December 2008 Net Worth Update (+$6,322)

What a suprise! We ended December up $6k. December was a very big month for us as we purchase our new home and with the wild ride on Wall Street I expected our investments to be down, but they ended the month up.

Assets	Nov-08	Dec-08	Change	%
Cash & Savings	$ 116,632.83	$ 60,687.73	$ (55,945.10)	-47.97%
Taxable Brokerage Accts	$ 64,956.81	$ 65,648.35	$ 691.54	1.06%
Roth IRAs	$ 32,768.21	$ 33,059.63	$ 291.42	0.89%
Pre-tax Retirement Accts	$ 133,960.71	$ 135,193.33	$ 1,232.62	0.92%
Stock Options	$ -	$ -	$ -
ESPP	$ 20,703.71	$ 19,675.17	$ (1,028.54)	-4.97%
House #1 - Rental	$ 160,000.00	$ 160,000.00	$ -
House #2 - Rental	$ 128,225.00	$ 128,225.00	$ -
House #3 - ???	$ 109,510.00	$ 109,510.00	$ -
House #4 - Primary	$ -	$ 300,000.00
Receivable (Payable)	$ -	$ -	$ -
Other Assets	$ -	$ -	$ -
Total Assets	$ 766,757.27	$1,011,999.21	$ 245,241.94	31.98%
Liabilities
Credit Card Balances	$ (14,031.46)	$ (11,798.61)	$ 2,232.85	-15.91%
House #1 Mortgages	$ (112,633.14)	$ (112,430.03)	$ 203.11	-0.18%
House #2 Mortgages	$ (100,981.42)	$ (100,981.42)	$ -	0.00%
House #3 Mortgages	$ (89,779.43)	$ (89,534.75)	$ 244.68	-0.27%
House #4 Mortgages	$ -	$ (241,600.00)
Rental Deposits	$ (9,980.57)	$ (9,980.57)	$ -	0.00%
Additional Tax Liability	$ -	$ -	$ -
Other Liabilities			$ -
Total Liabilities	$ (327,406.02)	$ (566,325.38)	$ (238,919.36)	72.97%
$2million Goal Progress*	$ 424,620.68	$ 387,273.83	$ (37,346.85)	-8.80%
Net Worth	$ 439,351.25	$ 445,673.83	$ 6,322.58	1.44%

Highlights for December

All credit card debt (except current month's purchases) is in the form of 0% APR balance transfers earning interest in my savings accounts.
November was suprisingly a positive month for our investments. We started tax loss harvesting at the very end and sold some Wachovia (WB) and Pfizer (PFE). However we did a poor job moving the proceeds into new inestments in a timely fashion.
Our biggest finacial move this month was the purchase of a 4th property to be our new home. My wife and I love the home and are busy getting settled in.
My wife and I also annouced we are expecting our first child in May 2009. Big changes lie ahead for us and can't wait to start blogging about them.
We purchase an Oooma internet telephone system and still love it. Even the wife is raving about the system to friends which is a true testament to its benefit.
December suprisingly eeked out a gain on our investments and we were able to beat our benchmark again - I will post our December investment report shortly.

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 (7)

Great work on having a positive December and for getting another house. Will be interesting to read about house #3

Posted by thomas | January 5, 2009 1:25 PM

Congratulations! You now have a 56% debt to equity ratio. I hope your renters continue to pay and you remain a high performer at work.

Posted by Golfer65 | January 5, 2009 9:17 PM

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm sorry to say this but it appears from your Dec 08 balance statement that your net gain mostly comes from cash which I'm assuming comes from your salary and the diff between your rent collections and your mortgage/HOA/prop tax payments.

First off, how can your cash change be only -55,945 when your cost of your new home minus your mortgage equals 58400? Where did the rest of the 2455 come from (and wow...no closing cost, escrow fee, title insurance, etc whatsoever on this house? Where do I sign up?)

Second of all, you paid off your credit card balance for Dec 08 in the amount of 2232. Suffice to say that over 2/3 of your net gain comes from cash and cash only and not from your investment (which, BTW, only gained 691+291+1232-1028=1186). Not bad but you can also get a similar gain moving all your $250k into GNMA mutual fund and getting its dividend only without worrying about its NAV fluctuation.

2mill, for the amount of cash that you're bringing in, I wouldn't invest in risky investments such as stocks and stock MF but rather truly diversify them out (probably hold only 20% of your net worth on stock related investment if you really feel that stock and stock MF will outperform other investments) and just simply hoping that this type of cash per month (over $4k) will still come in until you retire (which is unlikely given the fact that this economy is in the gutter and I doubt IBM will last this long with this many employees but then I don't work for IBM).

Sorry for the non-encouragement comment but I wouldn't mention this if I didn't think you have the potential to hit your 2 mill target.

Posted by Chris | January 6, 2009 2:59 AM

How do you value your houses under the asset columns? Do you simply enter the purchase price of the houses, or do you estimate current appraisal amount?

The reason why I ask is I have a rental that can no longer sell for what I paid for the house due to current economic conditions.

Posted by Joe | January 29, 2009 7:19 PM

I'm also curious about how your real estate is doing. If I remember correctly, you said you value it at its cost basis. Has the real estate crisis put any of your properties underwater?

How are you dealing with property number 3 (it looks like it's vacant)?

Posted by Thisson | February 3, 2009 2:14 PM

Are any of your properties underwater due to the real estate crisis?

What's going on with house #3 - is it vacant? Are you going to sell or rent it?

Posted by Thisson | February 3, 2009 2:15 PM

None of the properties are underwater, the property that I would be concerned about is #3, its a townhouse that is probably not worth what my wife paid for it. It is not vacant, and I will be posting our plans soon.

Posted by 2million | February 4, 2009 7:59 AM