A journey to become a self-made millionaire.
This is my fifth net worth updates report for this year (2015). For those new to my finance journey, a net worth update is a simple report I post every month which tracks the progress of my journey to reach my financial goals.
My ultimate goal is to become a self-made millionaire in 10 years by saving and investing in stable dividend paying blue-chip stocks.
This is very special post for me as we reached a big milestone, yes, net worth surpassed 6 figures in May 2015. It is an amazing feeling and accomplishment.
We reached our first $ 50 000 net worth in May 2014. It took almost a year to hit another $50 000
In the last 12 months, there are so many things happened in our life.
First, we bought our first home. The home purchase came with lots of one-time expenses including $5000 closing cost, new furniture, appliances purchases and other home related expenses.
Second, we went for little expensive vacation to Mexico. It cost us more than $3500.
Third, new baby. Yes, I became a father for a baby boy 😀 . As you know, having baby is always expensive. Also, our family income reduced by 40% as my wife took maternity leave to taking care of our new born, and she may not return to work for next few years.
Still, we managed to increase our net worth by $50 000 in one year. It is truly an amazing accomplishment. Big thanks to my dividend investment strategy and borrow money to invest approach.
For those of you follow my journey know that I am a middle income earner, making around $50 000 per year from my day job . I am not making 6 figures income. Even our combine family income is not even close to 6 figures. I am just regular guy like most of you. I started my journey with more than $50 000 student loan debts and achieved this stage in less than 4 years.
So.., if I can do it, then you can do it too.
Now, let’s see my net worth in numbers
In May 2015, my net worth was increased by $2800 or 2.85% from my last update.
Net worth update as of May 31, 2015()
Assets: $409 800 ()
- Cash: $400 ()
- Home: $260 000 (no change)
- Canadian Stocks: $119 800 ( ) – Recent purchases
- U.S. Stocks: $29 600 () – dropped due to gained in Canadian dollar.
Liabilities:$308 800 ()
- Mortgage : $192 400 ()
- Student loan: $27 800 ()
- Margin loan:$29 700 ()
- Credit card 1: $6900 () (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months – will be expired in December 2015)
- Credit card 2: $9400 () (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 15 months – will be expired in March 2016)
- Credit card 3: $18 700 (no change) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 6 months – will be expired in November 2015)
- Credit card 4: $8900 () (low interest credit card – 1.99% special rate for 9 months – will be expired in August 2015)
- Credit card 5: 0
$2800() (low interest credit card – 2.9% special rate for 6 months – will be expired in May 2015 - Credit card 6: $8700 () (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months – will be expired in August, 2015)
- Credit card 7: $300 (no change) – (regular expenses) – high interest rate of 19.99%.
- HELOC : $6000 (no change) -(low interest – 3.35% – primte + 0.5%)
Net worth :$101 000 () as of May 31, 2015
My net worth 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 = 1.20 CAD
Another positive month in my Million dollar journey, and I feel happy as I am moving toward my goal.
Total increased in the year 2015 is $18 000 .
My debt level was increased in May due to some recent stock purchases using my margin loan. I should focus on reducing my debts to less than $300K – manageable level.
I reached 10.1% of my million dollar dream journey
Thank you so much for being in my finance journey and for your support.
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Hi,
I enjoy reading your updates especially new stock purchases. I also have a house and a recent baby who is growing so fast. However I don’t have a total money target to hit however I have opted for a monthly income from my stocks that will more then match my current income. This I have calculated to equate to around $650,000 total investment and should net me a monthly income of around $3600 / month. Do you know of anyone else working their targets this way?
Cheers
Hello Craig,
Thank you for stopping by,
If you are receiving $3600/ month from $650K investment, then your investment dividend yield is around 6.5%. It seems like you have invested your money into high yield stocks. Please correct me if I am wrong.
People have different targeted income based on their expenses level. You could budget your expenses for 6 months and set your own target dividend income.
I have a clear target of receiving $25000 dividend income by 2024.
Cheers,
wonderful information. i am like you where i dont earn much and have a house and kids and trying to make it to 1 million. thank you for sharing, i will be reading alot more of your blog. keep the updates coming!!!
Thank you ma for stopping by,
I am in the same situation as you. I have a house and a kid. But, I am trying to my best to reach my million dollar goal. If we try something with confident, the we will get there.
Cheers,
No updates for June, July or August — obviously your “borrow and invest” strategy has crash and burned! congrats.
Hi Greg,
Thank you for your interest.
I will make all those posts soon. Actually, I was away for few weeks for vacation, and then an unexpected event happened in my family (more personal). My net worth is slightly in red, but not bad as you think.
I will update the details soon.
Cheers,
Very inspirational blog posts. Very useful for those planning to achieve financial freedom. I have a suggestion for you. “A picture is worth a thousand words” – It would be great and easy to read, If you could plug the numbers in graphs.
Thanks
Hi Bob,
I am so glad that you like my blog. Thank you so much for your suggestion. I will try to add graphs for my net worth updates.
Best Regards,
New to the site and I see you have a fair bit of student load debt. I’d be quite interested in knowing if those debts are from government loans, a student line of credit, or some other source. I’d also like to know your plan on paying them off and also your opinion on investing vs. paying off debts, like a student loan. I ask because I’m graduating in 6~ months and will have about 11k OSAP and 12k student line of credit with zero investments/savings, etc and I’m unsure of my plan of action.
I look forward to a response and until then, I’m going to read some more posts of yours!
Hello Adam,
Thank you for stopping by,
Always paying off your debts is the best idea and less risky approach. But, I did the opposite approach by investing rather than paying down debt as stock market was very cheap in 2012 and 2013 than in 2015 (see this post: https://www.financejourney.com/borrow-money-to-invest-in-stocks-leverage-investing/). It worked out well as stocks moved up well for last few years. But, it may not repeat one again.
And, I have no idea to pay down the debts any time soon. I am trying to maintain my debts around 300K and keep investing until I reach my 25k per year dividend income. Then, I may decide to pay down debts.
Please note all type of investment come with risk. If you are willing to take risk, then start investing instead of paying down your debts, pay off your debts first otherwise.
Best of luck!
Greetings from Brampton, Ontario. You’ve inspired me to invest my money rather than wasting on trivial purchases. I plan on documenting my journey as well although probably not online. I wish you the best of luck in your journey and will continue to follow your progress. Thank you so much for inspiring me to set goals and to dream big. Sincerely, Terry
Thank you Terry for stopping by,
I am so glad that my post inspire you to start investing. I wish you the best of luck in your journey as well.
Cheers,
Congrats on achieving this great milestone. See even with a trip that cost a little more and a new addition to the family increasing net worth is very possible. Too often people have excuses for not being able to save or invest or pay down debt but the reality is that it’s all possible no matter what your life situation is. Keep increasing that passive income stream too. Thanks for sharing this inspiring post.
Thank you DivHut for stopping by,
As you mentioned, I am focusing to increase my passive income, so, I could live off without a day job.
Cheers,