retirement funds continued to tank; we've lost 13% value in the past year.)
We managed to make better than expected progress on paying down the HELOC; $11,500 in about two months! But AS has been crumbling under the weight of her high-paying job for a few months, and things came to a head this month, necessitating her resignation.
Now the $4500 we'd cut from the budget is not quite enough to break even. So not only are we not putting much toward retirement, we're not putting anything toward paying back the tax bill either. So we're kind of stagnating.
But, the good news is I redid Coast FIRE and if we restarted retirement today, we'd only be 6 years from coasting. That's a loss of several years of coasting, but it's not as bad as I thought considering we've lost over $100K in retirement fund values.
Of course we can't restart retirement until we make more progress on the tax bill, but it's somewhat comforting.
Our current budget (which doesn't have retirement, home improvement or charitable giving) has us coming up about $1K short starting in October, but we've got two adults working on finding income to bring in, so covering living expenses won't be a challenge. The real challenge will be bringing in enough to quickly knock out the tax bill and restart our retirement contributions.
There have been so many financial hits I'm past reeling; the pandemic has had this kind of numbing effect where I'm always in a state of low grade stress that I don't notice, so other stressors sometimes don't seem to shock the system. (Other times relatively small stressors can completely overload my system, so it's all unpredictable.) We're just trying to be proactive. AS is restarting her self-employed writing/editing business and already has her first job lined up (writing a children's book for $700). NT has applied to a part-time job and is looking for more; meanwhile he's started doing DoorDash to bring in a bit. He also does a bit of work for our downstairs neighbors and manages our rental property, which is a vital part of our income. So we're fighting back, trying to regain momentum.
My plan is preliminary; maybe we'll end up restarting some retirement before we pay back the hole left by the tax bill. There may be other flaws in my calculations as well; we'll have to see how quickly our income comes back up and what other factors change. Because as many surprises as we've had, I'm not going to assume there are no more waiting around the corner! Hopefully there will be some good along with the bad surprises...
Meanwhile, I decided I should do a net worth and Coast FIRE status update. Fingers crossed this is a low point and we'll go up from here!!
Assets:
NT's UK pensions:
AV1: 22,397 pounds ($27,996)
SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031)
AV2: 7,567 pounds ($9,459)
NT's trad. rollover IRA: $97,645
NT's Roth IRA: $63,092
NT's SEP/SIMPLE: $3,397
AS's trad. rollover IRA: $24,556
AS's Roth IRA: 88,082
AS's SEP IRA: $65,490
CJ's 401(k): $214,173
CJ's Roth IRA: $68,289
CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%)
CJ/NT/AS rental property: $520,760 ($554,000 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,809,170
Debt:
Main mortgage $356,076
Rental property mortgage: $394,029
HELOC $38,500
Appliances CC $3,983
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
---
TOTAL DEBT $801,588
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,007,582
April 2022 estimate: $1,110,372
Change in net worth: -$102,790
COAST FIRE:
We are currently only contributing $620 per month to retirement, so Coast FIRE is just a theoretical construct at this point. But if I assumed that NT and AS together can come up with $84K annual income, and if we can restart $1500 per month ROTHs plus put away 10% of their income, and if our rental property provides $1500 per month in passive income in retirement (which I'm reflecting in reduced expenses in retirement), we could potentially hit Coast FIRE in six years. Those are a lot of IFs in our current situation; if we only put $620 per month away, we wouldn't hit our retirement goal number by the time I turn 65. So clearly restarting contributions is a big priority, and hopefully we can do that earlyl next year.
I use this Coast FIRE calculator (https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/) and according to it, our retirement goal is $1.65 million by the time I'm 65 (17 years). It says we're currently 6 years (I'd be age 54) from our Coast FIRE number of $1.072 million.
Here are the Coast FIRE parameters I use:
Ideal budget Monthly
Housing $0 (rents covering prop expenses)
Healthcare $1,500
Groceries $1,000
Fun $1,500
Travel $1,000
Utilities $500
Giving $500
Home improvement $500
Gifts $250
Transportation $250
Monthly $7,000
Minus rental income -$1,500
Total monthly $5,500
Annual $66,000
I'm in between my spouses' age, so I used my age but our combined retirement investments.
Current age: 48
Retirement age: 65
Annual spending in retirement: $66,000
Monthly contribution: $2,561
Investment growth rate: 7%
Inflation rate: 3%
Withdrawal rate: 4%
Current invested assets: $696,210
Coast FIRE number at current age: $847,066
It's crazy that just under a year ago we had nearly $800K in retirement. We would be so close to Coast FIRE! But most of that loss was due to the stock market, so there's nothing I can do about that now.
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April 14th, 2022 at 05:24 pm
This is something I just started thinking about yesterday, and I thought who better to ask than my SA buddies!
I use this calculator when tracking our progress toward potential Coast FIRE status:
https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/
As some of you may have read, we recently bought a rental property. While it's not fully rented yet, when it is, we think we can count on about $1500 monthly income after expenses.
Since we intend to hold onto this property and keep renting it, I was looking at the Coast FIRE calculator trying to figure out how to factor that in. The only solution I could come up with was to reduce the projected spending in retirement (since some of the spending would theoretically be covered by rental income vs. drawing down retirement funds).
Does that sound like the right way to think about this?
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April 8th, 2022 at 10:31 pm
Assets: NT's UK pensions: AV1: 22,397 pounds ($27,996) SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031) AV2: 7,567 pounds ($9,459) NT's trad. rollover IRA: $108,777 NT's Roth IRA: $69,327 NT's SEP/SIMPLE: $3,796 AS's trad. rollover IRA: $27,320 AS's Roth IRA: $97,469 AS's SEP IRA: $73,073
AS uninvested cash: $6,013 CJ's 401(k): $229,833 CJ's Roth IRA: $75,125 CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%)
CJ/NT/AS rental property: $520,760 ($554,000 value -6%) --- TOTAL ASSETS: $1,875,179
Debt: Main mortgage $359,456
Rental property mortgage: $396,351
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000 --- TOTAL DEBT $764,807
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,110,372
December 2021 estimate: $1,208,835
Change in net worth: -$98,463
Summary: I didn't update net worth for a few months, hoping the markets would recover and we'd have a positive update, but I don't know when that's gonna happen and I wanted to refresh the net worth sheet to reflect the rental property we bought.
We're down nearly $100K from December's net worth. About half of that is losses in our retirement portfolio value, and the other half is from buying the house. We had $188K of proceeds from selling NT's UK flat in the previous net worth update. From that, we made a $133K down payment, and about $30K went to closing costs, repairs, and covering the mortgage and utilities until it's fully rented. The other $25K is sitting in savings, but I'm not counting it toward our net worth since it's there to cover further repairs or expenses. (One unit will be occupied come May 1, but the other one is still not rented, so the mortgage is not quite covered and we're paying utilities on both units for now.)
So, it's not great news on the net worth, but hopefully it'll be smooth sailing soon in both the stock market and on the rental property front!
Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are usually approximate. UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound (just to have a system, even though the exchange rate varies).
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January 5th, 2022 at 06:18 am
Assets: NT's UK pensions: AV1: 22,397 pounds ($27,996) SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031) AV2: 7,567 pounds ($9,459) NT's trad. rollover IRA: $116,857 NT's Roth IRA: $72,911 NT's SEP/SIMPLE: $3,709 AS's trad. rollover IRA: $29,355 AS's Roth IRA: $103,147 AS's SEP IRA: $78,516 CJ's 401(k): $244,478 CJ's Roth IRA: $79,142 Proceeds of NT's flat: $188,000 CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%) --- TOTAL ASSETS: $1,579,801
Debt: US Mortgage $361,966 Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000 --- TOTAL DEBT $370,966
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,208,835
September 2021 estimate: $1,151,336
Change in net worth: +$57,499
Summary: I didn't update net worth for a few months, so we made up what we lost in September plus some! We'll have some big shifts in assets and debt next month when we close on a rental property, but it won't change our net worth much.
Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are usually approximate. UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound (just to have a system, even though the exchange rate varies).
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November 10th, 2021 at 04:30 pm
I keep putting off posting here. We've got several big money-related and other things that are in process right now, and I keep thinking when they're more settled I'll post, but honestly some of them are going to be months or more before they're settled, so I should just post now, and then post updates as things move along!
Let's see...I'll start with something that's pretty settled.
1. AS applied for a top job at a local nonprofit this summer, and she got it! She's been involved with them off and on for about 20 years, most recently on the board, but this was a huge step up for her, both moneywise and careerwise. (It's the kind of job that warrants an interview/article in the city newspaper!) Moneywise, well, she was freelance before, and her annual income would fluctuate but was in the $70Ks these past few years--$77K was her highest one. Her new job pays $110K, so pretty much a 50% raise, and steady versus unpredictable!
I'm going to put money in her SEP for the rest of the year because I'm not sure what the retirement plan picture is at her job--she doesn't think there is one, but she's the boss now, so she can get that started up if there isn't!
So that takes the pressure off...once NT's unemployment ran out, and AS was slowing her freelance business to work on applying for this job, we went in the hole quite a bit, but now AS and my paychecks will cover the budget, so whatever NT brings in can hopefully make up the difference. And with next year's budget I'm hoping to expand some of the line items that we tend to go over on...mainly groceries, healthcare and personal spending.
2. We sold the UK flat! If you recall, we've waWented to sell it for years and years, but the English real estate market was soft, and then Brexit threw a huge curveball, but just as all that was looking better and we listed the flat, COVID hit and we had to take it back off the market and take on a renter. Once their lease was up earlier this year, we signed a 6-month lease and listed the flat with tenant in situ, and an investment property owner snapped it up for the asking price we were hoping for, 200K pounds! We closed at the end of September.
I'd made some very rough estimates and reckoned we'd only clear half of that, after we paid the management company, mortgage, estate agent, lawyer, tax pro and taxes. But we actually ended up with about 160K, so my calculations were way off! We still need to have our accountant do our regular annual UK taxes, which he can't do until April, so we left a couple grand in the UK account. And we still need to do our US taxes and see if Uncle Sam wants a piece of the action, but I'd been figuring only 100K before US taxes, so we're already way ahead in my mind.
We're in the process of transferring the funds from the UK to US, which is a whole complicated kind of nervewracking process for people not used to doing it, but it should be in our US savings account by the end of this week or beginning of next. I haven't done a detailed calculation but think we could end up with nearly $200K!
Most of it, we'll save for now, and once US taxes are settled, start looking for an investment property here. But I am going to give us all a big spending money bonus, because we all went in the hole this past summer, being pretty self-indulgent. So $3K each for the adults to wipe out our deficit and give us a tiny bit extra, and maybe $500 each for the kids (which I won't let them spend willy nilly but they can use for clothes, makeup and stuff that's kinda reasonable).
3. The kitchen reno is supposedly going to start within the next few days! The last piece is that our contractor needs a plumber to remove and seal off the radiator in that room, and he's been trying to chase one down for a month or more. But he got one to commit to Thursday, Friday OR Monday. Not much of a commitment in my mind, but the contractor seems to think it's gonna happen! I took pics of our crappy current kitchen just in case it's getting ripped out tomorrow. We'll be moving the fridge to the dining room, doing dishes in the bathtub, and doing a lot of our cooking on hot plates/microwave/toaster oven for god knows how long.
We have the new appliances purchased and waiting for us, and we've specified some finishes, but there are still things that will need to be worked out on the fly. I'm a little worried with all the supply chain disruptions of late, but we'll just have to roll with whatever happens!
We also don't know what the final price tag will be--I mean you never do, because things always happen in a reno, but this one is especially fuzzy. We were roughly quoted $60-$80K like two years ago, pre-pandemic, but I know materials and labor and everything else has gone up, so I have no idea! We have $45K saved up, plus a $10K emergency fund, and we have a $50K HELOC. So hopefully that'll be enough to cover it without dipping into the proceeds from selling the flat, but who knows. We have $500 per month in the monthly budget that'll mainly go to paying off the HELOC I suppose--I'll figure out a more detailed plan once the dust (literally) settles.
So, fingers crossed. We absolutely hate our kitchen and have always wanted to completely tear it down and make it different--the doorways, window and placement of the appliances are all changing drastically--so this'll be really exciting even if super expensive and stressful. This is by far the most expensive renovation we have our eyes on--everything else we've been holding off on will be much smaller chunks of money.
- - -
So those are the big three financial-related updates. Other random stuff:
- My job continues to go pretty well considering. Through layoffs and attrition we're down to about 12 Minneapolis employees--we've had as many as 75 at various times in the past. We're still part of a bigger organization and now we work more closely with them, handling our couple of legacy clients we haven't lost but also supporting work for our D.C. headquarters. So it seems like there's more than enough work and that they want to hang onto me, but I'm ready to roll with whatever punches after the past few bumpy years. But ideally, I'd stay at my company until my family reaches Coast FIRE...then I might look at something more part-time. But that's going to be several years so I'd love to just hang on here and not have to look for another full time job.
- NT's been in talks to do bookkeeping for our downstairs neighbors' businesses...he took a Quickbooks training course but that plan appears to have stalled for whatever reasons. But he still does admin work for them, and his hat business is slowly but surely growing, turning a bit of a profit now, and he plans to handle property management once we get an investment property here.
- NT and I are both getting pretty embedded in two different music scenes here--hip hop for him, country music/Americana for me. We did vaguely toss around the idea of looking into investing in a venue type place instead of a rental home--but the rental home seems like a MUCH more stable income prospect so we're most likely going with that.
- I've been getting more and more into a creative groove, so much so that I can't even work on all my projects as much as I want to. I have my music website adventuresinamericana.com, which has gotten lots of positive attention by the local scene (and I even get non-local musicians asking us to review their work--one as far away as Sweden!). We're even working on doing a podcast for it! So there's lots of writing, planning, and of course going to as many shows as I can squeeze in. I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this year so another novel in the works, and I have at least four in various stages of completion for self-publishing. (I'm a terrible self-promoter so that's in no way a revenue generator--nor is the Americana website which we don't even do ads on [yet].) There's my guitar practice and songwriting--I have weekly lessons which at least keeps me practicing guitar, but songwriting has fallen by the wayside with all the other things I have going on. Anyway, as DisneySteve wrote about on his blog earlier, I'm getting a bit impatient with having a full-time job when I've got all these other way more interesting projects! Definitely going to be open to opportunities to not have a full-time job as soon as that's realistic with our retirement goals.
- The kids got their first vaccine shot today!!! I'm so excited. Even though this won't protect our family 100%, we'll be so much safer once they get their full course. I'm still going to mask up everywhere I go for a while because cases are AWFUL here in MN, but hopefully when things look a bit better, I'll feel more able to take some chances because damn, I don't want to mask up in public for the rest of my life! But right now it seems unnecessarily risky not to, with our kids unvaxxed and cases sooo high here.
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October 7th, 2021 at 03:24 am
Assets: NT's UK pensions: AV1: 22,397 pounds ($27,996) SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031) AV2: 7,567 pounds ($9,459) NT's trad. rollover IRA: $110,944 NT's Roth IRA: $68,620 NT's SEP/SIMPLE: $1,237 AS's trad. rollover IRA: $27,899 AS's Roth IRA: $96,160 AS's SEP IRA: $73,417 CJ's 401(k): $230,274 CJ's Roth IRA: $73,553 Proceeds of NT's flat: $179,000 (approx) CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%) --- TOTAL ASSETS: $1,524,790
Debt: US Mortgage $364,454 Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000 --- TOTAL DEBT $373,454
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,151,336
August 2021 estimate: $1,173,382
Change in net worth: -$22,046
Summary: Our first big dip in a while due to the market's effect on our retirement accounts. You may notice our debt section is a lot shorter--it's because we sold the UK flat and paid off the UK mortgages! We about broke even net worth-wise on that. I keep meaning to do a big news update but still waiting for some things to be sorted out on the flat taxes as well as the net pay for AS's new job.
Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are usually approximate. UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound (just to have a system, even though the exchange rate varies).
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September 3rd, 2021 at 07:47 pm
Well, our goal just went way up because of a rise in income! Which means we're way behind, but for a good reason. (I also decided to round off salaries while I was at it so our goal could be a nice round number too!)
New goal: $922,000 by March 2024
Current retirement balance: $779,114
May 2021 balance: $732,687
Progress since last update: $46,427
Still needed: $142,886
This interim goal is based on getting my and NT's retirement to 4x my current and his last full-time salary (approximately $84,000 and $64,000) by the time we turn 50, and AS's retirement values to 3x her current salary ($110,000) by the time she turns 45. $84,000 x 4 = $336,000 $64,000 x 4 = $256,000 $110,000 x 3 = $330,000
It will shift anytime our salary/annual income changes. (The only exception is I won't lower if there's a lower-income year.)
There are 31 months to go before March 2024, so that means we need to gain $4609 per month on average to meet our goal.
The ultimate goal we're working toward is 8x our annual income by the time we retire at 65.
***
Coast FIRE Goal
I've also started using this Coast FIRE calculator (https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/) and according to it, our retirement goal is $2.1 million by the time I'm 65 (18 years). It says we're currently 10 years from our Coast FIRE number of $1.5 million!
Here are the Coast FIRE parameters I use:
Ideal budget |
Monthly |
Housing |
$0 |
Healthcare |
$1,500 |
Groceries |
$1,000 |
Fun |
$1,500 |
Travel |
$1,000 |
Utilities |
$500 |
Giving |
$500 |
Home improvement |
$500 |
Gifts |
$250 |
Transportation |
$250 |
Total monthly |
$7,000 |
|
|
Annual |
$84,000 |
I'm in between my spouses' age, so I used my age but our combined retirement investments.
Current age: 47
Retirement age: 65
Annual spending in retirement: $84,000
Monthly contribution: $2,700
Investment growth rate: 7%
Inflation rate: 3%
Withdrawal rate: 4%
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September 3rd, 2021 at 07:30 pm
Assets: NT's UK pensions: AV1: 22,397 pounds ($27,996) SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031) AV2: 7,567 pounds ($9,459) NT's trad. rollover IRA: $115,452 NT's Roth IRA: $71,485 NT's SEP/SIMPLE: $1,291 AS's trad. rollover IRA: $29,021 AS's Roth IRA: $99,716 AS's SEP IRA: $76,485 CJ's 401(k): $238,074 CJ's Roth IRA: $76,104 NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%) CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%) --- TOTAL ASSETS: $1,583,814
Debt: US Mortgage $365,279 Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000 UK Mortgage 1 $25,233 UK Mortgage 2 $5,319 UK Mortgage 3 $5,601 --- TOTAL DEBT $410,432
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,173,382
June 2021 estimate: $1,138,177
Change in net worth: +$35,205
Summary: Good healthy rise in value over two months, mainly due to retirement contributions & gains!
Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are usually approximate. UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound (just to have a system, even though I checked the exchange rate and it's more like 1 to $1.38).
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July 1st, 2021 at 05:28 am
The thing about promising is, it's not a sure thing, but all of a sudden there seem to be a bunch of good prospects on our horizon financially!
- This is more a giant expense but would be soo great if it happened: our long long long planned kitchen reno seems to be kicking into gear. The contractor has city approval for the changes and has a new window due to be delivered end of August! We've resumed picking appliances, finishes, etc., which had kind of stalled because there was always one thing or another holding us up. Financially I feel in good shape for it; we've got $50K in savings, a $50K HELOC, and $500 per month in the budget. So fingers crossed!
- We seem to be about to sell the UK flat! We've wanted to do this for years but finally listed it in early 2020 when the market in England looked good. Of course you know what happened next; it couldn't even be shown in person so we got another renter with a year-long lease. Now we've got one we can give 6-month notice to, so we decided to try listing the flat as an investment property, and switch it to a residential listing if it didn't sell. Well, a week into being listed we got a bite! We were asking 210K pounds and they came in with a 190K hard offer, so we turned it down without countering. Guess it wasn't as hard as they made it seem because they came back with 200K and we accepted it! The investor buyer keeps talking about moving quickly in his emails, so I guess we'll find out what that means in UK investment property buying terms!
- Between paying off the mortgage (30K), paying the management co (15% of sale), paying the estate agent, solicitor and tax pro, and paying the actual capital gains tax on the property (which NT originally bought for 40K), I'll be happy if we pocket 100K of the sale. Still, that'd be enough for a good down payment on a property closer to home! We're hoping to get a duplex and rent both unites out. Our CoastFIRE number assumes we'll have a modest rental income, so it seems preferable to anything else we could do with the money. Of course we'll need to let everything take its course in England and then check with our US tax guy to see any tax implications here, but I can't help but start to glance around at real estate listings in our neighborhood...
So yeah! Once again, we could have two big home-related things going on simultaneously; that seems to be kind of our thing. Those are the big money things, but we also have some other promising bits of things:
- NT's unemployment has nearly run out. He's stretched it this long by working part time doing admin for our downstairs neighbors. We only need him to make a bit more to make ends meet, so he asked our neighbors if they knew any other entrepreneurs in need of virtual part time admin support. Instead, our neighbor asked if he'd learn Quickbooks and take on their bookkeeping as well as the other things he's doing! So he's signed up for a course and it seems like that could be all sorted out!
- AS's freelance business is doing as well as ever but she's started to look around at other options. She applied for a pretty high-ranking position at a nonprofit she used to work at and has been involved with for years, and she just got notified that she's being called in for an initial interview! It's only the first round, but it's pretty promising. If she got this job, it would likely be a step up from her highest annual self-employed year of income. Not a huge jump, but noticeable. So we're just at the beginning of this process, but it's interesting to contemplate!
I guess that's it for the big stuff! Everything else is about as normal as it can be in the new normal.
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June 30th, 2021 at 02:43 am
Assets: NT's UK pensions: AV: 22,397 pounds ($27,996) SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031) FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078) NT's trad. rollover IRA: $111,934 NT's Roth IRA: $66,268 NT's SEP/SIMPLE: $2,500 AS's trad. rollover IRA: $28,143 AS's Roth IRA: $95,092 AS's SEP IRA: $72,046 CJ's 401(k): $228,862 CJ's Roth IRA: $72,251 NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%) CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%) --- TOTAL ASSETS: $1,551,901
Debt: US Mortgage $367,740 Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000 UK Mortgage 1 $25,813 UK Mortgage 2 $5,441 UK Mortgage 3 $5,730 --- TOTAL DEBT $413,724
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,138,177
May 2021 estimate: $1,122,570
Change in net worth: +$15,607
Summary: I actually remembered to do net worth two months in a row, and it was a pretty good month!
Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are usually approximate. UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound (just to have a system, even though I checked the exchange rate and it's more like 1 to $1.38).
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May 29th, 2021 at 08:24 pm
I started trying a retirement calculator, realized I needed our current investment numbers which I hadn't run in a few months, and decided to do a full net worth update while I was at it...
Assets: NT's UK pensions: AV: 22,397 pounds ($27,996) SW: 27,225 pounds ($34,031) FL: 6,462 pounds ($8,078) NT's trad. IRA: $110,382 NT's Roth IRA: $64,842 AS's trad. IRA: $27,759 AS's Roth IRA: $93,245 AS's SEP IRA: $71,038 CJ's 401(k): $224,575 CJ's Roth IRA: $70,741 NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%) CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%) --- TOTAL ASSETS: $1,537,387
Debt: US Mortgage $368,556 Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000 UK Mortgage 1 $26,005 UK Mortgage 2 $5,483 UK Mortgage 3 $5,773 --- TOTAL DEBT $414,817
Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,122,570
January 2021 estimate: $1,039,463
Change in net worth: +$83,107
Summary: It's kind of fun skipping a few months of calculations; much more dramatic drops in debt and increases in net worth! We averaged about $20K of gains in net worth per month since January.
Notes on the numbers above: House value estimates are usually approximate. UK pension values updated about once a year. UK asset values and debt amounts are calculated figuring $1.25 for every British pound.
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May 29th, 2021 at 07:55 pm
Had to change the retirement goal due to a raise I got last month! Old goal was $814,292 by March 2024.
New goal: $820,892 by March 2024
Current retirement balance: $732,687
November 2020 balance: $632,504
Progress since last update: $100,183
Still needed: $88,205
This interim goal is based on getting my and NT's retirement to 4x my current and his last full-time salary (currently $84,150 and $64,118) by the time we turn 50 and AS's retirement values to 3x her highest annual income ($75,940 in 2018) by the time she turns 45. $84,150 x 4 = $336,600 $64,118 x 4 = $256,472 $75,940 x 3 = $227,820
It will shift anytime our salary/annual income changes. (The only exception is I won't lower if there's a lower-income year.)
There are 34 months to go before March 2024, so that means we need to gain $2594 per month on average to meet our goal. (Seeing as how we contribute a minimum of $2K per month and average out to more than $2700, that shouldn't be a problem!)
The ultimate goal we're working toward is 8x our annual income by the time we retire at 65.
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May 29th, 2021 at 07:54 pm
I usually get confused and overwhelmed when I try using retirement calculators. That's why I use the 8x rule of thumb as my goalposts for our retirement. But Firefly's post about Coast FIRE made me curious to try that calculator. (https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/)
I ran the numbers once, and it said at our current pace we'd reach Coast FIRE in 11 years! That would be incredible!
But then I realized what they meant by "net worth" was total invested. My net worth calculations count the value of our home, so I had to redo it. But, I also realized that initially I had $1500 listed for housing because even after we pay off the mortgage we'll have property taxes and insurance. I forgot that we do intend to still have rental properties, so the money from those should at least offset our housing expenses. Also, I estimated we put aside $2,500 but realized it's closer to $2,700 (conservatively). So I lowered my "net worth," raised retirement contributions, removed the line for housing expenses and tried again.
Here's my attempt at a retirement budget. (Let me know if you see any glaring omissions here.) Keep in mind this is for three adults.
Ideal budget |
Monthly |
Housing |
$0 |
Healthcare |
$1,500 |
Groceries |
$1,000 |
Fun |
$1,500 |
Travel |
$1,000 |
Utilities |
$500 |
Giving |
$500 |
Home improvement |
$500 |
Gifts |
$250 |
Transportation |
$250 |
Total monthly |
$7,000 |
|
|
Annual |
$84,000 |
I'm in between my spouses' age, so I used my age but our combined retirement investments.
Current age: 47
Retirement age: 65
Annual spending in retirement: $84,000
Current net worth (retirement balance): $732,687
Monthly contribution: $2,700 (varies, but this is a conservative approximate average)
Investment growth rate: 7%
Inflation rate: 3%
Withdrawal rate: 4%
Coast FIRE number at current age: $1,036,619
Result: You're 12 years from Coast FIRE!
Unbelievable. I only seem to have added one year in my new calculation. Is this telling me at this rate I'll be done saving for retirement by 59 and be able to retire at 65? If so that's amazing, because if you'd asked me when I'd have enough saved I'd've said "never." I'm sure I'm doing something wrong in the above calculations. Can you poke holes in this scenario?
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