Friday, July 1, 2016

June 2016 Update

Another month is in the books, folks. And what a month it was! Despite some turbulence this month, things turned out much better than I thought they would. Let's skip the pleasantries and get straight to the business you came here for. Today, my net worth is:



$56,411

If you'll recall, I started June with a balance of $52,816, so my net worth grew $3,595 or 6%. Aside from my 401k, which automatically comes out of my pay, I managed to put $1,200 into my HYSA and I transferred $3,000 from my HYSA at Ally into my Vanguard brokerage account, purchasing shares of Vanguard's Dividend Appreciation Index Fund (VDAIX). That last purchase as a lateral money transfer, so it didn't necessarily change my net worth all that much other than the gains it saw.

My 401k contributions and the deposit into my HYSA is where the bulk of the growth came from. And, of course, market gains, but those weren't as significant with the announcement that Brexit would happen. The markets fell for two days, but surprisingly, climbed for the last three. I anticipated the market would continue to dip further and remain there for a while before making any gains. How wrong I was! A great example of why you shouldn't try to outguess or time the market. You never know how it will respond.

According to my projection spreadsheet (that I made quite a while ago), my net worth today was supposed to be $55,156. I'm pleasantly surprised that I surpassed that because it was an aggressive prediction based on my previous savings strategies. I've since gone back and modified those predictions with a more conservative, yet practical savings strategy that seemed closer to reality. But, again, making predictions like these can vary wildly as no one knows what the future holds. You could get an unexpected surprise that shoots you well over or drags you well below the number you thought you would hit. Regardless, it's still a fun exercise and can help you tweak your current savings strategy to sock away even more money than you thought possible.

Last month, I had maintenance done on my car and I mentioned that I needed to have work done on my son's and daughter's cars, which I was dreading. I ended up spending a combined total of $911 to get their cars repaired. Despite this, I still surpassed my goal, so that feels really good. I didn't have any other major expenses. In fact, I think what helped was that I managed to cut my grocery and gas bills down this month, but those might be cancelled out by the couple of books I bought through Amazon.

Here's a screenshot of my assets:

My projection for the end of the year is still to hit $70k. Everything looks promising so far. But only time will tell.

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