Welcome to my sixth net-worth update for the year 2018.
Last month, my net-worth reached $200K for the first time in my life. It is a new milestone in my long journey. I am sort of happy about it, but not fully satisfied the performace.
Why?
We will discuss about it later in this post.
A short intro for new readers
If you are not new here, then you can simply skip to the next section.
For those new to my finance journey, this net-worth update is a simple report I publish every month, which tracks the progress of my journey to reach my financial goals.
My ultimate financial goal is to become a self-made millionaire by December 2024 (10 years plan). I have a strong belief that I can achieve this goal by saving and investing in high-quality dividend-paying blue-chip companies. I am also a strong believer of ‘compounding’ power, and I believe if I can push myself now and build a decent net-worth, then the ‘compounding effect’ will give a heavy lifting in my later part of this journey.
I am posting all my financial information on this website because I love to inspire and motivate people to start their own journey to reach their financial freedom. You could learn from my successes and failures (experience) and improve your financial knowledge.
Along the way, I make financial mistakes and will share my experience here with you. So, you could learn something, avoid those mistakes and save money.
Also, I like to publicly track my progress and get feedback from like-minded people.
Net-worth update – July 2018
As mentioned above, I reached my 4th $50K (or $200K) in June 2018.
It is a new milestone in my journey, but I am not extremely happy about it for two reasons.
First, I just reached to the 20% of my goal, and there is a long way to go in a short period of time.
Second, my net-worth growth is slowing down due to the poor diversification of my assets because over 80% of my investments are tied up with the Canadian market, and its performance somewhat depends on the Canadian economy.
If you check my net worth updates, you can easily notice that I reached my first $50K in May 2014 and the second $50K (or $100K) almost 12 months later in May 2015 because of the good market performance.
By the time, I thought I could easily hit my third $50K in less than 12 months, but, unfortunately, it didn’t happen.
In reality, it took almost 18 months to get there. There were so many excuses I can bring up, but I understand that excuses won’t help for success. In order to get success, we should look for solutions to problems rather than searching for excuses.
Finally, my net worth reached $200K. It took almost 20 months to get this point (from $150K).
What is next?
From now, I will continue my journey toward $250K net-worth, but I can’t predict future, but I understand that the path will be volatile and tough because I am going with a big equity portfolio.
| $50K | May 2014 | – |
| $100K | May 2015 | 12 months |
| $150K | October 2016 | 18 months |
| $200K | June 2018 | 20 months |
| $250K | ? | ? |
To honest, I really want to reach $250K in the next 12 months or less. Again, it is depending on the stock markets performance.
As you know, the Canadian markets were not doing well for the last couple of years and it was one of the worst performing markets in the world for last year.
As of this writing, it is showing a sign of recovery, but it is a small and very sensitive market. A simple trigger or bad news may put a brake on its recovery and reverse back to volatility.
If I stick with the Canadian market alone, then I will get similar results.
Thus, I always look for a way to diversify my investment assets by investing in the U.S and international stocks, but, due to the unfavorable currency exchange rate, I couldn’t do it for now.
For now, I will keep doing what I am doing now (reinvest my dividends and keep adding new assets) and if I find a path to diversify my assets, then I will take necessary steps and move some assets to other markets to minimize the risks.
Let’s get back to my net-worth update
My net worth increased by $4800 or 2.42% in June 2018, thanks to my portfolios’ performance. A couple of my top holdings performed well last month.
Plus, I received over $1000 dividend income last month
As a result, my net-worth got boosted by a couple of thousands dollars.
My debt level also increased slightly due to my bi-annual property tax cost. Now I paid-off my property tax for this year, so I don’t need to worry it until March 2019. Hopefully, in the coming months, my debts will keep going down.
Let’s see all the details in numbers
Net worth update as of June 30, 2018 ()
Assets: $529 700 ()
- Cash: $800 ()
- Home: $280 500 (no changed) – Yearly adjustment with average inflation rate of 2%
- Canadian Stocks: : $188 500 ( )
- U.S. Stocks: $40 600 ()
- Employer’s Pension Plan: $19 300()
Please note that my financial situations and risk tolerance will be much different than yours. We all are unique by nature. As I always say, please do your own research or discuss with a qualified financial advisor before making any financial decisions.
Liabilities: $326 700 ()
- Mortgage : $174 700 ()
- Student loan: $20 400 ()
- Margin loan: $65 900 ()
- Credit card 1: $9300 () (low interest credit card – 1.99% special rate for 8 months – will be expired in January 2019)
- Credit card 2: $21 700 () (low interest credit card – 2.99% special rate for 12 months – will be expired in January 2019)
- Credit card 3: $5800 () (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months – will be expired in December 2018)
- Line of Credit 4: $0 (paid-off)
- Credit card 5: $3900 () – (low interest credit card – 1.99% special rate for 10 months – will be expired in October 2018)
- Credit card 6: $6000 () – (low interest credit card – 2.99% special rate for 8 months – will be expired in August 2018)
- Credit card 7:$500 () – (regular expenses)- high interest rate of 19.99%.
- Line of Credit 1 :$18 500 () – (low interest credit card – 2.99% special rate for 12 months – will be expired in December 2018)
- HELOC: $0
Net worth :$203 000 () as of June 30, 2018
My net worth was up by since my last update.
Note
- all amounts are rounded to the nearest $100;
- all numbers are in CAD; and
- Conversion rate 1.00 USD = 1.3144 CAD
I have a huge credit card debts because I take advantage of low balance transfer promotion rate and invest in high quality dividend stocks. Learn, earn, save, invest and leverage your skills are the keys to become wealthy.
Thank you so much for following my finance journey and for your great support.
You are a pretty bad investor and you would be better off paying off your debts and just saving cash to build your savings. One day you will lose all your investment gains and realize how stupid you were. By the way, we are in the end of a 10+ bull run and if you didn’t make 20% last year then you have done a terrible job picking stocks to invest in. Get out while you can.
Thank you Simon for stopping by and your suggestions 🙂
Majority of my investments are in Canada and the Canadian market didn’t make 20% last year. It ended with around 8% gains.
I graduated with-$70 000 debts in May 2011 and built over $200 000 net-worth in 7 years with my middle-class income salary (single income family). I think I am going in the right route.
I didn’t invest in high-flying speculative stocks or digital currency. I invest in companies with solid fundamentals and have a long track of records of growing their dividend. So I really hope they can successfully handle any market corrections.
By the way, I like these types of negative feedback because they really motivate me to stick with my plans 🙂 Thanks anyways ..
Cheers,
Congrats FJ for $200 000.. I am really happy to follow your journey.
Don’t worry about the slowdown. All Canadian investors have been experiencing the similar problem. So you are not alone. You will be fine
Good luck
Hello Kolasi,
Thank you for stopping by and your kind words. I hope the Canadian market will perform well going forward and make us happy and wealthy as well 🙂
Best Regards,
Hi FJ,
It is very responsible not to make excuses, and you are right, excuses are not helpful, though, it is important to analyze the reasons for the slowing down of your portfolio growth, as the Canadian economy hasn’t been slowing down for the last 38 months. I think it is time for you to analyze your purchases during the last 38 months and determine which purchases you made were right for the time being and which ones were wrong for the time being. Don’t assume that if a stock went down since you purchased it then it was necessarily a mistake or that if a stock went up significantly since you purchased it you necessarily made an excellent choice, in your analysis compare the purchase price to the estimated value of the stock at the time of the purchase according to the quarterly report that was published right before you made the purchase and find out whether you really purchased at a discount like you thought or whether you paid a premium and mistakenly thought that you bought at a discount, there I expect you’d find most of your mistakes and when you learn from your mistakes you only get better.
I don’t assume that you selected the wrong stocks but I do assume that you paid premiums you were not supposed to, the reason for that it that I analyzed the stocks you picked and I found that they performed better in average than the TSX, therefore I know that you know how to pick your stocks well but I think you were not patient enough to wait for the right price to buy some of them and increased your debt in times when you shouldn’t have.
I know you can still meet your goal and become a self made millionaire by the end of December 2024, it would just be harder than you expected.
Good luck and all the best.
Alan.
Hi Alan,
Thank you for your comments and your well wishes
My portfolios did pretty good compare to the overall Canadian market (TSX). The Canadian market is just up around 6% from June 2014 high. I am sure that my portfolio return is much (much) higher than 6% return.
Therefore, I am doing something right. But still I could have done well if I have invested in U.S stocks.
I don’t think that I paid the premium price for any stock (I’ve never bought any stock at 52 weeks high), but like you said, I jumped and added stocks little earlier than they hit bottom. I would have waited bit longer to catch them at bottom, but it is hard to predict.
I keep learning from the mistakes I made and continue to improve my performance. Also, I will keep looking to diversify my portfolio.
I still have hope that I can meet my goals by December 2024.
Cheers,