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
Apologize. I missed updating my net-worth report for the last two months. I tried to post both of them together in this post.
There were a lot of changes in everyone’s life due to the pandemic.
I was asked to work from home, and the workload seems to higher than regular work schedules.
Moreover, I had a hard time to complete all my assigned tasks with a five years old son who always plays around with me.
Plus, my investment assets didn’t escape the market carnage and took a hard hit; thus, I wasn’t interested in calculating my net-worth either (honestly).
I usually get excited when the markets get tanked by temporary news. But, this time is ‘really’ different.
Not a single person had experienced these types of scenarios in their lifetime.
In a recent interview, Warrant Buffets said that he was waiting for 89 years to experience these types of market drops.
Compare to his age and experiences, I am just a baby investor.
Due to the pandemic, so many companies forced to close their doors, and they lost their revenue completely and having trouble handling their fixed costs.
I hope that this is a short-term issue, but the damage that occurred so far to the economy is significant.
Many companies made a difficult decision to suspend capital spending temporarily, reduced their staffs and cut dividends to survive.
In my portfolio, one stock, IPL.TO reduced its dividend. It is a small position, and I have only 50 shares. Thus, the impact was minimal.
And the rest of the stocks in my portfolio have been maintaining their dividends.
February 2020 Net-worth Update
My net-worth hit an all-time high in mid-February and started to slide down toward the end of the month.
I had some cash position in my portfolio because of my RRSP contribution. When the market started to go south, I rushed to buy stocks because of the fear of missing out the buying opportunities.
I deployed over $6000 in the last few days of the month. I was hoping for a faster market recovery.
My portfolio dropped further down. As a result, my net-worth down by $14500 or 4.48% in February alone.
At the time, I failed to predict the March market madness. I was a buy and hold investor until this point.
March 2020 Net-worth Update
In March, my net-worth down by $36 700 or 12.17%.
In addition to the market carnage, my bi-annual property tax due came in March as well.
Thankfully, I received my tax refund of around $5000; thus, the damage was partially offset by the last tax refunds.
Anyways, it was the most significant net-worth drop in my journey.
As I mentioned in my last portfolio update, I sold around $70 000 worth of stocks in early March (March 10) to protect my margin loan.
As a result, my assets and loan values dropped significantly.
My assets value dropped by over $100K from $618 300 to $508 800. At the same time, my liabilities also dropped by over $70 000 from $316 800 to $244 000.
Thus, I ended up with $264 800 net by the end of March 2020.
I reached this level in July 2019. Therefore, my eight months net-worth gainw as wiped out in a single month.
In the stock market, we should expect all these types of market drops and gains.
As I always say, I am here to share my financial freedom journey with this site’s readers. My financial goals, financial situations, and risk tolerances are much different than yours and blindly copy my ideas may not benefit for your life. Please do your own research or discuss with qualified financial advisors before may any decisions.
February 2020 Net-worth Update
Let’s see the details in numbers:
Net worth update as of February 29, 2020 ()
Assets: $618 300 ()
- Cash: $600 ()
- Home: $291 900 (no changed) – Yearly adjustment with average inflation rate of 2% in every January
- Canadian Stocks: : $241 200 ( )
- U.S. Stocks: $43 800 ( )
- International Stocks: $10 600 ( )
- Employer’s Pension Plan: $30 200( )
Disclaimer..
Please note the information posted on this website is the opinion of my own and should not be considered as professional financial advice. I am not a financial professional, and I can buy, sell, or hold any investment at any time.
Any transactions I publish on this website are not recommendations to buy or sell any securities or investments.
My financial situations, goals and risk tolerances will be much different than you. Therefore, please do your own research or consult with a qualified financial professional before even considering using the information obtained from this website.
Liabilities: $316 800 ( )
- Mortgage : $184 900 ( )
- Student loan: $5800 ( )
- Margin loan: $81200 ()
- Credit card 1: $0 (paid-off - no changed) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - expired in January 2020)
- Credit card 2: $7600 () (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - will be expired in February 2021)
- Credit card 3: $0 (paid-off) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - expired in November 2019)
- Credit card 4: $0 (paid-off - ) - a promotional offer at 1.99% special rate - expired in March 2020)
- Credit card 5: $0 (paid-off) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - expired in October 2019))
- Credit card 6: $14400 - ( - a new promotional offer at 0.99% special rate - expired in November 2020)
- Credit card 7: $600 () - (regular expenses)- high interest rate of 19.99%.
- Line of Credit 1 : $13 300 ( ) - (low interest credit card – 2.99% special rate for 12 months - will be expired in January 2021)
- Line of Credit 2 (HELOC) : $9000 (no changed ) - (Interest rate – 2.95% )
Net worth : $301 500 ( ) as of February 29, 2020
My net worth was down 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 = 1.3416 CAD
March 2020 Net-worth Update
Net worth update as of March 31, 2020 ()
Assets: $508 800 ()
- Cash: $1400 ()
- Home: $291 900 (no changed) - Yearly adjustment with average inflation rate of 2% in every January
- Canadian Stocks: : $132 900 ( )
- U.S. Stocks: $43 400 ( )
- International Stocks: $8500 ( )
- Employer's Pension Plan: $30 700( )
Disclaimer..
Please note the information posted on this website is the opinion of my own and should not be considered as professional financial advice. I am not a financial professional, and I can buy, sell, or hold any investment at any time.
Any transactions I publish on this website are not recommendations to buy or sell any securities or investments.
My financial situations, goals and risk tolerances will be much different than you. Therefore, please do your own research or consult with a qualified financial professional before even considering using the information obtained from this website.
Liabilities: $244 000 ( )
- Mortgage : $184 400 ( )
- Student loan: $5800 ( no changed )
- Margin loan:$6500 ()
- Credit card 1: $0 (paid-off - no changed) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - expired in January 2020)
- Credit card 2: $9000 () (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - will be expired in February 2021)
- Credit card 3: $0 (paid-off) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - expired in November 2019)
- Credit card 4: $0 (paid-off ) - a promotional offer at 1.99% special rate - expired in March 2020)
- Credit card 5: $0 (paid-off) (low interest credit card – 0.99% special rate for 12 months - expired in October 2019))
- Credit card 6: $14400 - (no changed - a new promotional offer at 0.99% special rate - expired in November 2020)
- Credit card 7: $600 (no changed) - (regular expenses)- high interest rate of 19.99%.
- Line of Credit 1 : $13 200 ( ) - (low interest credit card – 2.99% special rate for 12 months - will be expired in January 2021)
- Line of Credit 2 (HELOC) : $10000 ( ) - (Interest rate – 2.95% )
Net worth : $264 800 ( ) as of March 31, 2020
Note
- all amounts are rounded to the nearest $100;
- all numbers are in CAD; and
- Conversion rate 1.00 USD = 1.406 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.
Thank you so much for following my finance journey and for your great support.
Hi FJ
They say that you are not an investor until you go thru a recession.
As Dexer said, worse time will come in the following months. Just be patient and have some cash available. Market will test again the low from March.
Stay positive, focus on the day to day priorities and in a few months a new beginning will start.
Take care!
Thank you, Cris, for stopping by!
I a new investor, and I haven’t yet experienced a real recession in my investing journey.
The Central banks are very proactive this time than ever before; thus, the markets have been moving with hope and hype. However, the world economy is in the worst shape in modern history. Therefore, I also expect the worst time, could be starting with Q2 results.
I think I am in a better financial position to go through a recession than a month ago. I have a couple of thousands of dollars to deploy if any opportunities arrive in the near future.
Best Regards,
I am sorry for your lost in just one month with several years of hardworking. It is very hard to swallow.
Thank you for sharing and appreciated your detail. I follow your blog for several years and learn a lot from it. But just thinking of one suggestion for you, why not just indexing your portfolio with etf/td e-series index fund with your risk preference. Like ZSP ytd return only -5%， ZAG(bond) +4%, ZCN YTD is roughly -12.5%. if hold it for 4 years, with median rick, it should be decent return.
I also refer your portfolio of Mar 31, 2016.
Canadian Stocks: :$150 700 ( +$8600) – Organic gain
U.S. Stocks:$35400 (+$500)
Similar value as Mar 31, 2020. I assume you did withdraw, but rather add money every year to your portfolio in these 4 years except to pay some money for margin account. But with indexing, the last 4 years return should still be ok.
All the history are in the rear mirror now. Wish everyone of us could learn from our past experience and better positioned in the future.
Regards.
Hello Wen,
Thank you for stopping by,
I like the index approach in the U.S market. The majority of my U.S holdings are in dividend index ETFs.
But the Canadian economy is not well diversified. If you look at the ZCN Sector Allocation, 60% of the assets are in just three sectors – Finance, materials, and energy. I feel it is better to have individual stocks in Canada than the index. My Canadian portfolio did exceedingly well over compare to the market over the last couple of years.
I did withdraw $70 000 from my Canadian portfolio in March; however, if you look at my debts value, I had around $333 200 as of March 31, 2016, but now is at $244 000, which is $89 200 reduction over the last four years.
$89 200 means $1858 per month reduction. I don’t think that I can save that much money from my median income day-job. Therefore, I have taken much more money from my portfolio than I contribute during the last four years.
Best Regards,
Just want to say that we all got hit the same as you. Tough couple months..
But good news is we aren’t retiring soon… so we have time on our side.
Keep going my friend.
Thank you Justin for stopping by,
Tough time for all! We all go through and come on the other side stronger than ever 🙂
Best Regards,
Thank you and be extremely careful, there is more pain to come before it gets any better. Its better to put cash away and wait until the market improves. That just my opinion.
Hello Dexter,
Thank you for stopping by!
I am with you! I don’t understand why the stock markets keep moving high. There are so many uncertainties surrounding the economy. I also expect a significant market downward pressure before things better.
I have been buying shares but at a slow pace.
Cheers,