Tuesday, January 1, 2019

2018 End of Year Net Worth


All figures except my Jeep value are generated from Mint.com. 

During the month of December the S&P 500 fell over 9%!! A monthly drop of 9% is extremely rare and the December plunge was the worst December for the markets since 1931 during the depths of the Great Depression. Fortunately the markets rebounded during the last week, but the S&P did briefly fall into Bear Market territory.

As most of you know I sold all of my stocks within my taxable account during the back half of 2017.  I have been accumulating dividends stock and some mutual funds during this year. I still have over half of my taxable funds in 2.25% CDs. This definitely cushions the blows from the market plunge, but I still felt the hit to my net worth as many others have as well.

From a spending perspective, I had the lowest total since I retired back in February at just over $2000 for the month. I also received $581 from my Cap 1 credit card churn as well as the first $150 from Amegy. Over $700 for spending that would have occurred anyway. Gotta love that!.

I started buying into some seriously beaten down companies during the past few weeks and hope to continue buying heavy as opportunities present themselves.

It's a little disheartening to see my net worth decline during my first (almost) year of FI. I fully expect my net worth to increase over time, NOT decline.  Having a bear, or even a falling market during the early year(s) of retirement really can change probabilities for the worse of funding your life for the long term..... Black Swan stuff

This is one of the reasons that I have a huge chunk of cash in CDs. 2.25% is not very impressive, but absorbing a potential 50-60% 2 to 3 year bear market like the ones suffered in 73-74, 00-02, and 07-09 have to be accounted for. 

Here are December's final 2018 numbers

Assets

Checking --- $4,096
Savings/Investments --- $346,435
Lending Club --- $2,455
HSA --- $2,644
IRA --- $9,304
401K --- $336,461
2014 Jeep Wrangler --- $21,500
House --- $144,105

Liabilities

$2387

Net Worth

864,613


YTD Totals

2018

Jan 2018 --- $917,116
Feb 2018 --- $910,667

Mar 2018 --- $909,746
Apr 2018 --- $903,416

May 2018 --- $889,032
Jun 2018 --- $893,278

Jul 2018 --- $892,002
Aug 2018 --- $896,619

Sep 2018 --- $899,763
Oct 2018 --- $876,927

Nov 2018 --- $891,402
Dec 2018 --- $864,613


2017

May 2017 --- $835,009
July 2017 --- $851,904 


Aug 2017 --- $860,072
Sept 2017 --- $869,374

Oct 2017 --- $887,033
Nov 2017 --- $897,145

Dec 2017 --- $914,266



There is no down time when building a path that doesn't lead back to ZERO

12 comments:

  1. nice pipe. Not that low of a drop and a seriously unexpensive month. Surprising especially in this holiday season.

    All the best in the new year.
    cheers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Cpi,

      Yeah. Fortunately I did most of my traveling during the previous couple of months so December was low key. Property taxes are coming up in January so I'll spend more on that than all of December's expenses combined.

      MDP

      Delete
  2. MDP -

    No worries on the market, just means dividends reinvesting at better yields!

    Also - what brokerage account did you end up going with again?

    Good luck in 2019!

    -Lanny

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lanny,

      Yes indeed. I'm using two right now. E-trade and JPM.

      MDP

      Delete
  3. My portfolio yield is picking up thanks to the market. 2.25% on CDs is definitely low. Barclays is offering 2.05% on its savings account. Capital One 360 is offering 2.70% for 1 -Year CDs. I am slowly building up a CD ladder.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. dg2045,

      Nice CD rates. Yeah I like in branch banking so I went with Amegy for the CDs. Also since I opened an Amegy credit card, checking acct, and money market account they bonused me an additional $550 so that basically brings the 2.25% yield up close to the ones you mentioned.

      MDP

      Delete
  4. Curious, in your early retirement what are you using for health insurance?

    ReplyDelete
  5. You took quite the hit this month which is quite bad. Hoping that this year will be a lot better for you. Cheers

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BHL,

      I think between overspending a bit during the first few early retirement months and basically having zero income I let the ship drift too much. Now with CD income and a recent surge in dividend stock buying I feel like that will help stabilize things. I also have made $2000 during the last four months with some credit card churning!

      MDP

      Delete