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Archive for December, 2025

December 2025 net worth update

December 31st, 2025 at 08:20 pm

Happy New Year, friends! As I wrap up 2025, I'm officially adding our HELOC debt to the spreadsheet. For the past two years I've been hoping it was a short-term loan that I could quickly pay back, but with where inflation is going, healthcare costs spiking, and me and AS still trying to build our business, I've had to acknowledge that this debt is gonna hang around a while longer. We borrowed about $10K in 2024 and $16K this year, so $26K total.

As a result of realizing all this accumulated debt, our net worth went down this month--but only by about $11K, because we paid down a bit of mortgage principal and added $13K to retirement values. So our end of year numbers are pretty nice: nearly $2.3M in assets, $1.1M of that in retirement accounts, the rest in real estate. $1.5M net worth. We started the year with $940K in retirement and $1.4M net worth, so at least our net worth increased a good amount despite the debt! We need $918K to be at Coast FIRE, so that means we have a $200K surplus in our retirement accounts. (And as a reminder, I don't factor Social Security benefits into our retirement assets at all.)

I'll try to write a wrapup of our 2025 finances and the year in general, but I'll probably wait til tomorrow when I officially close out the books on December. 

Assets      
NT's UK pensions:      
AV1: 29,509 pounds $36,886    
SW: 41,722 pounds $52,153    
AV2: 8,462 pounds $10,578    
NT's trad. rollover IRA $157,923    
NT's Roth IRA $105,403    
NT's SEP IRA $9,117    
NT's AAC acct $15,724    
AS's trad. rollover IRA $39,396    
AS's Roth IRA $149,583    
AS's SEP IRA $106,144    
AS's Nevada acct (approx amt) $380    
CJ's trad. rollover IRA $331,545    
CJ's Roth IRA $113,827    
CJ/NT/AS house ($643,000 value -6%) $604,420    
CJ/NT/AS rental property ($599,000 value -6%) $563,060    
TOTAL ASSETS $2,296,138 retirement only: $1,128,658
       
Debt      
Main mortgage $320,108    
Rental property mortgage $369,034    
HELOC $26,000    
Loan from friends (main house) $9,000    
TOTAL DEBT $724,142    
       
Current Estimated Net Worth December 2025 $1,571,996    
       
November 2025 estimate: $1,582,873    
       
Change in net worth -$10,877    
       
       
COAST FIRE: https://walletburst.com/tools/coast-fire-calc/    
retirement goal $1.59 million by 2039 (CJ age 65)    
       
Current age: 51      
Retirement age: 65      
Annual spending in retirement: $63,600      
Monthly contribution: $250      
Investment growth rate: 7%      
Inflation rate: 3%      
Withdrawal rate: 4%      
Current invested assets $1,128,658    
Coast FIRE number at current age $918,185    
Current status: at Coast FIRE with surplus: $210,473    
       
       
Coast FIRE budget      
Ideal budget Monthly    
Housing $0 (rent will cover 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 add'l rental income -$1,700    
Total monthly $5,300    
Annual $63,600    
       
SSN estimates 2024 Start age 62 Start age 70  
Monthly benefit $4,200 $7,200  
Plus monthly from retirement $5,300 $5,300  
Total monthly $9,500 $12,500  

Quick life update (RIP Whiskey)

December 14th, 2025 at 06:40 pm

Well, I didn't do very well in the photo sharing challenge, but it was fun doing the few posts that I managed! It's been a crazy year; gonna try to remedy that in the new year, but who knows?

I'm very sad to report that one of our two cats, Whiskers (aka Whiskey), passed away last Tuesday. He had cancer that was diagnosed nearly a year before, plus a host of other medical conditions, so we're grateful to have gotten that amount of time with him. He was slowing down and we knew his health was failing, but we kept him around as long as he still seemed to be enjoying life. Even 24 hours before he went into distress, he climbed into my lap and snuggled comfortably, and gulped down his favorite treats after taking his pills that afternoon. But Tuesday morning he vomited, lost all strength, and was meowing at us in a different way than he ever had, so we took him to the ER. He had a number of things going on that we could've tried to address, but he'd clearly reached the point where he wouldn't be enjoying life anymore, so we made the decision to put him to sleep.

The only other living thing I've watched die was my mom almost exactly 3 years before. There were a lot of similiarites, and also this was much better than my mom's hard few days before she passed, so it brought up some other emotions that probably mixed in with the grief. 

The house is very quiet, tidier, and a bit empty feeling. We're all still getting over it. He was a big character and super affectionate and naughty, and he required a fair bit of care during his final year, so our lives are pretty different now.