August 2016 – $97,660.20- Net Worth Update (+$8,080.81)5 min read

Welcome to another monthly roundup of our financial journey! I know this is probably a surprise that I'm actually on time this month. We are getting very excited to tip over that $100,000 mark, although we didn't make it happen this month. Even though it means nothing, it will be fun to see it happen! We actually surpassed it at one point this month, but then we paid all of our bills and were brought back to reality!

What Happened

July and August had big changes in store for our family. At the end of July, we actually went down to one income and I became a stay at home dad. If you want to see a little more on that journey, I just wrote up a reflection article about it. We have seen some substantial growth in our investments due to market growth, our contributions, and our quarterly employer match (for me). In the coming months, we won't see this rock star growth since we are actually taking a small dip in income to make the jump to only having one wage earner, my wife.  We have run the numbers quite a few times and are really looking forward to the new situation.

Net Worth - August 2016

Assets

• Home Value - $160,000 - Holding on to this number since our appraisal was done before our refinance (August 2014).  Since our last update, no new improvements this month, just a lot of cleaning around the house.
• 401k - Contribution growth has been huge for us these last couple months. My work actually did their match for my 401k as well as I get it quarterly. Since we were making extra, our contributions were higher since we put in a percentage into our retirement each pay period.
• IRA - IRA growth has half due to market growth and half due to contributions. We started putting $100 a month into a DRIP plan to grow that account on the side.
• HSA - We no longer have the same insurance, so this account will be fizzling out as medical expenses come up. Switching insurance providers was somewhat an easy switch, but there were many time-sensitive steps involved.
• Auto Value - Another $500+ chipped off our value here. I expect this will continue as our vehicles get more mileage on them and get older. Normal wear and tear.
• Cash Money - We are running a little lean here, but that is because we have been moving as much as possible into savings to get our six month emergency fund built back up after purchasing a vehicle back in December 2015. We are a little more than $500 away from completing this. We will be saving diligently over the next few months to get this step completed.
• Savings - We made significant progress here as I was able to throw my whole severance and my last month's pay towards our emergency fund! This was a great blessing that I didn't leave my job as soon as we wanted me to because I was able to pack on quite a bit extra into the savings account with these extra earnings.

Liabilities

Home Mortgage - We keep seeing small chunks eat into this mortgage. We continue to just make the minimum payments, but with only having a 20 year mortgage, this moves down pretty quickly. This past month, our principal just topped $414! When we started, this number was only about $380, so that's extra money going towards our mortgage each month! I love seeing the principle grow each month to take out bigger chunks or our mortgage. Looking forward to the day we get to start putting extra money away towards this paying it down even faster.

Take Away for the Month

These past two months have been big moves for us! We've seen a bigger net worth then the three months prior to this. We almost have finished our six month emergency fund again and are funding investments at a faster rate now. If we can keep up this pace, we will be over $100,000 net worth in no time at all, even with one income going forward.

How did your August pan out?