Monthly End Recap - January 2012

Back in my early twenties I set myself two money goals: I wanted to be worth $100,000 by the time I was 30, and I wanted to be worth $1,000,000 by the time I was 40. I’ve written these goals down a couple times, and they’ve never really changed. I never actually worked out how I was going to make this happen, I just told myself that I WOULD make it happen.

Obviously my net worth has had some significant ups and downs since then. I went to university and took on a bunch of (unnecessary) debt. Then I went to Fort McMurray and paid the school and credit card debt off. Then I bought a house. Then I overspent significantly. Then I paid off all of my consumer debt. Then I saved. Then I bought a car. Then I worked on paying off the car.

Up down up down up down up down up down….

During all of this I kept those goals in the back of my mind, but again, I had no real plan on how to achieve them. I just told myself I would make it happen.

And today it did

	31-Jan-12	31-Dec-12	31-Jan-13
Chequing	$426.29	$821.20	$218.57
Savings	$849.11	$635.72	$20.61
Investment	$87.20	$74.60	$0.00
Retirement	$9,463.71	$17,641.39	$18,768.85
Property	$294,000.00	$294,000.00	$301,000.00
Car	$0.00	$10,000.00	$10,000.00
TOTAL ASSETS	$304,826.31	$323,172.91	$330,008.03
Consumer Debts	($5,900.45)	($3,775.47)	($2,941.60)
Mortgage	($232,770.09)	($226,874.65)	($226,283.70)
TOTAL DEBTS	($238,670.54)	($230,650.12)	($229,225.30)
NET WORTH	$66,155.77	$92,522.79	$100,782.73

The interesting thing about making goals and writing them down, is that you’re more likely to achieve them than if you never wrote them down at all.

To quote my lunch bag (hello Lululemon shopping bag):

Successful people replace the words ‘Wish’, ‘Should’ and ‘Try’ with ‘I Will’. Ineffective people don’t.

So, at 28 years old, I’ve achieved my age 30 goal of obtaining a net worth of $100,000.

It’s probably for the best that I did that early, because I’m going to need the extra couple years to figure out how to snowball another digit onto that number.

As it stands, if I keep making the same amount of money as I am now, I won’t earn $900,000 in the next 12 years let alone be able to save $900,000. That means I have to do one of four things:

1) Make more money

2) Hope that my real estate skyrockets in value

3) Make a killing in the stock market

4) Use other people’s money (rental income, retirement matching, etc…)

Or some combination thereof.

Now, all of that being said, having a net worth of $100,000 doesn’t mean I have that much money sitting around in a savings account, or in easily liquidated stocks. If you’ll notice, my net worth is largely made up between equity in my home, and my retirement accounts. This puts me in a high risk position, because I don’t have a lot of flexibility so to speak. I don’t like it, and that’s something that I’m taking into consideration. I’m going to work on bulking up my liquid assets this year (I’m looking at you TFSA). Call it a safety cushion if you will.

CHEQUING: $218.57 (Last Month: $821.20)

Nothing to really be alarmed with here. I’m paid biweekly, so the bills that get paid off of my pay cheques varies a little and it’s been longer since I was paid than last month’s update.

SAVINGS: $20.61 (Last Month: $635.72)

I liquidated the majority of my savings to put onto my line of credit, and to put towards being converted into American money for my trip to Hawaii in T-13 days. Some of the money had been set aside specifically for this purpose, so I’m okay with it.

INVESTMENT: $0.00 (Last Month: $74.60)

Finally sold this little sucker. It went up a little bit and I decided it would be better to put it to use than let it bob around like it was. I’m officially out of the stock market in my non-registered accounts. It kind of sucks.

RETIREMENT: $18,768.85 (Last Month: $17,641.39)

Keep on keeping on little retirement fund. I’d be happy if this hit $20,000 by my birthday, which isn’t actually an unreasonable proposition.

PROPERTY: $301,000.00 (Last Month: $294,000.00)

And the humdinger of growth goes to my humble abode, which apparently went up $7000 in value this year. I’m not entirely surprised by the jump in value, seeing as a large school was opened close to my home recently. This number comes directly from my tax assessment from the city. It’s close enough to actual value that I don’t feel the need to pay for an independent assessment. It may sell for less when that time comes, but it may not. I consider home value to be a lot like stocks: there’s hard numbers to support valuations, but at the end of the day the important part is how much people are willing to pay.

CAR: $10,000.00 (Last Month: $10,000.00)

The car is still going strong. It obviously wasn’t happy about the weather we’ve had recently, but let’s be honest, I wasn’t either.

CONSUMER DEBT: $2,941.60 (Last Month: $3,775.47)

Still the one two punch of credit card and line of credit balance. The credit card has come way down since last month (still not paying interest on anything), but I would like to see more downward action in my line of credit balance this month. $0 by the end of April, that’s still the goal.

MORTGAGE: $226,283.70 (Last Month: $226,874.65)

Not much to say here, just an insanely large loan.

TOTAL NET WORTH: $100,782.73 (Last Month: $92,522.79)

I don’t know what else to say. I’m over $100k. I think I’m just going to let that sink in for a little bit.

How did your month go?

Recommended Reading: January 2013 Budget Roundup <– holy low expenses!