November 2018 Update

I'm a couple of days late with this update because I was out of town with my wife at a game convention and didn't get home to take a screen shot until late on the 2nd. I didn't feel like composing the post until today, so...here we go. At the end of November, my net worth is...

$151,044

Last month, my net worth was $143,272, a difference of $7,772. Wow! To be fair, I think there was a drop just before last month's post, and as I compose this post today, the market dropped a good bit; something like 3%, so I'm back under 150k.

Of that $7,772 growth, I saved $3,650 excluding my tax-advantaged account. If I include my employer-sponsored retirement account, that savings grows to $6,431.48, meaning there were market gains of $1,341. I'm still very much in the territory of having my net worth influenced mostly by my contributions and not so much swayed by market movement. I'm looking forward to when this balance shifts. Not sure when that will be though.

One thing that helped with this month's savings is the fact that I received 3 paychecks. Something that will adversely affect my net worth (and hasn't shown up yet in the screen shot) is a dining room set I bought on credit. It cost me roughly $1,600 at 12 months 0% interest. I plan to have it paid off by the end of January or shortly thereafter.

I did okay managing my credit card balances this month; not purchasing too much on them. However, I probably spent a little more than I wanted to on eating out and entertainment purchases (games, alcohol, etc.) during mine and my wife's travels. But what good is it to travel without living a little? Besides, my net worth still grew significantly, so I'm not gonna beat myself up over it. I regret nothing.

I doubt I'll have a stellar jump in net worth by the end of December with gifts to buy and another trip scheduled. Since we're so close to the end of the year, I thought it would be fun to do a preliminary annual net worth comparison:

On January 1, my net worth was $93,135. My net worth grew by $57,909! According to the spreadsheet I keep where I only track my contributions (excludes all interest and cap gains), my non-tax-advantage savings is $36,232. If I include my tax-advantaged contributions in that, I've saved $52,817.69 this year and my savings rate is 58.4%. I think that's pretty damn good. So far, the best year I've had yet.

Net worth for November 2018
I finally crossed the 150k milestone!