Net Worth (Update) - 4th Quarter 2014



Originally, I was only planning to provide annual Net Worth updates.  However, since I am now part of an active list of bloggers who provide their net worth on Rockstar Finance's page - The Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worth, I have decided to start providing quarterly updates.  Providing quarterly updates will allow us to keep our readers more updated with our overall progress towards Financial Independence. It will also allow us to stay accurate and current on the Rockstar Finance's Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worth.

 

As of the end of December 2014 (4th Quarter), our family net worth is as follows:

 

Retirement Savings:                       $385,339

P2P Lending Accounts:                    $  17,952

Dividend Stock Accounts (DSA):      $  60,445
DSA - Surplus Cash:                       $    6,889
College Savings Accounts:               $  30,669

Cash and Savings:                          $130,363

 

GRAND TOTAL

$631,657
(Increase of $59,341 since 9/1/14)

 

Although we do not count it as part of our Net worth,
it is still nice to know that our Home Equity is:

$441,189*

(Increase of $15 since 9/1/14)

I'm not sure how other feel but I must admit that I look forward to doing our Net Worth reports. Thankfully, we have managed to continue to grow our net worth each and every quarter (although some quarters are clearly better than others).  

During this last quarter, you've probably notice a large infusion of cash and savings.  This cash infusion comes with both good news and bad. The bad news is that my wife lost her great grandfather during the month of September. Her great grandfather was a very frugal man who lived and raised his family in the same house he grew up in. He never had a mortgage because the house was already paid off when he inherited it.  However, because of this and his frugal lifestyle, he amassed a pretty sizable nest egg.  And since her great grandfather truly valued education, he made sure that part of his money went towards college savings for grand kids, great grand kids, and great-great grand kids (he was 95 years old when he passed). 

So during this last quarter, my wife and I inherited $30K, which we are planning to spread out into our kids college education throughout the 2015 calendar year. We feel very blessed to have this inheritance as it now reduces our obligation to save for our kids college and thus free up our money to invest for other reasons. My wife and I already decided that we plan to do the same for future generations to come.

NOTE: If you follow us, you know that we do not consider the home equity in our home as part of our net worth. Although others do consider home equity, and even cars, collections, etc. as part of their net worth, it is our opinion that since these items are not very liquid and the value of these items is highly dependent on what others are willing to pay for them (at the present time), we have decided not to consider these assets as part of our recognized family net worth.