Net Worth Update 54: Going Yard

Ah, May. What can I say about May? Rising temps? Check. Peak allergies? Double Check. Home improvement projects? You bet!

You can check the latest and greatest info on the Track Our Progress page.

First, the numbers:

Net Worth:

• End of May Balance: $1,022,397 up $13,269
• Year to Date (YTD): Down $42,321 (4.0%)
• Since January 2018 (this is when I started tracking our net worth): Up $717,397

Portfolio:

• End of May Balance: $794,597 Up $6,446
• YTD: Down $79,663 (-9.1%)*
• Since January 2018: Up $554,597*

*All numbers above include contributions and are not indicative of investment returns.

Hey, look at that! The numbers went up. It feels like it’s been a hot minute since our net worth went up.

**checks notes**

The last time I reported an increase was… March? Feels like it’s been forever. I guess that shows how tricky the mental side of investing can be.

May Highlights

Rock On!

We’ve remodeled many areas of our house and yard since we bought it in 2015.  The list includes:

• The kitchen
• The kid’s bathroom
• The master bathroom
• Adding a paver patio
• Raised garden beds
• Repainting most of the house
• Custom shelving in the garage
• A playset for the kid’s

If you have followed this blog for any stretch of time (all five of you), then you know we can’t pass up a good DIY project.  

That said, there are a couple areas that haven’t been touched since we moved in.

The front landscaping and the main level hall bathroom.  

After dipping our toes into the real estate pool this spring, we had our eyes opened by the sales prices and interest rates.  Suddenly, our shack doesn’t feel so shabby.  We decided to tackle these last two projects.

In May, I took on the front landscaping.   The existing landscaping consisted of mulch beds with a random assortment of wild shrubs, all varying shades of green, with a wall of peonies in front of the shrubs. Now, I like peonies, but they blocked out all the other plantings and only flower for about 1 week per year.  Then they are pretty much useless.  The beds were in sore need for new mulching.  When it comes to the effort and $ associated with mulching on a yearly basis, I am over it.   And there was a random stump from a tree I cut down when we first moved in.  

Negative Curb Appeal.

So, I spent a Saturday digging out the old shrubs and trying to transplant the peonies to better locations.  We decided to go shrub shopping that afternoon.  It happened to be the Saturday before Mother’s Day, which you may or may not know is one of the busiest days of the year for nurseries.  

We settled on an assortment of low, slow growing shrubs with some color variation among them.  Of course, I didn’t check the forecast and apparently a heat wave was due to set in immediately.  High heat is not a transplanted shrub’s best friend.  So, I set about working like a dog after work digging holes.  Once the bushes were in it was time for edging and landscaping fabric and finally the gravel.  

Like I said, I am over mulch.  It needs to be redone every year to look nice.  Rain washes it out of the beds.  You have to use the leaf blower like an archeologist’s brush on a fossil to keep from blowing it all over the yard.  It’s a pain.  Gravel stays where you put it.  It does what it’s told.  And frankly, it looks better.

But holy crap is it expensive.  $168 per cubic yard, plus delivery.  And heavy (about a ton per cubic yard).  So, the following Saturday, with my wife out of town and the kid’s with my mom, I started shoveling, and shoveling and shoveling.  After moving 5+tons of rock, it was finally done.  I’m pretty happy with it.   It certainty wasn’t cheap (on the order of $1,750), but I can’t imagine how much this would have cost to hire a contractor for.

Cash Money

I mentioned last month, that we’ve started to feel like having a bit more liquidity on hand. While mathematically, this does not make sense when compared with investing, we feel like we will sleep better with a bigger cushion.

So, in May we started automatic bi-weekly deposits into our online savings account. This does not take away from our regular deposits into our Vanguard brokerage account. Besides the extra green for emergencies, the liquidity will allow us to act more quickly if interesting opportunities arise.

Coming Up in June

In June we are setting our sights on the main level hall bathroom. The current setup is the original builder’s grade materials that are 30+ years old, with dark oak cabinets, and off yellow/taupe/almond/vomit vanity top, with a chrome faucet and bronze light. Real classy.

We have a custom vanity top on order (not because we are fancy, but the vanity is a weird configuration that isn’t readily available). We plan to replace the vanity, the top, the faucet, the light fixture and repaint the whole shebang.

Thanks for reading.