February Net Worth Update (+$8,694)

I didn't have a clue whether we were up or down this month till I finished running the numbers. Happily I can report we did pretty well given the volatility in the market. I have mixed feelings about the housing crisis -- we already own a good deal of real estate and financial investments. However, we are looking at buying our more permanent residence late this year (or at least start looking). Heck, let the bloodbath begin -- I just want the whole thing over with, drop real estate prices 20% across the board and lets start the recovery process!

Assets	Jan-08	Feb-08	Change	%
Cash & Savings	$ 91,332.24	$ 91,036.00	$ (296.24)	-0.32%
Taxable Brokerage Accts	$ 77,341.48	$ 74,083.39	$ (3,258.09)	-4.21%
Roth IRAs	$ 39,378.55	$ 38,738.61	$ (639.94)	-1.63%
Pre-tax Retirement Accts	$ 151,809.40	$ 155,433.05	$ 3,623.65	2.39%
Stock Options	$ 11,008.00	$ 16,408.00	$ 5,400.00	49.06%
ESPP	$ 34,052.60	$ 37,255.38	$ 3,202.78	9.41%
House #1 - Rental	$ 160,000.00	$ 160,000.00	$ -
House #2 - Rental	$ 128,225.00	$ 128,225.00	$ -
House #3 - Primary	$ 116,500.00	$ 116,500.00	$ -
Receivable (Payable)	$ -	$ 1,009.57	$ 1,009.57
Other Assets	$ -	$ -	$ -
Total Assets	$ 809,647.27	$ 818,689.00	$ 9,041.73	1.12%
Liabilities
Credit Card Balances	$ (16,325.26)	$ (15,449.59)	$ 875.67	-5.36%
House #1 Mortgages	$ (114,612.83)	$ (114,224.26)	$ 388.57	-0.34%
House #2 Mortgages	$ (102,067.51)	$ (101,930.68)	$ 136.83	-0.13%
House #3 Mortgages	$ (109,058.34)	$ (108,916.39)	$ 141.95	-0.13%
Rental Deposits	$ (6,447.00)	$ (6,447.00)	$ -	0.00%
Additional Tax Liability	$ (3,852.80)	$ (5,742.80)	$ (1,890.00)	49.06%
Other Liabilities			$ -
Total Liabilities	$ (352,363.74)	$ (352,710.72)	$ (346.98)	0.10%
$2million Goal Progress*	$ 449,841.87	$ 457,385.10	$ 7,543.23	1.68%
Net Worth	$ 457,283.53	$ 465,978.28	$ 8,694.75	1.90%

Highlights for February

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 published an updated list of my current investments. I have been working on a simplified spreadsheet to track our individual investments to make it easier for us to track. My hope is to start publishing a regular update on my investments to help me regular assess if my "active" investment strategy is making sense.
My wife and I took a break from China and visited Thailand for a week. We loved it, and it was easy on the wallet. It definately seemed like an attractive retirement location.
Our taxable stock accounts took a beating from the 20%+ decline in our Wachovia investment. Oh well -- we have continued to add to our investment this month.

Additional Stock Investments for February (Outside of 401k & ESPP):

$25 in ConocoPhillips DRIP
$600 in my Vanguard Roth IRA
$400 in my wife's T Rowe Price Roth IRA
$50 in Pfizer DRIP
$812.50 in Wachovia via Vanguard Brokerage

You can see my previous monthly net worth updates here.

Related in Net Worth Archive:

May 2012 Net Worth Update (-$28,098) (Jun 10, 2012) Highlights for MayWe like to take advantage of 0% APR balance transfers and other credit card offers for free money. We are actively looking at taking advantage of new credit card arbitrage opportunities. Our properties are listed on our...

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Comments (10)

I would recommend using Morningstar's Portfolio Manager to keep track of your individual investments. I've been using it since the end of September and really like it.

Posted by Leroy | March 5, 2008 8:57 AM

Just at typo in the first paragraph "while" should be "whole". Cheers

Posted by Jordan Clark | March 5, 2008 11:05 AM

Is the + $5400 in stock options a new grant?

Posted by Anonymous | March 5, 2008 12:03 PM

No new options, just a good month for the stock price ;-).

Posted by 2million | March 5, 2008 7:34 PM

first of all, having never got stock options on the open market, i don't know how they work; but when the stock price went from 107 to 113 in the month, how can options go up by 49%?

btw, that anonymous was not me (he/she beat me to it, though i had - and have - the same question).

- s.b.

Posted by some body | March 6, 2008 10:02 AM

OK, I'm confused. I keep seeing PF bloggers post their net worths for the last 2-3 months, and I wonder: how do you keep showing increases in retirement and stock accounts? My net worth continues to go down because of the market decline. I'm largely invested in index funds, so it is basically the same negative return. Yet, even though I continue to 'add' to my retirement and stock accounts, the losses offset the additions. Yet I log on here and it's nothing to see the accounts go up. Are you just picking investments THAT different from the market? Or are you contributing that many thousands per month? I gather that you're quite well compensated, but even so, I would expect to see these big market losses create a negative movement, but I'm not seeing it. What am i missing?

Posted by Michael | March 6, 2008 12:59 PM

sb -- good question. I am certainly not the expert on options, but let me see if I can summarize. Option are the right to buy or sell a stock at a certain price. There value can be worthless or be 50x there purchsed value based on small swings of the stock price.

For instance, my stock options are the right to buy IBM stock at lets say ~$93/share. So at the end of January they were worth roughly $14/option. At the end of Feb they were worth $21/option for a 40+% increase. They are powerful and risky investments.

Michael, Heck I can't explain how my retirement balance went up in Feb. but Ill give it a shot. My 401k balance lost 8% in Jan -- it recovered a bit in Feb. I also cranked up my contributions and between my contributions and the emplooyer match that represents close to 2/3 of my gain.

Otherwise my 401k is concentrated on international and small cap holdings.

Posted by 2million | March 6, 2008 7:19 PM

michael:

i echo your sentiments, and 2mill's response to my question answers our questions partially (in the sense that at least 2mill's increases are explained, but not that of all other pf bloggers around!).

as an ex-civil engineer, here is my analogy of the day re:retirement funds where i am in the same boat as you are: we have put some sand in a bucket, the market is pounding it each month, while we keep adding more sand to it. fortunately for us (or not), the compaction in the sand is more than the extra sand we are adding.

- s.b.

Posted by some body | March 7, 2008 10:05 AM

I think your net worth is a bit overstated since you have not marked down the value of your three properties. In fact, you may be close to being underwater on house #3 (very high debt to equity ratio). That is, unless, these three propoerties are in areas that have not seen declines.

Posted by Golfer65 | March 12, 2008 9:08 AM

Golfer65, I haven't valued the properties mark-to-market as many folks do. These are all listed at our cost basis which in all likelyhood considerably less than there current market value -- for instance if I looked up house#1 on zillow it would say it is worth $200,000+. If for some reason the real estate market declined 50% then perhaps I would need to rethink this, but I currently believe this conversative reporting method is the best choice for these illiquid assets.

Posted by 2million | March 12, 2008 8:10 PM