July 2021 – Net Worth Update

By firebynumbers

As part of my FIRE blog I will be tracking my net worth on a monthly basis and compare it to where I want to be when I reach my FIRE number. I will also compare it to where it was sitting last month. A summary of my assets are as follows:

Explanation of each category:

Property

As you can see there is a big change in this category, almost $50,000 improvement compared to last month. That was due to one of my investment properties increasing by $50,000 according to the website www.onthehouse.com.au. As I have said before I only take this number with a grain of salt as it is not really relevant unless I actually sell a property for that price. Also, I am not exactly sure what algorithms they use to come up with their values, but the area that property is in is tricky because there is not much sales history and there can be a big difference in property value depending on the location and the views.

Overall, I am pleased that it is moving in the right direction! When it does come time to sell, I will definitely get a proper valuation carried out to determine if it will be worth it or not. At the moment I am still able to collect some really useful passive income.

Cash

Small change between this month and last month mainly due to me not depositing any money into my SelfWealth account until the start of August. There is still a pool of money sitting over in the US, I am being pretty lazy at bringing this money back to Australia. Although, I did have some issues with my Tax Return over there which I will talk about later.

Shares

Another booming month in the shares, I did not deposit anything in the month of July, so everything there is pure gains. There were also some dividends deposited, and particularly with VDHG they were quite sizeable.

I do not know how long this booming run can continue but hopefully I can take advantage of it for a while longer yet.

Superannuation

This has gone up by a fair bit which is always good news, of course it is basically just showing the gains in the share market. Slowly but surely the superannuation account will keep on growing and give me a nice backup plan in the future.

I also change my superannuation provider from Cbus to Hostplus this month. After looking in detail at all the fees Cbus was charging me it made the decision really easy to switch to Hostplus.

Other

Minimal change from previous month. Although next month I will look at getting some money out of it, mainly from my BrickX account (I had about $1,000 in there), it has been sitting there doing not a lot for me for a long time. I want to tidy up my portfolio as much as possible and reduce the number of locations where my money is currently sitting.

July 2021 Budget Summary

Income – TOTAL: $8,044.10

Normal Income: $4,084.00
IP Income: $3,960.10
Other Income: $0.00

Expenses – TOTAL: $3,731.92

Normal Expenses: $2,047.28
IP Expenses (not including Interest): $806.64
IP Interest: $878.00

Savings Rate – 53.61%

I had a few expenses this month, so my savings rate is not as high as it has been in the past, but it is still well above my target of 40.00%, and it is close to my yearly average of 54.56%.

I had a somewhat unfortunate day with regards to my Investment Properties, where both of them received an order for a significant expense on the same day! One of them needed a new oven, and the other one needs some significant roof repair.

The oven has been installed, but I have not fully paid for it yet so that will increase my expenses next month. And the roof is due to be repaired this month, so there will be some significant expenses with my IPs next month. I have been pretty lucky for the past 12 months, and it could not last forever. But these sort of expenses are the reason why I do not want to own and investment properties once I do reach FIRE.

I also like to track my income and compare it to my passive income, including my gains for the month.

July Normal Income – $4,084.00

July Net IP Income – $2,275.46

July Net Shares Gain – $9,814.45

Total Passive Income – $12,089.91

Again, my passive income has easily surpassed my normal income which is tremendous news. I have my money working almost three times as hard as I am! And over time this number will only continue to grow (hopefully).

Plan for August 2021

I have run into a bit of a hurdle with my US Taxes, I thought it was all over, but this time it was my LLC tax return which had run into issues. I had paid the taxes back in early May and I did not think there were any issues. But then out of nowhere in early June I received a refund for the full amount back into my account. There was no correspondence attached, or reason for the refund, but I can only assume it is an error or they were unable to process the tax payment and it took a long time to refund it.

I have tried to call them, but was on hold for an hour and then they closed, so that was frustrating (timezones are not friendly sometimes). I have sent them an email asking them what happened but have not heard anything back in over a week (despite their supposedly swift response they promised initially). Anyway, another hurdle to jump, it never ends.

I do not have much else planned for the month of August, it will probably be an expensive month due to the repairs needed at my investment properties. I am also planning on buying a new TV so that will definitely lower my savings rate.

I need to get my employer lined up to pay into my new Superannuation account, the form has been sent off, just waiting for it to happen.

If the share prices go well I should hit another milestone as well, I am currently around $248,000 in my share portfolio, it would be nice to hit that $250,000 mark! I am about to deposit another $5,000 into the account so as long as the share prices do not drop by $3,000 over the month I should reach that milestone.