Mortgage Balance (UPDATE) - July 2020

If you have viewed our family's Net Worth Page, you probably already know that it does not include the equity in our home.  Although we do realize that it is technically part of our overall net worth, we decided that since our home equity is not an asset that we can count on for income (unless we sell and buy something cheaper) we would exclude it from our net worth calculation.

For the purpose of this blog, we are more interested in documenting our loan balance rather than our home equity.  With that said, we will use the current Zillow value as our estimated home value and use it to figure out the percentage we owe on our home. For those interested, we will include the amount of our home equity but know that we are less concerned with the equity since we have no plans to cash out or otherwise sell our home. Our main goal is to pay off our home on or before my retirement date. 

HOME VALUE:

According to Zillow, our home is currently worth $874,373 (down $2,227 in the last 30-days). 

Mortgage Balance (As of July 1st):
$207,653 (down $2,017 from June post)

Percentage Owed:
23.7% (up .3% since our June post)

Home Equity: 
$666,720 (down $9,987 from our June post)
   

Mortgage Background:
For those that have not read the Preface on our home equity, we currently hold a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage at the incredibly low rate of 2.875%.  My goal is to retire within 6 years and 11 months (83 months) so we are setting out to pay off our mortgage on or before my retirement date. Right now we are a few months behind the target retirement date. Currently, we have approximately 8 years and 0 month (93 months) left on our mortgage. Nevertheless, I would like to have it paid off in roughly 5 years. If we accomplish that, I plan to use the money we use to pay our mortgage and aggressively build our passive income to help supplement our retirement and defer tapping into the 457K for as long as possible so it can continue to grow. 

Right now we are not putting any extra money towards the principal given our low 2.875% interest rate. We feel that we could make our money grow faster by investing it and while keeping the money more liquid. At a certain point, we may consider using some of the money from our investment accounts to wipe out the remaining mortgage balance.  Until then, we will continue to grow that money outside, rather than have it locked into our home.

Net Worth Report (July 2020 Update)

We originally set out to provide just annual Net Worth updates and then eventually started to do quarterly updates.  Now that we have significantly slowed the pace of our posts, I think we will like just pop in once or twice a year simply to let everyone know how we are doing and to keep ourselves honest and looking forward to our ultimate goal of early retirement and/or Financial Independence!  

Also, in case you have not come across it, we are part of an active list of bloggers who provide their net worth. The list was previously on Rockstar Finance blog, but The Ultimate List of Blogger Net Worth can now be found on the Caleb Net Worth blog. Prior to this post, our family is currently sitting at No. 52 (out of a total of 283 bloggers). After this post, since it appears that the numbers were based on our 2016 Net Worth post, we are estimating that we may jump a few spots to roughly No. 39 on the list. After roughly ten years at home caring for our kids, my wife eased back into the workforce this past year. And although she is only working part-time, since we were used to living on just one income and refused to inflate our lifestyle, we are seeing significant momentum with our net worth growth.

As of July 1, 2020, our family net worth was as follows:

Retirement Savings:                      $ 649,461 

P2P Lending Accounts:                   $    1,809

Dividend Stock Accounts (DSA):     
    Wells Fargo:                              $  46,198
    Edward Jones:                           $  19,143
DSA - Surplus Cash:                      $  27,912
College Savings Accounts:              $  97,350

Cash and Savings:                         $  88,557

GRAND TOTAL

$930,430
(Increase of $85,005 since August 2019)

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

$665,846*

(Increase of $49,390 since August 2019)

Although we don't consider our home equity as part of our Net Worth, we understand that some people do.  So for those who include home equity in their Net Worth, our family's net worth would be considered: $1,596,276 (Increase of $134,395 since August 2019). No doubt that 1.5 million is a pretty awesome figure when you include the home equity but until we can accumulate 7 figures without our home equity, I refuse to consider myself a millionaire. We are certainly getting closer, and if Covid-19 does not derail our current progress, we hope to be there within the upcoming year!

* 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 type of assets as part of our family's recognized net worth.

June 2020 (Recap) - DIVIDENDS RECEIVED

The only good news I have to share is that in the midst of this COVID-19 (otherwise known as Coronavirus) outbreak, our family is still receiving our dividend payments.  For now at least! Let's see how many companies cut their dividends in the coming months. Fingers crossed that it isn't a huge majority! Time will tell as nobody really knows yet how significant the financial impact of this pandemic really is. Especially is there is a second wave in the fall. 

Right now, our family is trying to pile cash and remain on the lookout for some quality dividend-payers to buy and hang onto for the long haul. We have set a few limit orders and now waiting for the company stocks to reach our target price.  What is everyone else doing? Are you buying?   

Now for what you all came to see, below is a list of the dividends/partnership distributions that we received from our family's dividend stocks portfolio.

DIVIDENDS 

During the past month, 11 companies/ETFs/Partnerships. The total monies received from those 11 companies/ETFs/Partnerships was: $267.24. 

Below is a breakdown of the dividends/partnership distributions received this past month:

WELLS FARGO INVESTMENT ACCOUNT:
6/1/20 - WFC (WELLS FARGO & CO): $15.30
6/1/20 - HP (HELMERICH & PAYNE INC): $42.60
6/2/20 - ENB (ENBRIDGE INC): $53.04
6/5/20 - BKR (BAKER HUGHES A GE CO): $16.20
6/10/20 - IBM (INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINE CORP): $9.78
6/10/20 - XOM (EXXON MOBIL CORP): $34.80
6/10/20 - CVX (CHEVRON CORPORATION): $19.35
6/12/20 - CTL (CENTURYLINK INC): $12.00
6/22/20 - RDS.B (CHEVRON CORPORATION): $19.35
6/25/20 - EDIV (SPDR S&P EMERGING MARKETS DIVIDEND): $41.42
6/29/20 - GILD (GILEAD SCIENCES INC): $3.40

EDWARD JONES INVESTMENT ACCOUNT:

N/A - No dividends from Edward Jones Account this month.

OVERALL DIVIDENDS TOTAL THIS MONTH: $267.24

How did you all do? Hopefully you all continue to see your dividends growth month after to month, year after year! 

In case you interested, our family's dividend stocks portfolio 
may be found by clicking on the link below:

Dividend Stocks Portfolio