I was just getting settled into my summer grove. And… it’s gone. Just like that August is in the rear view mirror and the school year has started. This month was a wild ride and quite frankly, I am happy to have it behind us.
Anyways, you can check the latest and greatest info on the Track Our Progress page.
First, the numbers:
Net Worth:
- End of August Balance: $686,105 up $33,522 (5.14%)
- Year to Date (YTD): Up $120,563 (up 21.3%)
- Since January 2018 (this is when I started tracking our net worth): Up $347,583
Portfolio:
- End of August Balance: $502,989 Up 34,197 (7.29%)
- YTD: Up $87,751 (up 21.1%)
- Since January 2018: Up $228,792
Pretty, pretty… pretty good. Who would have guessed we would be at all time highs so soon after the March drop?
This is why we index.
Monthly Contributions: $4,441
Contributions were low again in August while we cover the mortgage and utilities on our old house we are selling.
August Highlights
It’s Deja Vu All Over Again
If you read last month’s net worth update you know we were hoping to close on the sale of our old house in August.
Welp. That didn’t happen.
Less than a week before close I got an urgent message from our realtor asking me to call them. Sounds promising right? When I called she informed me the buyer’s job got transferred out of state. This was on loan commitment day, by the way.
So this is the 3rd time we’ve tried to sell the house. We had 1 offer the 2 previous attempts, which was immediately withdrawn. This time around we got an offer a couple weeks into the listing and again, the offer was withdrawn almost immediately. After this most recent dud, I felt a lot like this:
Emotional Whiplash
The bad news about the deal falling through came in on a Friday. Wasting no time, our realtor got the listing active again on the MLS. Friday night we received a notice of a Saturday mid-morning showing. Sounds good right? What I forgot to mention was we had a large windstorm come through a few days before and the lawn service was cut back to bi-weekly once we went under contract.
So Saturday morning we were up bright and early and the whole family ran over to the old house. The yard was a mess. The grass was quite tall and there ended up being a yard waste tote and several lawn bags full of sticks. All of which had to get cleaned up before an 11 am showing. We busted ass and got it done.
And good thing too… they made a good offer and we accepted it! All within the span of 24 hours. Life comes at you fast! If 2020’s emotional roller coaster keeps this up I might need a neck brace.
If it pans out, we will be in roughly the same place as the original offer, minus a month’s holding costs. We will take it.
Yearly Wage Adjustment for Moi
After my performance review in July, I received a modest wage bump in August. I feel pretty fortunate that with ***gestures wildly at everything*** all this going on to be in a position to get a raise. Every little bit helps. One of the best parts about automating our savings is that my 401k/HSA contributions automatically increase since they are a percentage of my pay.
Coming Up in September
Final Closure 2.0?
We are not getting our hopes up too high this time, but “theoretically” this deal should close by the end of September.
Getting Savings on Track 2.0
I typed this last month and it still applies in September, and I am all about that lazy blogger life: If all goes well with closing, we should have some money to get into savings. We plan to continue with (and hopefully catch up on) our strategy to max out our Roth accounts. Additional money will be set aside to cover our expected tax liability from the sale. But we will need to figure out what to do with any remaining funds. Sounds like a topic for next month’s update.
Back to School. For Now…
Ours is one of the few local school districts that provided an option for full time “in-person” learning. It’s weird sending the kids off with masks, but they are little troopers and genuinely want to go in person. Many districts in St. Louis County went full virtual while several other nearby district decided to just make everyone unhappy and rolled out a hybrid schedule.
Will this full in-person schedule hold up? I’d be better off trying to time the stock market… which I know I can’t do.
Thanks for reading and stay safe out there!
