July Net Worth Update

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent so we can move. Each month(ish), I’ll keep you apprised of our progress. This year, we’ve got some major goals, including paying off our outstanding debt (car and apartment in Chile), replacing our roof, AND saving around $70,000. As of June, we were roughly 18% of the way to doubling our net worth.

August has arrived. The ThreeYear family has been reunited, after the boys and I were away for the month of July in North and South Carolina. New England has a decidedly cool, rainy bent this month and, to my utter frustration (repeated every year at this time), tops of the trees are starting to change colors, and little red leaves are falling down all over my driveway. “I’m not ready for fall!” I always think, but it is coming, nevertheless.

The month of July was fantastic, in terms of deepening family relationships and making lifetime memories. It was not fantastic in terms of spending less and saving more, as I’d hoped. Our income always drops in the summers, since I’m not teaching, and while we were away, we spent a lot more than normal on eating out. Plus, we had the other half of our new roof to pay for. Still, thanks to the bull market that just won’t quit, our net worth continued northwards.

 

Our Progress

As of July 31, our net worth has increased by a total of 20.3% from our starting point in December of 2016. In order to hit our goal of doubling our net worth in three years, we’ll need to increase our net worth by an average of 2.77% each month (or increase it by 33.33% by December), but we know that progress won’t be completely linear. We know our net worth growth will be smaller this summer because I don’t earn a paycheck, and we had big expenses, like our roof, to pay.

We hope to supercharge our savings rate next year, when the mortgage on our apartment in Chile is paid off, which we plan to do by the end of this year. That will allow us to start a taxable retirement account and hopefully funnel lots of money there.

Here’s a graph to track our progress:

This is as a percentage of our total goal:

Spending Update

This month, I thought we’d do really well with our spending, but we didn’t. We did well in grocery spending, but actually surpassed it with our eating out! Highest it’s ever been. Wow. I’m considering that part of the cost of vacation, since we were buying a couple of meals for family members and eating out while on the road.

Luckily, our roof has now been replaced and paid for, so we don’t have to write any more big checks for a while (I hope!).

Category	Spending	Notes
Home Expenses	$2274.99	includes mortgage for our house and Chile apartment
Transportation	$430.62	includes one outstanding car payment and fuel
Groceries	$619.42	Less than normal because three of us were not at home for the month
Eating out	$673.90	For the second month in a row, we went crazy in this category. This is actually the highest our eating out expenses have ever been! We took my entire family out several times during our vacation, and the boys and I ate out a lot during our trip.
Kids' expenses	$20.00	Drum rental.
Entertainment	$93.33	Includes a movie, one month subscription to a soccer channel for Mr. ThreeYear, a flight simulator at the Yorktown ship, and some rental movies from the Apple Store.
Household goods	$16.04	trip to Wal-mart
Utilities	$701.56	Utilities are high this month because we paid our balance on our propane account, $485.97. Should be cheaper next year because our neighbor negotiated a special rate for next winter.
Haircare	$22.95	One haircut for Mr. ThreeYear
Home Maintenance	$283.76	New blender to replace the one I broke, couple of things at Home Depot, treatment for our cedar trees (they had a leafminer insect that was making them turn brown).
Clothing	$222.56	High again this month because I stocked up on clothing for myself while near the outlets
Gifts	$12.65	Took a tray of bakery goods to my grandmother when we visited her.
Auto maintenance	$147.98	two oil changes in preparation for trip down South
Vacation	$373.32	One hotel room for our road trip back to NH, plus parking for Mr. ThreeYear while he was at the beach 🙁
Roof	$7475	Second half of the roofing cost plus the cost of power washing the house (very glad we did that!).
Total:	$13368.08	Second month in a row. Phew.
Total minus roof and taxes (for a more realistic spending total):	$5893.08	High for summer. But on to August.

August Awaits!

We’ve been back in New Hampshire for about a week, and the weather has been fantastic. I weeded my five tomato plants and six basil plants, and although they’re small and pitiful, they’re producing (Mr. ThreeYear refuses to weed while we’re gone. I get it; the garden’s my baby). I didn’t get around to buying any plants, so the only things I planted were what my neighbor gave me.

We have been otherwise blessed with wonderful friends to go to the lake and hang out, ride bikes, and play tennis. We’ve had a couple of days with no plans. That’s been okay, too, although I’m feeling the first bits of a lack of patience setting in, when the kids get housebound and I get tired of entertaining them.

As always, we are optimistic for the future. This month has been a chance to enjoy our town’s lake, our friends, and the weather. School will be starting in just a few weeks, so we’re taking advantage of not having a schedule or plans and having as many unstructured days as we can.

How did your July look? Major trips or vacations?