Wednesday, December 1, 2010

November 10 Net Worth 97K: Thankful for

November is done and whew...what a month! If you look closely you will see there is a new value in "Real Estate/Home Value" and in Mortgage. We purchased our first home this month. We did it despite my thinking that the housing market is going remain falling. We are trying to start a life and we found a home that we love. We also do not look at this an investment but more of a home where live and become a family, which is way more valuable than any price of money. We feel we got a great deal and we are not going to look back. We are happy and thats all I have to say...
Lets break it down:

Cash & Savings: We have been saving up for a house down payment but looks like we got one heck of deal on a home, so we will be keeping most of this. Our first goal is to get about 50K in the bank(cash) for saving before we really start putting our money to work. This has grown despite purchasing some major things for our new home(washer, dryer, and fridge). This bracket holds the funds for insurance, auto maintenance, Roth IRA, and vacation. It also holds my monthly budget in it. The rest is used on a daily bases for covering expenses, mortgage, food, auto, etc...

Stocks/Brokerage: Has been remained a good run with my brokerage account the last couple of months. I have purchased a few other stocks Silver Wheaton(SLW), Fronteer Gold (FRG) and Silvercorp Metals, Inc. (SVM). I sold off my GLD with a 20% gain from where I purchased and hoping these remaining gaining like they have the last couple months. I am just saving up some cash in the mean time to start dollar cost averaging into these. I am up around 13% in these. The list of stocks I currently own: (SLW)(FRG)(SVM)(EXC)(PWE)(PHYS)(EGO)(AUY)(AVARF)(RGLD)(ZQK)(XOM)(CVX).

*As you can see I am heavy in commodities in my brokerage account. This is all based on my thought that over the next decade the best investments are going to actually be in hard assets. My Roth/IRA/401k are in pretty common index funds and mutual funds so I figure I can go more risky with brokerage. I believe these will out perform equities in the next decade and if nothing else I feel more comfortable with my portfolio being diverse. I am bearish on the US Dollar and US Economy, I believe that trillion dollar deficits are not going bode well for the USA.

Retirement 401k: This bracket is just both my wife and my retirement, adding money to our retirement funds every month. Steady growth here...(update - the fed announced quantitative easing or money printing and the market has kinda been up and down, will wait and see what happens here.

Retirement IRA's: Still having some cash on the sideline and will figure out what this market wants to do and see if I can put it to work. In this bracket I have all Vanguard Funds (VTSMX, VGSTX, VEIEX, VGPMX)

Real Estate: So this is a new category, based off getting 100% financing, right now its not even an asset based of not having any equity in our home. The plan here is to keep our money that we were going to put down as a down payment in the bank or investments. We will try and hedge our payments with trying to pay off the home in 10-15 yrs depending on what comes our way. This might change along the way depending on kids, economy, jobs and so forth.

Debts and Liabilities -

Credit Cards: Debt for home stuff, will be paid off without any interest.

Car Loan: I am paying 4% APR on it so I am paying a little, but not a ton. Still looking to pay it off early-will probably be a goal this or next year. Now that we don't need to save up on the downpayment we might have to start paying a bit more per month even though our mortgage will be higher than we are paying now...will keep you posted.

Home Mortgage: Sending off first payment today, more to come in the next few years :)

I am so looking forward to hitting 100k in net worth hopefully in the next month or two, we have come so far in just two short years. I am blessed to have what I do and during these hard time for most families, we have been able to create a small amount of wealth.

In this time of year we will be thankful for what we have and hopefully spread some cheer over the holidays! We will be supporting a child at an elementary school, along with a family that is in need. My family decided not to give gifts this year but to sponsor a family who's mother is dying. We will try and donate to more as they arise.