What a ride.  August and September sucked to be an equity investor.  The markets tend to overreact in either direction, so I don’t try to time the markets, just keep plugging more money in and ride it out.  October 2015 is a prime example of why I do that.  You were rewarded for investing in stocks.

In my portfolio, my brokerage accounts all rebounded and made up their losses.  Those accounts are largely large cap stocks, which as an asset class had a great month.  My retirement plan through work rebounded, but to a lesser degree.  That account is invested in a small cap fund.  Small caps underperformed their bigger counterparts.  In my case, my overly high fee fund  also underperformed the Russell 2000 benchmark, costing me roughly $3,000.  Man I can’t wait to leave the work force and throw that money into the low cost and better performing IWM ETF.

I have also sold my home at the end of the month and that money is now sitting in my brokerage account, ready to get invested.  This was the large difference maker for the month.  So this month is an *, because I will eventually use that money for my new home.

So how did I fare for October…

As of October 31, 2015 current net worth is $868,668.94 at the age of 36.  A huge increase from September to the tune of $139,968.23 in 1 month, but again as noted above I sold my condo that was owned outright.  It should be noted that about $50,000 was from market increase though.  Here is the spreadsheet Net Worth Oct 2015 for the details.

With this activity happening, I have bumped up my goals for year end.  I increased my low end to $600,000, representing any possible market drop.  Also, bumped up my high end of my goal to hit between $925,000 to $950,000 by the end of the year.  I’m not settling for hitting my original goal, because of the sale of the condo.

With 2 months left in the year, I should be able to add about $4000 to my brokerage account, and about $4000 to my retirement account.  That means to hit $925k by year’s end,  I need 5.5% from the market.  To hit $950k, I will need a little over 8% from the market.  Hopefully small cap stocks can remove their heads from their asses and perform better.  That is probably my best shot to hit either of those goals.  That would also put me $50-75k away from hitting my first million in 2016.

Liabilities and outstanding debts:  You kidding, absolutely $0.00.

Overall, this year is going, almost exactly as planned (I’m looking at you small cap stocks).  I have 3.5 months left to work if all goes as planned (or shorter).  Last day of work will be February 12, 2016. November will fly by with less than 3 weeks work and packing and getting the move started, December I will only work 3 weeks, January I will hit cruise control, and February will be watch the clock month.  I have already hit FI.  The reality of ER approaching is really hitting home and I love the feeling I’m getting about it.

 

TIP OF THE WEEK

Got a bunch of shit in your home?  Something I did years ago, and continue to due each year, is reduce the clutter related to my finances.  I had a big box of tax returns sitting in my house.  I hated having this box laying around and having to move it with me every few years, what a waste of space and energy.  If you have access to a nice scanner, just scan all of that stuff and convert it into a pdf file.  Scan it all, the 1040, W-2, 1099’s whatever.  Boom a big box suddenly eliminated and taking up just a few MB’s on your hard drive.  You can password protect the file, do a backup to an external hard drive or burn the files to a cd (throw a copy in your safe), and shred the paper returns.  2 sq ft of space saved, valuable information not just sitting around in your house, one less box I am having to move.  Statements and bills, shred, shred.  You don’t need those, unless you plan to use it as toilet paper and risk getting a paper cut.

The less boxes laying around will feel good, look good, and you end of looking for other things you are storing to eliminate.  I ended up scanning 2 boxes of college notes as well, thinking I would go back for a Phd at some time in my life and wanted to hold onto that info, old purchase and closing documents for real estate as well.  Pretty much most paper documents have been eliminated from my home (excluding things like titles and wills, course).  This in turn led me to question the need for old books and text books laying around when all of that info is easily available at your library or online for no to low cost.  Probably saved having to move 100lbs 4 times in the last 15 years.  I really don’t have any papers sitting in my house, except for a small pack of Post It notes, there really just isn’t a need for it these days.  Man, I’m becoming a tree hugging hippie.

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