This is the very first OMB (one million bucks!) monthly net worth posting!Instead of waiting until the first of the month I am going to post mid-month, as Austin says, just to get the ball rolling, baby!
NOTE: I want to be as transparent as I can without revealing my identity. As much as I want to build my net worth and achieve financial independence (the goal of chronicling my journey towards a net worth of 'one million bucks!'), more importantly, I don't want to create a riff among my friends and family by revealing how much I'm worth on paper.
They say that you're not supposed to discuss money, politics, or religion at a bar. I'm going to try to abide by that rule in the one million bucks blog as well (unless it affects our personal finances).
Suze Orman, the personal finance guru who usually caters to women's finances, is sometimes annoying, and she knows it, and frankly she's banking on it (good for her!), but her motto is spot-on albeit cheesy (and patented, so don't sue me!):
"People First, Then Money..."
This is true for two reasons:
1. The whole point of achieving financial independence through sound personal finance is so that we can spend more time with the ones we love: our friends and families.
2. Interpersonal relationships are the basis for creating wealth.
So here's the balance sheet breakdown (I'll give you the history of all these numbers later):
Some account notes (assets ordered from most to least liquid):1. The checking accounts are non-interest bearing, split between E*Trade and Bank of America. I use bank of America because I love their "My Portfolio" feature which consolidates all of my accounts into one page which shows my total net worth. (I'll write an entry on this later). They also happen to be solvent right now, which not all banks can say...
2. The cash in the savings account is held in an E*Trade high yield savings account (3.30% as of 9.20.08). I use E*Trade (despite their unbelievably terrible customer service) for multiple reasons:
- They have a competitive rate (vs. ING Direct, HSBC Direct, Citi's e-Saving, etc).
- They don't have any minimum balance requirements.
- The don't charge any savings account fees.
- If you keep more then $50K of total assets with E*Trade, then they reimburse all third party ATM fees
- Lastly, it's one of the few places that has checking, savings, and brokerage services all under a single roof, while having inexpensive trading expenses.
3. My brokerage account (at E*Trade) is invested almost fully invested in a conservative 5-Star Morningstar rated fund called the Vanguard Wellington Fund. It's more or less a "place-holder" for me until I invest it in real estate. It's also great to be able to instant access to transfer cash from my high yield savings account to my brokerage account when I want to take advantage of inter-day market price swings.
4. Our Roth IRA's are in a mix of broad based, low cost, and in some cases sector specific (energy, health care, real estate) mutual funds (both US and International) at two different brokerage houses. I will go into more detail in a separate posting.
5. It's the exact same story with our 401k accounts. I will go into more detail on another posting.
6. The real estate figure represents my portion of equity that is invested in a partnership that owns a single family home investment property. The property is currently rented and produces about $900 positive cash flow per month. I'll go into a separate posting on this as well.
7. The liabilities are simply revolving credit card debt on the Chase Freedom card. It's is a bit high this month because we made a few automotive fixes and paid for some items related to an upcoming overseas trip.
That's all for the first posting... will provide more detail later. Let me know if you have any questions of course!
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