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Archive for January, 2021

January 2021 net worth update

February 1st, 2021 at 12:09 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. IRA: $100,547
NT's Roth IRA: $56,914
AS's trad. IRA: $25,336
AS's Roth IRA: $82,582
AS's SEP IRA: $61,625
CJ's 401(k): $199,238
CJ's Roth IRA: $62,265
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,463,312

Debt:
US Mortgage $371,796
Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $26,779
UK Mortgage 2 $5,645
UK Mortgage 3 $5,944
---
TOTAL DEBT $419,164 

Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,044,148

December 2020 estimate: $1,039,463

Change in net worth: +$4,685

Summary: The markets did us no favors, but we made enough retirement contributions and paid off enough debt to show a modest gain this 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.

Dumb question

January 6th, 2021 at 03:11 pm

Does anyone know how I can change my password? I got a weird spammy email from someone claiming to be from Wordpress saying my SavingAdvice blog password had been changed; it hadn't, but made me want to update mine anyway since it's been a while. I can't for the life of me figure out where to do that! I went over to Forums but was unable to post a question and got logged out of the blog section, which in itself was a challenge to figure out how to get back into.

Stimulus came

January 5th, 2021 at 04:52 pm

We have three adults and two kids so we got $3,000. Our January budget is looking pretty good so I flowed $1,400 into our February budget and doled out the rest as personal money -- $400 for each adult and $200 for each kid.

The kids' money is split up: $120 each into savings, $20 each for giving, and $60 each to spend as they want.

The adults just get theirs as spending money. Well, for me and NT it mainly goes toward our personal money deficits -- mine from self-publishing and his from his hat business.

At least his hat business is pulling in some money and he may break even on his personal deficit soon -- my self-publishing is nowhere near profitable. That's my fault though, since I don't put a lot of work into publicizing my books. Turns out I like writing them, editing them and getting them into book form, but then I lose interest and want to work on the next book instead of marketing the ones I have out! Oh well.

Sample month of our new budgeting method

January 3rd, 2021 at 11:01 pm

I thought I'd share my budget for the year. It's an annual budget so each month is a little different; for instance, in February (the month shown below) I'm setting aside $800 for our summer CSA share. But this shows what our fixed or predictable income is, the necessities we need to cover first, and then the variables, listed in order of priority so we fund the more important ones first and go down the list. So far, we are fully funded for January and everything but groceries is funded in the needs list for February. Once we finish funding the essential expenses, subsequent income will go to funding variables. We still have some variable expenses outside of that list, so when they come up, I'll fund them with incoming freelance money if possible, or we'll discuss taking something out of one of the other categories if we need to.

I feed this month by month into our ongoing budgeting tool which I call "Number Crunch" or "future checkbook."

  Fixed income $1,967.30
2/14/2021 CJ paycheck $208.33
$208.33
2/7/2021 Lower unit rental $5,353.26
  Essential expenses -$2,953.18
2/3/2021 AS healthcare -$41.75
2/3/2021 Roth IRAs -$210.00
2/17/2021 Xcel -$180.00
2/28/2021 Cell phones -$200.00
2/14/2021 Groceries -$200.00
2/28/2021 Groceries -$6,396.19
    -$1,042.93
     
2/7/2021 Spending money -$198.00
2/21/2021 Spending money -$198.00
  Healthcare expenses -$50.00
  1/2 guitar -$800.00
  Kids' college -$500.00
  Vacays/travel -$250.00
  Giving -$4,152.00
    -$5,194.93
  Needed from NT/AS (gross pay -tax & retirement) $8,245.92

December 2020 net worth update

January 2nd, 2021 at 07:16 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. IRA: $100,851
NT's Roth IRA: $56,572
AS's trad. IRA: $25,413
AS's Roth IRA: $82,315
AS's SEP IRA: $59,256
CJ's 401(k): $198,555
CJ's Roth IRA: $61,939
NT's flat: $212,500 (200,000 pounds value x1.25 -15%)
CJ/NT/AS house: $592,200 ($630,000 value -6%)
---
TOTAL ASSETS: $1,459,706

Debts:
US Mortgage $372,600

Loan from friends (duplex) $9,000
UK Mortgage 1 $26,970
UK Mortgage 2 $5,685
UK Mortgage 3 $5,988
---
TOTAL DEBT $420,243

Current Estimated Net Worth: $1,039,463

November 2020 estimate: $1,015,882

Change in net worth: +$23,581

Summary: The gains continued for another month and my household closed out 2020 with net worth millionaire status!

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.