This is my first-ever income and net worth report. Like other financial bloggers, I think it’s a great idea to track net worth to stay motivated and see how things are going each month or quarter.
These are actual, real-life numbers. The ultimate goal is to reach $1 million in net worth. I expect this to take several years, but nothing good comes easy!
Here’s a recap of passive income and net worth for January 2019. I track it on Personal Capital, which is entirely free to use.
Net Worth: $466,730 (+9.8% YTD)
I’ve been tracking my net worth for several years now. To me, it is the most important financial metric to track. It is the sum of all of your assets minus liabilities. It has doubled over the past few years due to a very high savings rate (40% – 50% of income) and a strong stock market.
It has been a good start to the year. I got a huge boost from my first rental property purchase in December. I bought a single family turnkey rental property on Roofstock. It cost $117,000, but it actually ending up getting appraised for $130,000. This created $13,000 in “free” equity, which I was not really expecting.
I’m also seeing strong gains in my non-retirement stock accounts. I have two portfolios made up entirely of gold, silver and oil stocks, and master limited partnerships, which are high-yielding energy stocks. Gold has been on a roll lately with the markets rattled.
My Roth IRA also did pretty well as I own a bunch of Apple (AAPL) stock. I added to my stake at around $150/share. Apple is currently my largest overall stock holding.
I was fortunate enough to buy most of my position in Apple at a time when most analysts were bashing the stock. I thought it was deeply undervalued, as it was trading at a P/E ratio of under 10X at the time. My largest purchases came in at $100/share in 2015/16. The stock got a nice boost from Warren Buffet with it was announced that he bought Apple stock for Berkshire Hathaway.
Net worth breakdown
Cash: $159,975.
Yes, I realize this is a lot of cash (Personal Capital keeps telling me). It is the result of years and years of saving and being frugal. Most of this money is stashed in a CIT savings account that earns more than 2% interest. I am prepared if we enter a recession in 2019.
I am currently working on a BRRRR deal that will require much of this cash ($90,000 in total). However, if the deal goes smoothly, I expect to get most (if not all) of the cash back through a cash-out refinance.
Once that deal is finished in April/May, I will look to invest in real estate via turn-key real estate deal or another BRRRR. There is some temptation to pay down our mortgage instead of investing, but I don’t think this is the best use of the cash.
Home equity: $65,418.
We bought a home 2 years ago and put 10% down ($37,000), but it has also appreciated a bit since then. We still pay $85/mo in private mortgage insurance. I am going to try to get it eliminated soon (Chase told me I need to get a broker price opinion to do so).
Investments: $196,230.
This includes the following:
Stock portfolio #1: $39,106.17. This is a taxable brokerage account in E*Trade. This is my “high-yield portfolio.” It contains mostly master limited partnerships (MLPs) such as Enterprise Product Partners and MPLX, plus one real estate investment trust and one oil refinery stock. The average stock yield is over 6%. I also have some cash in the account/
Stock portfolio #2: $44,360. This portfolio is 100% precious metals stocks. I am bullish on gold prices in particular. Yes, I realize this is an unconventional portfolio! This is a riskier investment portfolio, but has big upside and it is money I am willing to risk. I am about 10% cash at the moment in the portfolio.
Roth IRA: $20,232. This portfolio contains an ETF, plus stock in Apple and a REIT called Long-Term Care Properties. I mostly don’t touch this IRA, although I did recently add to my Apple stake at $150/share. I will look to contribute more money in 2019.
Fidelity IRA: $32,469. Retirement portfolio that contains a target index fund and a few other investments. I don’t really look at this portfolio often.
Fidelity IRA 2: $17,062. This is another target-date retirement fund that I don’t touch.
Pershing IRA: $7,600. This is the wife’s IRA from work. It’s actually not invested in anything at the moment.
Stock options: $12,300. I have some stock options from my job, not all are vested though.
January Cash Flow: +$4,492.
Income: $9,816.
This is primarily from:
My work: $5,810
Wife’s job: $3,656.
There was also some money earned from stocks, dividends and a rental property, which is outlined in the next section. I am hoping this makes up a higher portion of income in the future!
Expenses: $5,324.
Expenses were a bit high this past month. Ideally I want to keep this lower than $5,000/month, which would equal a 50% savings rate.
Housing: Our housing payment is $2,280/mo. This includes taxes and insurance. We have to pay flood insurance which adds to the costs. Ugh.
Cars/transportation: $516. We have one car lease (Honda CRV) and one car that I own outright (older Civic). I honestly can’t wait for this lease to be over so we can buy a car in cash and not have to deal with the high payments!
Groceries: $415. This is about normal for us. We usually spend around $400/mo. This may sound high, but it also includes wine, beer and other alcohol. We don’t use coupons. Should we? I never really thought they were worth the time or effort.
We do put all of our grocery expenses on the Amex Blue Cash Preferred card. It carries an annual fee, but currently pays 6% on all grocery store purchases. Not bad!
Restaurants: $292. This is higher than usual. We ate out quite a bit in January. Although this does include New Year’s day dinner. I put these costs on a Capital One Savor Card, which pays rewards for dining purchases.
Utilities: $199. Pretty low electric bill this past month as we didn’t use heat much, although that’ll change this month!
Other expenses included healthcare ($133), gas ($86), entertainment ($68).
January Passive Income: $404.74
Real estate rental property #1: $130.
This is the turnkey rental property I bought off of Roofstock. It is Milwaukee 2-bed house that is rented out for $1,300. My projected cash-on-cash returns are around 7% when factoring in all expenses.
This was a good deal in my opinion. I hope to grow my passive income through real estate after my first BRRRR deal is completed in Fayetteville.
The first rent check was received on Feb. 1 for $1,170! The property management company takes 10% of rent, or $130 per month. With mortgage, taxes and insurance costing $800/mo, this means my cash flow was positive $370 for the month. Cha-ching!
Stock dividends: $65.
This is going to vary because a lot of the stocks I own pay dividends quarterly. The previous month, it was $228.
Savings account income: $209.74.
We are currently earning over 2% in the CIT Savings Builder account. This is where most of savings is stashed. It is pretty awesome to hundreds in passive income that is risk-free.
FF Blog: $0.
I don’t expect to make any money from this blog in 2019. My goal is to build a decent following and provide good content. I wouldn’t necessarily call this passive income, either, as it’s going to take a lot of effort.
Looking forward to a strong 2019!
Disclosure: This post is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as investing advice. The post may contain affiliate links.