It’s the middle of the month and as regular readers know, that means it’s time to calculate my net worth. Last month, my net worth dropped from 207K to 206K – pretty good performance considering the drop in the stock market hurt my retirement accounts. This month, I’m up $4500 for a total net worth of $210,770. The retirement accounts made a slight comeback, but I also contributed to my 401k greatly over the last month. To date, I’ve contributed around $8300 to my 401k plan, so I’m behind where I need to be to max it out for this year.
I moved a lot of cash out of my regular checking to pay down my home equity line of credit. This is a move that effectively makes me 7% by doing nothing. I’m pretty excited having it down to around $5,000. I could realistically put another $2500 in it to cut it in half, but I like having a little extra cash cushion. I’ll likely move a thousand in the next few days and possibly two thousand next month. With a little effort, I will finish pay it off before the end of the year.
I could have possibly achieved a great net worth, but the housing market for my investment property is a little down. This is according to Zillow. Many doubt Zillow’s accuracy, but for my condo, it’s very good. In fact, I logged onto a real estate agent’s website and found the value should be within around a thousand or two of what I would expect.
I’m starting to get quite used to a growing net worth. It gives me a little something to look forward to each month. At some point, soon, I should project the growth 5, 10, 20, and 30 years in the future to see exactly how close I am to my retirement goals.
My 2 cents… At your age and current accomplishments I think you final net worth goal is low.
Myabe more like 10MM with 2MM liquid.
My net worth goal is what I’d need now to feel like I could quit my day job and “retire” now. I put retire in quotes, because I don’t know if I’d completely retire. I’d at least continuing this writing which, as of now, brings in some income. More likely, I’d use the time to explore other ways to make money – or drink martinis all day. Let’s go with the later.
RateLadder’s comment also implies that you will see a very high projected retirement number if you do the standard contribution + set percentage projection.
Good luck on your net worth! I have a very similar financial situation as you (in the same age group and have similar net worth numbers) so I hope we can both retirement happily in the future!
Today’s money is worth more than tomorrow’s.
That is you need more tomorrow than today. If you say I need 2.25MM in 2006 dollars (the first time I saw your goal) then I am on board.
Nice bounce back from last year – its nice to see positive traction even if RateLadder thinks its low. You’re far ahead of many people who are in debt and have a negative net worth.
No doubt! Great strides! Keep it up!
Congratulation on a positive month. Yes, it’s always nice to see the net worth number goes up.
Re: Zillow accuracy of your condo
The reason you can say it’s accurate is because you already have a notion of your condo’s worth and zillow merely confirmed it. Now, pick a condo in a place you do not know. Would you trust the zestimate to be accurate that you make an offer based on it? Doubtful. Zillow does not make real estate valuation any easier since you have to independently validate or reject the zestimate.
A home and its envirns must be physically examined to determine those factors which are not incorporated into the public database— the neighbors, the traffic noise, exposures, elevations, etc. These factors are known as “unzillowables” and can drastically affect a home’s value. Zillow does not have a clue they exist.
[Editor’s note: This is completely irrelevant to me. However, in areas of many, many similar condos such as mine. I might trust it quite a bit. Things like community, traffic, exposures and elevations are all likely factored into previous sales price which Zillow uses]