This is my first net worth update in about 6 months! When things started to get a bit hairy out there with COVID I took some time off looking at the numbers, because I know it would cause me to make some rash decisions. Not making those decisions probably saved my family tens of thousands of dollars and if not hundreds over the course the next few decades in compounding. Obviously, I am not naive enough to believe that the lack of decisions could have gone the other way too! The only real move I made was when I moved a lot of my 401(k) into cash because 2 of my canaries in the coal mine died.
Thoughts before Calculating: My trading account which has my dividend growth stocks and ,very risky option trades which have absolutely gotten demolished, so my results are going to be based solely on whether my other investments and standard debt payments will cover those losses. My feeling is that this is not going to be a good number compared to February 1, 2020.
Calculating my Net Worth
My Family’s Assets
I used to say my assets were pretty straight forward, but over the years I think that has changed.
- Cash Equivalents – This includes my emergency fund (which I would like to be a bit higher), as well as some other random accounts.
- My Trading Account – This one account is both where I invest in my dividend growth companies and risky speculative option trades.
- My 401(k) – I have toyed with the idea of marketing timing in the past, and I have mostly moved away from that (except the most recent move to cash for some of the account lol).
- My Traditional IRA – Just some companies that have caught my attention at some point or another.
- The Wife’s Roth IRA – Again, some companies that have caught my attention at some point or another.
- Crypto Currency – A handful of years ago during the height of the crypto mania I decided to put a few dollars into BitCoin. It felt like immediately after I made the transfer BTC took a nosedive. At that point, I made the decision just to ignore the account.
- Life Insurance Cash Surrender Value – I have discussed my choice to purchase permanent life insurance with a growing cash surrender value portion to it many, many times.
- Physical Gold – A few years back I decided to start buying physical gold. I haven’t purchased a bar in quite some time, I may have to get back into it!
- My Rental Property – It has been about a year since The Wife and I decided to pull our house from the market and rent it out. While I didn’t have the liquidity event that I expected It has worked out pretty good so far.
- My Main Residence – Our home!
My Family’s Debt
- Law School Debt – I still have some law school debt. I was aggressively paying it down, but have stopped. One, I want the cheap liquidity for a pool purchase, and two, I really believe that the U.S. Gov’t is going to provide some relief and I’d like to get a piece of that sweet government hand out.
- Mortgage and Home Debt – I have a mortgage on each home and a home equity line of credit on the rental property.
- Revolving Credit Card Debt – The Wife and I pay off our credit cards every month for the most part. Granted we get behind from time to time, but that is the goal, month in and month out.
My Net Worth Change
- From February 1, 2020 to August 1, 2020 my net worth decreased 4.02%
- Year to date my net worth has decreased by 3.86%
As I expected almost my entire loss was due to my trading account. My 401(k) came back, my debt payments were made, my credit card debt was kept low – it was solely that account that caused the decrease.
