# Staying Motivated - Monthly Net Worth Updates



## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Hello all, I've been enjoying reading the money diaries and it has kept me inspired to push hard to keep building up my wealth so I thought I'd set this up to help keep me motivated. 

Brief backstory:
A few years ago, I had to go into some debt to help pursue my education and then an opportunity came up to start my own business. Unfortunately, this never took off (for various reasons but primarily lack of support so I was on my own and had to incur a fair amount of debt to support myself) so when a job offer came up in Southern Ontario, I took it to get my career back on track. For the past two years, I have paid off $35K of debt while saving $10K and am now in a positive net worth. I still have one personal debt outstanding and am hoping to pay this off in 2016 and a car loan but there's no benefit to paying it off sooner as the interest was already built in.

I am in my early 30s and am engaged to be married next year. We are not living together as he's still working in my old city. I am currently living with family and am paying room & board as well as helping out around the house. I have chipped in any extra finances that they needed such as emergency house repairs. My fiancé and I will be living together shortly after our wedding.


*Income:*
Income before taxes: $61,200
Bonuses: Partners' discretion so no set amount in place. I did receive some in 2015 which was a pleasant surprise. Any bonuses received will be put into my registered accounts immediately.


_*Snapshot as of December 2015*_

*Assets:*
Chequing: $166 
Savings (extra car loan payments/car repair fund): $487 
Savings (wedding fund): $4,149
TFSA (Emergency Fund): $3,941 (held in "HISA")
TFSA (Short-term): $0 (Just opened up last week but will start contributing in January)
RRSP: $2,637 (using Market Value). Held in MF. I'm not comfortable to do the DIY yet. I will switch over eventually.
RDSP: $15,800 (30% held in ETF and 70% in MF)
Car: $10,000 (Private sales/trade-ins are averaging $12,000 in my city but I am being conservative here. I will be reducing this by 15% each year)

Total Assets: $37,180


*Liabilities:*
Personal loan to fiancé: $10,700
Car loan: $12,640.41

Total Liabilities $23,340.41


*Net Worth*
$13,839.59


Notes:
1. Employer-matching RRSP program: They offer a certain % of my salary after each year of service. So for 2016, it will be 3% of my salary if I contribute to my RRSP and they provide me with a cheque in February of following year to deposit into my RRSP. Assuming no changes to my salary, it'll be $1,836 that I will need to contribute to get the max from the firm.

2. I put 95% of my purchases on my credit card and use the PC points to cover about half of my groceries.

3. I'm putting away an extra $161 equivalent of car loan payment to my car fund each pay.

4. My car loan is 0.99% and will be paid in 2018. I have the luxury of paying this in full any time that I want to without penalty or putting in a lump sum every now and then (see point #3). There is no advantage to paying this off sooner as the interest was built into my loan. That said, it's always good to get rid of it but it's not a priority right now.

5. The personal loan to my fiancé is interest free and no payment plan as it was used to pay off my credit card. Now that I'm in a more comfortable position, I want to pay him back especially since I will be marrying him!

6. Average monthly spending (including car loan payments) is $1,400 give or take $200 depending on when I have to register for sports!*


My goals for 2016:*
1. Pay off the personal loan.
2. Save $7,000 for wedding (fiancé is contributing other half). He has a big family whom he's very close to so this is our choice. He will cover the extra if necessary. 
3. Reach net worth of $40,000 by end of 2016. 
4. Balanced approach of short-term and long-term savings. I'm still working on my optimizing but am most likely going to do 50/50.
5. Eat out only twice a week. I have this bad habit of eating out 5-6 days a week which eats into my savings contributions!


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Congrats on achieving positive net worth and congrats on the engagement! Your situation looks pretty good.

That car loan is pretty big but I think it's a good idea to prioritize the personal loan, just because money issues can cause stress in relationships. It depends on the nature of your relationship and what discussions you've had about the loan, though.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Thank you!

Yeah. I didn't make payments for over a year and he was fine with it as he wanted to me to focus on paying off other debts and building my savings. I do keep him in the loop on my progress and vice versa. We talk about money a lot including our goals so there are definitely no surprises between us. It's just time to pay him back. 

I may do a small lump sum payment towards end of 2016 on my car loan to bring it down a bit.


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## Underworld (Aug 26, 2009)

Hey NorthKC - firstly nice to meet you and good job on tracking your progress. Secondly - how much can you realistically put away every month towards your net worth?


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Hello Underworld, I'm budgeting $2,000 every month towards savings and paying off debt. I did average $2,000 a month in 2015 so I believe I can do it again this year. 

I should add a bit of caveat on the RDSP. For every $1,500 that I contribute in 2016 (up to $4,500), I will receive $3,500 from government. I'm planning on putting in $3,000 in my RDSP which I will get $7,000 in grants so that will be part of the increase in net worth.

So, $24,000 in savings/debt payments plus $7,000 in grants = $31,000 increase in net worth. 

Worst case scenario, I would only contribute $1,200 a month which works to $14,400 plus $7,000 = $21,400.


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## nobleea (Oct 11, 2013)

On the RDSP, I suspect the juicy grants will be greatly diminished once you get married. The grants are based on family net adjusted income. If it's over 90K (which it most likely will be), then you only get $1000 a year (for 1K contributed, nothing more after that)


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Good catch but that won't take effect until 2017. I also still have years to catch up on from 2009 to 2014 so I will still get the full grant on those years. After I'm all caught up on this, then I'll shift focus to more RRSP & TFSA.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Well, I've had a really good start to the year. I got promoted and received a 2.9% raise, both of which was a pleasant surprise 

_I've also received my firm's matching RRSP contribution so between the raise and this, I've had a nice little boost to my net worth this month.__*

Snapshot as of January 2016*

*Assets:
Chequing: $348.18
Savings (extra car loan payments/car repair fund): $810.91
Savings (wedding fund): $5,152.88
TFSA (Emergency Fund): $4,044.32 (held in "HISA")
TFSA (Short-term): $0 (Wasn't able to contribute here as paperwork is not yet finalized so I've put it in the EF for now)
RRSP: $3,676.02 (using Market Value) Matching firm's contribution of $1,224 was put in here but the market definitely took a little bit of beating here
RDSP: $20,550 (30% held in ETF and 70% in MF) Note that I don't have market value at this time so only contributions increased the value. Updated to include gov't grant of $4,500 received at end of month for contributions in 2015)
Car: $9,875 (1/12 of 15% depreciation taken)

Total Assets: $44,207.31 (+18.90%)


Liabilities:
Personal loan to fiancé: $10,700 
Car loan: $12,319.79

Total Liabilities $23,019.79 (-1.37%)


Net Worth
$21,187.52 (+$7,347.93; +53.09%)

*_I focused mainly on clearing out my bills from last month and ensuring that my savings were still met. I did make a loan payment to my fiancé but we're having issues with the e-transfers so we'll try again later in the week. So, technically, the loan payment is down to $10,500 but since payment was not actually transferred, I'm leaving that out for now.

I'm doing quite nicely on not eating out as much as I'm down to 3 days a week. Not quite 2 days yet but much better than 5-6 days. The only times that I've ate out is when I had an event right after work and it usually consists of buying a bagel so costs were kept low on that front. A nice side effect is that I'm losing weight so that's giving me motivation as well


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## Underworld (Aug 26, 2009)

Nice jump in net worth and congrats on the raise!


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

*February 2016 Snapshot*

A good month in terms of savings. I did fall prey to eating out a little too much in second last week of February but then I was sick for last week of February so it ended up balancing out. I did spend some of the wedding fund on some wedding items so while I'm still contributing $500 each pay, the balance did go down slightly which is to be expected. There will be some big wedding spending in March but as long as I keep putting money away, I'm good! 

This month, I've also had to pay for new driver's license (expired this year) as well as sticker renewal so that did eat into my savings a little but I did budget for it so I'm not concerned here. 
_*

Snapshot as of February 2016*

*Assets:
Chequing: $827.26
Savings (extra car loan payments/car repair fund): $1,134.69
Savings (wedding fund): $5,856.96
TFSA (Emergency Fund): $4,046.89 (held in "HISA")
TFSA (Short-term): $0 (Paperwork wasn't completed until first week of March so nothing in Feb)
RRSP: $3,508.31 (using Market Value) Got hit by market but this is long-term and amount is already going up in first week of March
RDSP: $20,800 (40% held in ETF and 60% in MF) Received grant in January so it's just contributions this month. We're shifting more money into ETF to save some fees (yes, my advisor actually did that)
Car: $9,751.56 (1/12 of 15% depreciation taken)

Total Assets: $45,925.67 (+3.30%)


Liabilities:
Personal loan to fiancé: $10,700 
Car loan: $11,999.37

Total Liabilities $22,699.37 (-1.39%)


Net Worth
$23,226.30 (+$1,788.78; +8.34%)*_


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## tygrus (Mar 13, 2012)

Sorry to be a little blunt here, just a little education about money. You actually have no assets and your net worth is declining because inflation is eating it. 

Assets pay you by either increasing in value (capital gains) or by paying out (income or dividend). You have none of that. Your job is your only asset and when you live together, things dont get cheaper, they get more expensive as you see by your loan to your fiance.

Liabilities take money out of your pocket. You have one of those - your car which is deprecating at twice the rate of inflation.

You cannot save yourself rich - it is impossible with our tax structure.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

You're right. That was a little blunt and you've also clearly didn't read my posts. My RRSP and RDSP are being invested but the market is taking a hit just like it's doing to yours.

The personal loan was to help pay off my debt which you clearly didn't see that and with that as a 0% interest, I'm already ahead of the game. 

Let me ask you this. When you first started saving, did you have a house right away? If so, how did you get your house? You would have had to save up which meant you really didn't have money. You've also had RRSPs yet, etc. You have to start somewhere and that's what I'm doing right now. How many people can honestly say that they have cash to invest? Most don't. Also, what about the people who have houses in Alberta. Their house is not an asset right now if it's gone down in value.

This was set up to keep me ahead of the game. I'm now starting to be more comfortable knowing that I have an emergency fund and already have some retirement savings going which most people do not have. I have assets. What do you call cash in the bank? Garbage?

My car is what helps me to keep my job so sometimes a car loan is expected as we all do. That loan is 0.99% and I have the ability to pay this in full anytime I want to but I use to put my money where I will get a better return.

I can't start investing unless I have cash. That's what I'm doing right now.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

This month was a good month. I've received my tax refund early putting 70% of it into my RRSP which is enough to get my employer matching for the year, with other $800 into my TFSA. A small amount was used for a nice dinner out in 3 months.

I've also finally got the short-term TFSA set up and am trying to make regular contributions to that one as well. I've also received my grant for my RDSP in addition to my contributions hence, the significant increase in this amount from last month.

I even had some extra savings during the month which I'm putting towards the car loan payments to try and increase my lump-sum payment later in the year. I just got notice though that my brake pads will need to be replaced so the balance may go down a little in April. This is why I have the car repair fund!

I have to say, it sure is a nice feeling to have some cash/assets now rather than seeing lots of debt and no savings. Seeing the snapshot here is definitely a good motivation for me to keep going.



*Snapshot as of March 2016

Assets:
Chequing: $970.33
Savings (extra car loan payments/car repair fund): $1,658.55
Savings (wedding fund): $6,395.56
TFSA (Emergency Fund): $4,049.63 (held in "HISA")
TFSA (Short-term): $1,000.56 (market value)
RRSP: $5,493.37 (using Market Value) 
RDSP: $21,894.25 (Market Value) 
Car: $9,629.67 (1/12 of 15% depreciation taken)

Total Assets: $51,091.92 (+11.2%)


Liabilities:
Personal loan to fiancé: $10,700 (he told me to leave this alone until after wedding)
Car loan: $12,418.19 (used wrong amount for last 2 months. So, Jan should be $13,059.03 and Feb should be $12,738.61)

Total Liabilities $23,118.19 (-1.36%)


Net Worth
$27,973.73 (+$5,486.67; +24.4%)*​


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## redsgomarching (Mar 6, 2016)

great job so far on getting yourself on your feet!

what is your current profession!? That is a shame that your business didnt take off.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

Thank you.

I'm an accountant. I know, we're not supposed to get into debt but it was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up but alas, the support system that I was supposed to have didn't come through leaving me on my own.


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## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Good work.

Your profession as an accountant will give you the discipline to act on your personal finance goals, likely much better than most.

Smart move to have "funds" for different reasons. 

As you get the wedding fund topped up and then paid for, you can focus on creating a decent-sized emergency fund. Then, onto the longer-term saving and investing goals. Good luck NorthKC!


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## Causalien (Apr 4, 2009)

My Own Advisor said:


> Good work.
> 
> Your profession as an accountant will give you the discipline to act on your personal finance goals, likely much better than most.
> 
> ...


When managing your personal finance like this. I believe it is in your best interest to break out both assets and liabilities into short term and long term like you do in accounting for corporations. It gives you an idea of potential short term funding problems.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

That's not a bad idea. It'll definitely give a better picture, for sure. Thanks for the suggestion.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I missed the activity in this thread. Congrats on the raise!

Your net worth has gone from 14K to 28K over just 3 months. Even if we exclude the 7K in grants, your net worth is still *increasing at a rate of 28K/yr*. This is extrapolating from a very small data series though.

At this rate, even if you _don't_ invest the money and just hold cash, in just 5 years you'll have around $168,000. In just a little over 6 years you'll have $200,000.

I really like to watch my net worth on a spreadsheet. Keep tracking it as you're doing; when in doubt, pessimistically value the line items. You can't predict life events but you can watch these numbers and chart them.

(I've tracked mine for over a decade, and my net worth is increasing at 20K/yr on average. That includes periods of being a student, and also unemployed)


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## OhGreatGuru (May 24, 2009)

If it turns your crank, and helps motivate you in budget planning/saving, fine. But otherwise obsessing over net worth on a monthly basis is kind of pointless, as you have already noted that simple market variations in your investments can move it up or down regardless of how frugal you are.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

The monthly tracking may not matter too much but it's definitely good to have snapshots over time. Even just 1 or 2 snapshots a year will paint a useful picture.


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