Net Worth Update: November 2019

Welcome to another monthly Net Worth update! This time it’s Net Worth November 2019 edition:

For those that are new, I will be posting these on a monthly basis to show my progress towards Financial Independence.  The purpose of these is not to brag, or show off what I have, merely to show that little by little, even over the course of just 28-31 days, much progress can be made.

In addition, by tracking and posting this on the blog where everyone can see, I’m hoping this helps to hold me accountable to my goals. Where slip ups and unchecked spending can easily be passed off by keeping it to myself, with other people watching it should help to keep me in line! (Nothing like trying to avoid public humiliation to keep you motivated!)

If you haven’t already, check out last month’s report from October.

November

After a slower, more easy going October, this latest month was back to being out, about and busy! There were lots of activities going on, and a couple weekends out of town as well.

The month started off with a bang when both my parents and my partners parents came to DC one weekend to visit us as well as meet each other for the first time. My partner and I were a bit nervous, but it turned out to be a great time for all! We walked around the Capital to briefly watch the Nationals World Series parade, as well as did a distillery tour and grabbed dinner together.

Afterwards, when both parents took off back home, my partner and I squeezed some time in for nature and went on a nice hike! Early November there was still a bit of color in the woods!

The following weekend we also snuck in a hike, in what is likely looking like it was our last one of the year. Why does it have to be so cold out!?

Next up we headed up to Boston for a long weekend with my partners family for her cousins bar mitzvah. We drove up and back, so it was quite a long trip, but nice to spend some quality time with her parents. The bar mitzvah itself was a lot of fun, I’d never been to one! I also got to meet the remaining members of her immediate relatives so now I can finally put faces to names for everyone!

We also had time to sneak a quick trip into Boston one of the days where we were able to meet up with several friends of mine (from various friend groups oddly enough) to catch up. One of my buddies I hadn’t seen in over 2 years so it was a great time!

After a weekend off we headed up to my parents home for the Thanksgiving holiday which also meant I got to hang out more with my 3 month old niece! (and I suppose I got to see other friends and family too…)

Whew, this month was a busy one full of family and good times. Let’s see how my Net Worth fared?

Net Worth

November breaks down as follows:

This year reminds me of the song, “Good Times Roll” by The Cars. Another whopping nearly $8,000 increase to the Net Worth, and the recent months certainly have been pretty nice with the market hitting fresh highs. Let’s just keep letting those good times rolling!

As a reminder, there’s a $500 difference in the Personal Capital chart vs my own, and the reason for that is if you remember from last year, I’m the commissioner and treasurer of my fantasy football league, so I hold everyone’s dues in my bank account for the year before paying out the winners. It’s only right not to count it since it truly isn’t my money (yet!). Also a $20 difference in 401K for a late breaking interest payment that wasn’t posted yet when I took the screen shot from PC.

Cash: $30,650 – ($459)

Due to my above average salary I have a lot of excess cash coming in. See the income section below to view what I bring in.

Slight decrease here, but only because I made a big transfer of $3,000 to finish maxing out my Roth IRA for the year! If not for that, this would have been a rather large increase for this account.

I’m still not certain for what I want to do next year with this account, so I suppose it’ll still sit in my high-interest savings account so I’m at least making something off it.

401K: $100,165 – $4,304

Contributions this month totaled $1,800 (Employer Matching included).

Wow six figures in my 401K… that’s pretty cool! It took quite a while to get here, but it’s a very nice little milestone. Letting this baby sit and grow over the next 40 years or so will let it grow into a pretty large sum!

I take the simple approach to investing and have about 90% of this account in stocks (70/30 Domestic/International), and 10% in bonds.

Roth IRA: $19,630 – $3,608

$3,000 in contributions means a fully maxed out Roth IRA for 2019. That makes 3 years in a row!! As I forecasted last month, I put these new contributions into a Money Market Fund in or to diversify my overall portfolio a little further.

With the new contributions this account is invested 85% in VTSAX (Vanguard Total Stock Market) and 15% Cash/Bonds.

Brokerage: $15,650 – $462

No contributions here, and can’t imagine there will be any this year. But maybe I’ll resume contributions here next year!

I originally invested $12K into the account, $10K in the low fee VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF) and $2K in a high yield dividend paying stock.

HSA: $7,757 – $115

$212 of this was my own contributions. This account was down this month, which happens from time to time (not that we’ve seen a lot of that this year).

All my funds here are invested into a REIT.

Auto Value: $6,512 – ($69)

KBB value for my 2014 Ford Fusion with 88,000 miles on it.

1,500 miles were put on the car this month, with the big trip being the drive home for Thanksgiving. That single round trip puts almost 700 miles on my car! 🙁

Credit Cards: $(451) – ($258)

I pay off my credit cards in full every month so this is just the monthly balance. By doing this I build credit and get free travel rewards and cash back while paying the credit card companies nothing in interest!

Since last month was my lowest spending on a credit card ever, it was bound to go up slightly this month as I returned to paying for things on my own credit cards. It was still a great spending month for me though!

As always, see below for the full breakout of spending to see how I did against my budget.

Monthly Expenses:

Another sub $2,000 spending month. I’m always pretty stoked when I get that! I need to enjoy it while it lasts as December is going to be extremely spendy with the plans I have for it. Let’s see the details:

Monthly Rent $1,200:

$1,200 is my portion of the rent for the 1 bed, 1 bathroom apartment I share with my partner.

Utilities/Internet $49:

Loving the low utilities bills!

We have a flat $15/each monthly water bill. We also got a great introductory rate on internet (the lowest bandwidth option) for $15/each per month. The remaining was my portion of the electric for $19 (we don’t pay for gas).

Groceries $82 / Restaurants $57:

This was an astonishingly low month for groceries that I had to go back and doublecheck to make sure we didn’t miss anything. As it turns out, our accounting was clean and the biggest reason for it was our two lengthy trips out of town this month. No need for lots of groceries when you won’t be around!

Even with the trips this month this expense was also low. Luckily for us my parents filled us up with food over Thanksgiving, and staying with my partners family in Boston meant we were also fed there which was pretty fortunate!

Auto Insurance $0 / Fuel $117 / Other $0:

After paying for 6 months up front in July I’m now covered through January 2020, so no more expenses here on the year.

Although I didn’t take my car, I helped out with the gas money for two fill ups during the drive to Boston. This and the fill ups associated with the round trip to home for Thanksgiving meant a little higher fuel costs this month!

No “Other” auto expenses to account for this month.

Cell Phone $0:

I’m still under my parents plan so this is my portion of the bill. I pay my parents directly up front for 6 months at a time. I covered my July-December 2019 costs in August so no more expenses this year from me.

Medical $0:

No medical costs this month.

Entertainment $101:

$54 on drinks at various bars with friends, mostly from seeing some old friends in Boston that I hadn’t seen in a while as we posted up watching football games all afternoon. Another $23 was for splitting a bottle of apple brandy with my partner. I’m very spoiled as she’s made some tasty drinks for us with it already!

$9 on a parking garage for the day when driving into Boston to see friends and $15 for monthly Spotify to round it out.

Travel $199:

This $199 expense was the card opening fee for my Southwest Business card. I figured that the Travel category was best for this, as the only reason I’m paying it is to help me get the Southwest Companion Pass next year which will save me a lot of money in travel for the duration I have it.

Gifts/Donations $30:

The $30 was my portion of our gift for my girlfriends cousin’s bar mitzvah. It was a great time!

As a reminder, I’m planning to give roughly $1,800 in December all at once to help with credit card minimum spends for the aforementioned Companion Pass.

Misc $77:

Miscellaneous costs include $50 to fill up my metro card on the month and $27 for my quarterly haircut. As the metro costs are becoming a recurring theme, I’ll likely break these out into a separate category next year.

Savings Rate

Here’s the overall picture:

Pretty normal month from an income standpoint, but again those low expenses drive the savings rate way up. Now if only I was able to lower that rent… this savings rate would skyrocket even more!

Another $3 in Side Hustles! The scooter charging is barely hanging on by a thread, as I only had time to go out and move one scooter. I’ve still kept the charging cords though in case I ever had the urge to start it up again (though at my current location it would just be too time consuming).

Lastly I received a surprise in the mail this month. A $110 check! I guess the state of Virginia had passed some tax relief bill for the prior year tax returns and I qualified to get some money back. Definitely one of the better pieces of mail I’ve received in recent memory!

Wrapping up… though my 65% savings rate goal is virtually out of reach, it certainly has been quite the year, and a 60%+ savings rate it nothing to be ashamed of I feel. We’ll just have to try to get better next year!

If you want to see how I’ve done in past months, check out my Net Worth Updates page to see over a year’s worth of reports.

How did your November turn out!?