September 2006 Net Worth Update (+$7,863)

It feels nice to see a solid monthly increase, especially one that isn't attributed to any one time gains. My net worth increased a healthy $7,863 even after spending $2k on a HVAC repair. From here on out its a mad dash to try and build up my cash for the rest of the year.

Assets	Aug-06	Sep-06	Change	%
Cash & Savings	$ 23,023.25	$ 33,266.31	$ 10,243.06	44.49%
Taxable Brokerage Accts	$ 49,046	$ 49,819	$ 773.60	1.58%
Roth IRA	$ 25,971.75	$ 26,932.40	$ 960.65	3.70%
Pre-tax Retirement Accts	$ 103,113.80	$ 107,408.35	$ 4,294.55	4.16%
Stock Option	$ -	$ -	$ -
ESPP	$ 37,579.40	$ 38,029.59	$ 450.19	1.20%
House #1 - Rental	$ 160,000.00	$ 160,000.00	$ -
House #2 - Primary	$ 128,225.00	$ 128,225.00	$ -
Receivable (Payable)	$ 300.00	$ 300.00	$ -
Other Assets	$ -	$ -	$ -
Total Assets	$ 527,258.91	$ 543,980.96	$ 16,722.05	3.17%
Liabilities			$ -
Credit Card Balances	$ (31,656.46)	$ (41,090.19)	$ (9,433.73)	29.80%
House #1 Mortgages	$ (117,848.88)	$ (117,474.80)	$ 374.08	-0.32%
House #2 Mortgages	$ (103,900.21)	$ (103,699.01)	$ 201.20	-0.19%
Rental Deposits	$ (600.00)	$ (600.00)	$ -	0.00%
Additional Tax Liability	$ -	$ -	$ -
Other Liabilities			$ -
Total Liabilities	$ (254,005.55)	$ (262,864.00)	$ (8,858.45)	3.49%
Net Worth	$ 273,253.36	$ 281,116.96	$ 7,863.60	2.88%

Highlights for September

All credit card debt (except current month's purchases) is in the form of 0% APR balance transfers earning interest in my savings accounts.
I took the 2nd half of a $13,000 0% balance transfer and transferred it to savings.
I focused my energy this month on trying to recover a bit from my current cash crunch. While my net worth statement doesn't readily show it, I felt I made good progress minimizing my expenses this month.
I had a $2,001.01 repair to the HVAC on my recently purchased house.
2millionblog also moved to permanent web space this month. While I am still updating links in some of the archives, everything has been migrated to the new site.

Additional Stock Investments for September (Outside of 401k & ESPP):
$50 in Pfizer DRIP
$100 in Duke DRIP
$100 in Vanguard Roth IRA

Tags: balance transfer, income, net worth,

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Comments (12)

Your assets increased $16k, and your debt increased by $9k -- for a net gain of $7k. How much of that gain came from ordinary income, rental income, balance transfer, etc...? I'd be curious to know what each part is contributing. That's admirable to be able to save $7k a month.

You must make a lot of money in order to do that, or you have a 95% savings rate.

Posted by Mark in NYC | October 2, 2006 5:21 PM

wow! impressive again..

Posted by garrett | October 2, 2006 6:11 PM

Mark,

Good question - in truth I have been avoiding discussions of my salary in part to avoid problems with my employer.

You'll note I list my monthly contributions to everything but my 401k and ESPP. I have about a $200 positive cash flow from my rental property (currently) and making about $100 in interest from my savings accounts. The rest would be from ordinary income and stock investment returns.

Posted by 2 million | October 2, 2006 6:21 PM

Wow you must be making at least 11k a month... Or am I shooting a little low?

Posted by garrett | October 2, 2006 6:23 PM

I know this isnt the proper place to do this... but im not familiar with the site yet... so I dont know if it lets you know there is a comment on a back posting... but my question is for yuor 0% balance transfers. Can you apply a balance transfer to an account that has no balance, such as your banking card that is tied to your checking account?

Posted by Anonymous | October 3, 2006 12:28 AM

Hi 2M,

It's very impressive to see a big in net worth in a single month. Actually, I am more curious about how you get the exact value of your houses, especially the primary one. When I do the calulation, I excluded both the house and cars as assets and liabilities because I don't them to skew the number. With housing prices chaning from month to month, it seems hard to have an idea the exact value and either way the overall number may not reflect how I did in other areas such as investing and savings.

Posted by Sun | October 3, 2006 3:42 PM

Sun,

I agree with your comments. What I list as the value of the property is the purchase price for both properties. The value of the rental property should be up significantly since I have owned it for many years, but I don't plan to revalue either properties at any point.

Infact I was thinking I wouldn't even list the primary house on my net worth statement, however, my long term plan is to convert this property as well to a rental property so I felt I needed to track that asset.

Posted by 2 million | October 3, 2006 4:13 PM

Garrett,

I don't think that 2mil is making nearly $11,000 per month. He has approximately $215k invested in the market, via his taxable brokerage accounts, Roth IRA, pre-tax retirement, etc. The S&P500 returned approximately 2% in September, and the Dow was up almost 7%. If one averages these two indices to get a benchmark for 2mil, we can guess that his investment gains were approximately $7,550 (.035 x $215,000). Not coincidentally, his net worth increase for the month was $7,863, including $200 in rentals and $100 in interest income. Therefore, 2mil saved virtually nothing during the month out of his paycheck; this is logical, given that he shelled out $2k for a HVAC repair. I also disagree with 2mil's assertion that the net worth increase "isn't attributed to any one time gains"; the market indices don't frequenlty return 2% to 7% monthly gains. If it wasn't for the stock market, his net worth increase would've been immaterial.

Based on 2mil's age and the industry in which he works, I would guess his income to be in the range of $55k to $70k.

Posted by CPA1298 | October 3, 2006 9:55 PM

Congratulations, I have been reading up on your blog the past few days and I must say I am very impressed! Keep up the good work!

Posted by Finc-Chick | October 3, 2006 10:33 PM

If you look through past monthly statements posted by 2mill, his net worth increases $6k to $10k in most months of the year. So there's no way he has been getting that kind of consistent growth from stocks alone. He's very heavy in pharma stocks, and that's been a turbulent sector.

He's got a masters degree and works for IBM (a great company). He lives in a rural area with low property costs and low cost of living. On top of all that he is cheap as hell (I mean that in admiration). He's not married and has no kids. So most likely he is clearing $100 to $120k a year and has a savings rate of 75%.

Posted by Mark in NYC | October 4, 2006 9:29 AM

That's a very imprssive achievement. You're definitely an inspiration for people just starting to get their financial affairs in order.

Posted by Matt | October 4, 2006 11:18 AM

I don't know, Finc-Chick. 2mil's August net worth increase was $1,261 (the portion not attributable to his pension plan vesting), and in June he only managed $433. If he is grossing $120k and saving 75% of it, we would expect to see gains of at least $7k to $8k. I think a lot of his boost comes from the stock market, just like MM at PFBlog. There's nothing wrong with that, I just don't think he's socking away $90k per year of ordinary income. Like you said, he's living in a low-cost area; doesn't low-cost typically mean lower-salary?

Posted by CPA1298 | October 5, 2006 10:10 PM