Millennial Couple Killing Their Net Worth: +$150,000 Growth

The Neighborhood Finance Guy
7 min readNov 3, 2020

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Epic news indeed. We came up $148,590 in Net Worth from January to October 2021. We will definitely cross the $400,000 by the end of the year. Nothing but the Glory of God, and investing with Faith.

Welcome back to TNFG’s monthly Breakdown, where I review my household’s October 2020 Net Worth with a dab of personal finance tips that you can use.

We are this close to the final showdown and the tension is up. Biden vs Trump 2.0 and what it all means for our future. From Pandemic to vaccine, and ultimately to a return to some form of normalcy in 2022, it is all on the line.

Election season is going wild on social media. Do yourself the favor and watch The Social Dilemma and Capital in the Twenty-First Century on Netflix.

I am going to take a massive social media break after November 15 th.Here’s hoping cooler heads prevail. No matter where the pendulum falls, we will all have to contend with what we do next for our families, our communities, the world and ourselves.

“Think Globally and Act Locally.”

The Former VP of Florida State University, Mary Colburn

If you like what you read here, please feel free to indulge in other posts on the website:

  1. Tracking the Neighborhood Finance Guy’s Best Million Dollar Net Worth,
  2. Learn how to start Investing in a Million Dollar Portfolio from Scratch, and
  3. Find out How my 401k Contributions Grew to $150,000+.

Election and Our Future

The wealthy are responding to a strong market, and millionaires saw the benefits of rising stocks,” said Mike Loewengart, chief investment officer at Morgan Stanley’s E-Trade Financial capital management unit, responding to the firm’s fourth quarter survey of investors with more than $1 million in a brokerage account they actively manage. More and more, we are looking at a tale of two Americas based on financial class.

While there are no guarantees that the candidates’ promises and proposals will eventually become law, here are things to consider taxes, Social Security, student loans and Medicare.

Trump administration is leaning on further tax cuts for the middle class and cutting taxes on capital gains. Biden administration proposed raising taxes for wealthy Americans earning more than $400,000 while reducing taxes for lower earners.

Biden’s plan boosts Social Security checks. Additionally, Biden wants to forgive $10,000 in student debt for all borrowers. On the other hand, the Trump administration has allowed borrowers to pause monthly student loan payments without interest accrual during the Covid-19 pandemic and considered extending it through 2021.

$400,000 Close but not that Close

We were this close to reaching $400,000 in Net Worth but alas Election market woes!

It all started going downhill as of October 17, 2020.

Biggest take Away from the Budget

Overeating Wealth

“Second place to cut from your expenses, Food. It also helps your waistline”.

Not too bad considering all the red ink last month.

Loads of Amazon returns helped to stop the monetary bleeding, on top of using point for cashback rewards for a value of $500.

In 2021, I’ll try to see how we can keep food cost, no more than $450 per month. I might need to go a bit more vegan so that I can get more vitamins and shed some weight. My food bill is about 15% over which is directly in line with my weight of 15lbs over.

In the end, our net worth went up a solid 0.28%. Nothing to write home about, some months aren’t all winners. Hopefully, we are just storing steam until after the election.

1. What went well?

Been Quiet. It has been relatively quietly all month. Nothing great to report beside all the podcasts that I did and a few interviews.

When there is a lull, I try to use the opportunity to plan and focus on what we need to do in November and December.

The wedding is around the corner. Started our first workshop about money management and the next one set for November 7th on Investments.

Shifting investments and rebalancing for more growth.

It took almost a month but we did manage to rollover $21k to Fidelity to purchase # FDVV index ETF, # AAPL, # TSLA, # NIO, # MAIN and # T.

The strategy is to position our overall portfolio at 90/10 Stock to bonds, and 60/40 Growth to Dividend Investing. It’s all for the long term with an mildly aggressive efficiency frontier due to age and time in the market.

I feel confident that we did the right move for our family since it shifted us toward our efficiency frontier. I’m looking toward banking dividend income in the interim and waiting for 2022 investment profit sales from the growth assets.

2. What did not go so well this month?

The economy. As stated before, the election turbulence hit and cause multiple sell off despite earnings being ok. There is a new wave of serious lock downs for France, Germany and the UK. All this while everyone was out with no masks.

Still over spending on that Amazon Prime but… We had our reasons this time. We needed new space heaters for two rooms since the last one broke in winter 2020.

Debt Repayment. Found out that we will likely start with $21k of credit card debt for 2021 so we have our work cut out for us? That debt is from the housing upgrades that we intend to do in December primarily. However, we have credit cards for churning reward points and no APR until January 2022. Gaming the system.

3. What are we working toward?

Focusing on us for November — Wedding time and Pull us our sleeves in December. None of this is easy. That is the kicker about being and adult and pursuing a better life for the next generations.

  1. Working on investing the last $333.33 to hit the total of $13,000 in M1 Finance Brokerage focused on Dividend Income that generates at least $1,000 in passive Income for starters in 2021. Check out the portfolio in real time. If you like the platform and want to start investing, I have the $10 for $10 referral if you need it — https://m1.finance/SYdqDJ2SyADC.
  2. Boosting back the EF savings with the last $333.33. To help monitor your savings, cash flow, net worth, investments, retirement and more FREE with Personal Capital! Sign up with my link & get $20 Amazon gift card. *Terms apply. https://pcap.rocks/lawrencegonz
  3. Getting back to shape — HIIT Mornings. Running, and biking just pushing out effort. I say it all the time but it is still good. We did start HIIT workouts off YouTube.
  4. Fixing our homes ­- December. Fixing the leak damages in our primary home and updating bathrooms in the rental. It is going to suck but at least you get to see the before and after. The goal is to get back to operational by January 2021.

Set audacious goals and work on them constantly. Every ounce of effort today will yield 2025 victories. That’s how you change yourself and that’s how you win. If you want to know more about our technique, check out theNet Max Financial Plan for Couples.

Our Net Worth up +66.67% this year, a total value of $148,950.

For us, it’s not just about paying down debt but to really use time to help us propel our wealth higher with more velocity. We will likely the ½ Millionaire marker by June 2020. A far distance from struggle city of Negative $125,000 in 2014. Now that we formed up like Voltron, we definitely have way more to go.

We are aiming to prove that it is possible to normalize wealth for regular folks.

Originally published at https://theneighborhoodfinanceguy.com.

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The Neighborhood Finance Guy

Financial Literacy Educator |Money Story 💰Negative $125k Net worth to $660k in 9-yrs 💸Paid off over $350k in debt 🔑 and Traveled to 25+ countries.