# What have I done for 6 months?



## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

Not much.


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## crazyjackcsa (Aug 8, 2010)

What's your point? 6 months is like an instant in a long term goal. So it hasn't grown in the last half year, depending on what the money is in, that isn't surprising.

Don't let the milliondollarjourney story fool you. Double digit gains year over year is really hard. In the past two years I've seen very little growth in my assets, and all net worth growth has come from reducing debt.


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## the-royal-mail (Dec 11, 2009)

Don't forget that a car, something that means a lot to you and which you spend a lot of money in, is a huge money pit and does not increase your networth over time. They depreciate to nothing within a few years.

As for investments, the only reliable performance over the past year appears to have been cash in a GIC or HISA. 1.25% is better than the 10% loss I have suffered.

Not much you can do about this at the moment. The gov't doesn't want interest rates to rise.


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

50K net worth at the age of 21.

BRAVO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Toronto.gal (Jan 8, 2010)

Keep it up!


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## Cal (Jun 17, 2009)

That graph could be decieving, as the market has sucked the last few months, perhaps you have increased the number of shares you have in your holdings, but the amount hasn't increased.

In down times, I try to at least make sure I am accumulating more shares....


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## m3s (Apr 3, 2010)

You've got a lot of your net worth in the market and the market has just gone down a lot over the past 6 months. All that really matter is that you're living within your means. Most people are in massive debt and living like kings at that age

I wouldn't worry about the car, everyone has a hobby. If it was me I would be planning to get out the GTA, but that's personal. I figure you can make a similar salary elsewhere in Ontario with much lower cost of living such as RE,insurance, property tax and just drive the car to visit the GTA instead. Either way you're ahead of the curve


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## Sherlock (Apr 18, 2010)

That's to be expected given what the markets have done in the last 6 months, however it makes me wonder if dividend investing is really the only way to go.


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## Homerhomer (Oct 18, 2010)

Sherlock said:


> it makes me wonder if dividend investing is really the only way to go.


Why would you say dividend investing is the only way to go?

There are many ways:

dividend investing
growth investing
dividend growth investing
long term investing
day trading
options
bonds and cash
index investing
hedging
real estate
and many more.

As investors we should choose one or combination that fits our profile.

Dividend growth investing is my preferred way, but for me it's not the only way.


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## Dmoney (Apr 28, 2011)

KaeJS, maybe you can look at it a different way:










No matter what the value of my investments do day-to-day, as long as this keeps trending upwards, I'm happy.


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## hboy43 (May 10, 2009)

Hi:

I havn't expressly followed it, but I am sure my own curve would trend downwards much more sharply. Like someone above mentioned, I do have more shares than 6 months ago.

hboy43


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## jamesbe (May 8, 2010)

I forgot about mint, I signed up when they first started in Canada but nothing worked. That chart made me sign up again, love the charts and budget stuff really cool.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

^ it's actually pretty good.

I only use mine about once a month, and I turned all of the notifications off, but it is good to see where you are actually spending all your money.

And of course, you get nice charts and categories and such.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

It's all markets right now. ANd like others have said, you are a rich man for having that at age 21. Keep piling money into the markets as you have a long time to compound.


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## balk (Dec 6, 2010)

Do you not consider margin as a debt? I don't see that represented on that chart.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

It is not represented in the chart, but the margin was deducted from the amounts you are viewing in the chart.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

*Update - What have I done for 8 months**

So, what I've done is depreciated the asset values of my vehicles by a total of $3,500. I have reduced the value of my 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege by $3000, from $10,000 down to $7,000. In addition, I have reduced my 1993 Toyota 4Runner by $500, from a value of $2,000 to a value of only $1,500.

I believe those are some fair prices going by what I have seen on Kijiji and Autotrader. I may reduce the value of the Mazda by another $500 and reduce the value of the truck by $250 shortly into the new year, just to keep conservative. I would rather see my net worth as a liquid, fair market value figure, rather than a perceived "could-be" figure.

I have managed to save some funds as there were some expenses that I needed to get out of the way. I have also put in a little bit of overtime at work and have saved (well, invested) all of the proceeds.

My BMO ESOP (Employee Share Ownership Plan) has grown from $4,700 to just over $6,600 (a $1900 increase) leaving a total of just over 121 shares of BMO.

My Trading Portfolio has increased from $11,100 to slightly above the $14,000 mark, an increase of $2,900.

My TFSA has increased in value from roughly $15,600 to $15,800, marking a $200 increase in value.

My RRSP account has a neglible change and has remained at $8,600.

As always, I have paid off my credit card in full for October and November, which reduced my "debt" and brought up my net worth about $1,400.

As such, my Net Worth has increased from October at ~$49,600 to December at ~$53,700 after the inclusion of all the little ins and outs. (I'm not sure why it's saying the peak for December is $53,543, when the chart and calculations are showing over $53,700).

Check out the nice uptick for December.


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## mind_business (Sep 24, 2011)

Nice increase in the Trading Portfolio. What is driving the growth?


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

Some of it was growth, but some of it has been the paying down of margin/addition of cash, so it was not all gains (although I wish it was )

I made some gains trading POT, G and RY the past two months.  I also made a little bit of money being risky and trading some TZA.

BCE, TRP, CPG have also helped keep the portfolio growing and stable. Bell has been increasing and increased the dividends. TRP has been increasing (near a 52wk high) and CPG has been fairly stable with monthly dividends.


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## Jon_Snow (May 20, 2009)

Looks good KaeJS...

And I think I need to think about joining Mint.com - NetworthIQ.com is pretty much broken.


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## heyjude (May 16, 2009)

Are you really comfortable uploading your personal financial information to the cloud? Especially when the servers are in the US? Homeland Security and the IRS can find out a lot more about you than you might be comfortable with. I won't be using Mint.ca anytime soon.


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## Jungle (Feb 17, 2010)

KaeJS you have a really high net worth for someone your age. 
Keep it up and keep on buying as much stocks and index funds as you can while you're young. Don't kill your self on margin. Watch spending money on cars. 

sincerely, 
your canadian money forum big brother.


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## KaeJS (Sep 28, 2010)

heyjude said:


> Are you really comfortable uploading your personal financial information to the cloud? Especially when the servers are in the US? Homeland Security and the IRS can find out a lot more about you than you might be comfortable with. I won't be using Mint.ca anytime soon.


If someone wants something, they will find a way to get it. What are they going to find out? How much money I make and how many times I eat McDonalds in a month? If I paid my taxes properly?

I am not worried. 



Jungle said:


> KaeJS you have a really high net worth for someone your age.
> Keep it up and keep on buying as much stocks and index funds as you can while you're young. Don't kill your self on margin. Watch spending money on cars.
> 
> sincerely,
> your canadian money forum big brother.


Thank you


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## newbie (Dec 12, 2009)

KaeJS said:


> So, what I've done is depreciated the asset values of my vehicles by a total of $3,500. I have reduced the value of my 2003 Mazdaspeed Protege by $3000, from $10,000 down to $7,000. In addition, I have reduced my 1993 Toyota 4Runner by $500, from a value of $2,000 to a value of only $1,500.
> 
> I believe those are some fair prices going by what I have seen on Kijiji and Autotrader. I may reduce the value of the Mazda by another $500 and reduce the value of the truck by $250 shortly into the new year, just to keep conservative. I would rather see my net worth as a liquid, fair market value figure, rather than a perceived "could-be" figure.
> 
> ...


great work bro.
i am up 30% for the year trading those crazy etfs i mentioned all over the forums.
not holding equities though, i believe in 08 all over again at some point and then i will grab great stocks at bargain prices.
if that does not happen i will keep my trading strategy and if i see a stable mkt on the 2d quarter than i may grab some canadian banks
HVU sent 5k of my portfolio to 3k , but that is a damn tough etf to trade and the ups and downs are intense


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