A year and a half ago, I started keeping track of my net worth. Since then, every month I visit all of my online banking and investment sites, collate the data and calculate my net worth using my home made excel spreadsheet. Keeping track of my net worth is extremely valuable and provides a quantifiable way to track my financial progress. As much as you can rationalise frugality, your net worth can tell you exactly how effective you’ve been.
In our Western culture, there is a stigma against sharing personal financial data. While we don’t use any last names on this blog, many of my friends and family follow the blog and know who we are. Despite this, I think it’s important to be open and transparent on a blog where we talk about living differently and being frugal.
Looking back
Let’s review what we wanted to accomplish in 2011:
“By the end of 2011, my goal is a net worth of $25,000 or greater. I will achieve this by increasing my emergency fund by $2,000, eliminating my government student loan and continuing to invest in my RRSP and TFSA investments. CF will have a net worth of -$10,000 or greater. She will achieve this by increasing her passive income through dividend investing, before returning to school in the summer.”
How did we do? Let’s look at the numbers:
Assets:
|
Brian |
CF |
| Cash |
$8,526.30 |
$15,234.55 |
| RRSP |
$7.932.94 |
$9,866.12 |
| TFSA |
$3,568.65 |
$1,544.13 |
| Condo |
$258,000.00 |
$6,367.89 |
| Personal Assets |
$500.00 |
|
| Total Assets |
$279,527.89 |
$31,468.56 |
Liabilities:
|
Brian |
CF |
| Credit Cards |
$252.59 |
$0.00 |
| Family Loan |
$14,853.57 |
$0.00 |
| Federal Student Loan |
$926.90 |
$38,865.18 |
| BC Student Loan |
$0.00 |
$0.00 |
| Mortgage |
$235,451.17 |
N/A |
| Total Liabilities |
$251,231.64 |
$38,865.18 |
Total Net Worth – Brian:$28,043.66 CF: -$7,396.62
Considering that we took a vacation to Germany and CF was in school full time for half of the year, I’m pretty pleased. The only month in which my net worth decreased was during our vacation and I exceeded my overall goal ($25,000) for the year. I did not meet my goal of eliminating my student loan as I failed to account for the interest I would accrue after my interest free period ended. This goal will be complete by approximately mid February.
For CF, both her cash and her Student Loan increased. Coincidence? Nope – our backwards student aid requires you to take out a student loan in order to be eligible for grants and work study positions. Talk about encouraging debt…In any case, CF has paid all her tuition in saved cash and is stashing the Student Loan money in a high interest account while working 10-15 hours a week at her work study. Score. Needless to say, when she graduates in three months, that money will be paid back immediately.
No, I’m not hogging the condo all to myself – for an explanation of why it appears in my net worth, see our update from last year.
Looking forward
In 2011, I focused on debt reduction. In 2012, I plan to focus on saving more. Personally, I want to achieve a personal savings rate of 35-40%. I am placing more of an importance on the personal savings rate than anything else, because I feel it’s quite possibly the biggest factor that affects your working life. Mr. Money Mustache touched on the shockingly simple math earlier in the month. This depends largely upon CF’s job after graduating in April – we may change the way we integrate our finances, but more on that later.
To align with my savings goal, I am increasing my monthly contributions to both my RRSP and TFSA, with the goal of achieving a balance of $11,000 and $5,000 respectively by the end of 2012.
Net Worth Template
Interested in calculating your own net worth? The Outlier Model is pleased to announce the launch of our Net Worth Template – head on over to the ‘Tools’ page to take a look!
