This year seems like an extended episode of the Twilight Zone. Every day something new and extremely weird seems to crop up. Often times things seem to be completely out of sync. Take the stock market for instance: the economy is essentially frozen, millions upon millions are unemployed, people aren’t paying rent and there is an oil price war… yet the market surged upward in April. With that in mind, how did we do?
As always, you can check the latest and greatest info on the Track Our Progress page.
First, the numbers:
Net Worth:
- End of April Balance: $572,810 Up $53,537 (10.31%)
- Year to Date (YTD): Up $7,268
- Since January 2018 (this is when I started tracking our net worth): Up $267,810
Portfolio:
- End of April Balance: $399,515 Up 43,477 (12.21%)
- YTD: Down $15,723
- Since January 2018: Up $159,515
Quite a turn around from last month! It’s been one heck of a roller coaster ride this year. I think I am starting to get accustomed to all the volatility. A 1% market move in a day doesn’t even raise an eyebrow these days.
Monthly Contributions: $5,473
We are still on track to max out our 401ks and HSAs over the year. We have a set monthly taxable account contribution and we have been deferring additional savings into our Roth IRAs. However, the Roth IRA contribution was skipped in April while we saved up to fund the renovation of our rental house (more below).
April Highlights
Rental Rescue
Our tenants finally moved out in early April (10 days after their lease expired). I can’t oversell how relieved we are that they are gone. In fact if you want the gory details you can read my last post.-
Long story short: they pretty much trashed the place and threatened the stability of the neighborhood.
We are going to attempt to sell the house again. As such, we have a hefty renovation on our hands. We are reflooring the kitchen and family room, replacing and reconfiguring the kitchen cabinets and countertops, removing knotted pine paneling in one bedroom and replacing it with drywall, replacing all the doors and blinds in the house, and repainting just about every square inch. My wife and I demoed everything and we are waiting for the drywall, painting, and flooring to be done by others. While we can do this work, we figured the time demands made more sense to farm it out to pros. We will come in after them and install the new cabinets, doors, blinds and other finishing touches.
There is no time off during quarantine!
Coming Up in May
Getting Covidiculous
We live in Missouri and things are getting weird. The Stay at Home order expired at the end of April, so we should be overjoyed and running out to have fun right?
Not so fast my friend. Things won’t be jumping back to normal for us anytime soon it seems.
Here’s why: The statewide new case curve doesn’t look to be flattening at all yet which makes us apprehensive to go out. Locally, the data looks better, but with the remainder of the state opened up, we are concerned about a surge in cases. Schools are still shut down as well, including summer school and camps, which means that parents like us are continuing to pull double duty (homeschooling and working our normal jobs). The earliest prospective return to normalcy date looks to be July 1, when summer camp is slated (for now) to open back up.
Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!
That’s a massive jump in net worth! Did you sell something, or was that all appreciation? Our investments are at a standstill — some appreciation on some of the real estate but our Costa Rica holdings are not earning money since they are vacation rentals and the borders are closed. Our paper assets go up and down with the market. We are spending less due to no travel and entertainment expenses, but grocery has definitely gone up. We’re focused on keeping reserves and liquidity up since the economy looks like it will be rocky for the foreseeable future.
Thank you! Nope, didn’t sell anything. We have been stockpiling cash in prep for the renovation costs for the rental house. Also, our spending appears to have dropped off a bit. Like you said, not on groceries though! I think having liquidity is essential right now.
It is a crazy world right now and it’s super weird to think the markets are right back to where they were at the beginning of the year. Good job on the amazing progress!