Share your net worth progression

Cortana · November 29, 2020, 3:22pm

Inspired by the thread on Bogleheads: https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=139157&sid=090924fb32537170533de960d651c72b

It would be interesting to see some net worth progressions. I’m pretty sure that a couple of you guys are tracking this quite regularly

I started tracking it on a monthly basis back in September 2019 when I started investing. 3k cash reserve and most of my bankable assets in VIAC. Now after 14 months I progressed from 31k net worth to 73k. Despite higher expenses than anticipated a year ago (moved out into my own apartment and separated from GF, had to buy a lot of new stuff, did a hair transplant…nothing I planned on). And despite literally the worst market timing in the internet (I mean who invested 50% of his assets up till then on February 20th? Lol). So I’m quite happy with it!

My next goal is to hit 100k net worth. Depending on my bonus next February I’ll probably reach it in autumn 2021.

Feel free to share!

ProvidentRetriever · November 29, 2020, 3:23pm

That’s a really good start! Sorry to hear about the separation.

The worst timing of February looks like a lot right now, but over time it will even out with new investments.

thepoorswiss · November 29, 2020, 3:27pm

I only started to track it late 2017:

Current goal is to be at 375K by the end of 2021. We are going to have to pay a ton of fees for the house, so we are not aiming at a huge increase in the next 13 months.

ProvidentRetriever · November 29, 2020, 3:36pm

How did you manage to escape the 2020 down and up?

ProvidentRetriever · November 29, 2020, 3:51pm

Oh actually I have a theory. You saw @Cortana invested in February and withdrew from the market, is that it?

dbu · December 9, 2020, 10:54am

I started tracking systematically - as well as investing “properly” and seriously - only from Dec 2018.
And now I realize I only have the year-by-year view - might create another “overall” sheet.
I am including the 2nd pillar in my calculations, but not the 1st.

2018 (approx.): 103k --> 128k
- the year I got the car, haven’t yet had any stock investments other than the company ones, crappy UBS Vitainvest 3rd pillar, and some crypto assets that declined from Jan-Dec by 8-fold (!)
2019: 194k
2020: 256k (so far until Nov)
- nice to see how the March dip was just a slight slowdown in the grand scheme of things (on the other hand the drop was there in spite of the bonus payout)
- Feb was when I got/sold some company shares that got un-vested, hence the spike
- in July I bought a (small) motorbike - felt good to see no huge impact
- 42% net savings rate (i.e. after tax) so far this year

Note: Yes the choice of bar vs. line chart is questionable, but… I like those gold bars.

Edit: Here is the “overall” view, with 3 years of data

thepoorswiss · November 29, 2020, 4:08pm

We are buying a house in 2020, so we went hyper conservative and converted everything in cash in late 2019. We did not want to take a chance at losing an opportunity. It turned out well. But it also means that we lost the recovery.

Cortana · November 29, 2020, 4:15pm

It was the right call. Your investment time horizon was way too short (buying a house in a couple of months) to have stayed invested in stocks.

@dbu
Do you have the graph for 2020 so far? Would be interesting to see how the corona crash affected your portfolio.

dbu · November 29, 2020, 4:22pm

I made a typo - the charts are for 2019 and 2020.
First bar is “end of previous year” value.
In essence, I kind of “lost” 2 months of regular ~5k/month growth rate - which is to me quite amazing to see.
And a lesson in patience and power of staying (mostly) invested.

Cortana · November 29, 2020, 4:37pm

Your 2nd graph is quite interesting! I have to do this as well with the monthly changes.

thepoorswiss · November 29, 2020, 5:50pm

Indeed, I am also planning to add this to my dashboard

TeaCup · November 29, 2020, 6:39pm

Always difficult to compare as everyone calculates net worth and monthly savings differently; so please be careful when comparing. But to give you an alternative view - from Feb to March this year, I had temporarily lost a bit more than my projected, annual investment rate and more than I had earned (gross) in the year so far. This by the way on a balanced Portfolio that in terms on Asset Performance was fairly resilient.

Observation in this thread at least: there don‘t seem to be too many here that are on their savings journey for 10+ years? How come that?

Would appreciate an exchange on the changed situation you face as your annual investments compared to your net worth are in a one digit percentage range only and you cant just cover up investment mistakes with new investments any more…

mabi · November 29, 2020, 6:43pm

I don’t have any neat graphs for that yet but here are my numbers as I just started FIRE beginning of this year:

Jan 2020 NW: 336k
Oct 2020 NW: 431k

In March 2020 I was down -9k but recovered nicely in April and May. So yeah what a timing for starting FIRE but it looks like I am not the only one

dbu · November 30, 2020, 9:03am

Good point, and a fair observation to consider!
I will analyze it a bit with that in mind - thanks.

I am in the “frugal/saving” mode since I got my first scholarship in bachelor’s back home (10+ years ago).
I just never tracked it seriously, as back then the stipend was the only “income”.
And first years of proper working I was just doing the saving part, not the investment+analytics part that much (or it was in a different format - via mobile apps etc).
I “standardized” it now in the last 3 years with a couple of sheets.

ProvidentRetriever · November 29, 2020, 7:40pm

I’m starting to have this “issue”. What I decided (promised to myself) is that if I change my mind and do minor adjustments to my strategic asset allocation as my experience enriches, I never force-rebalance. I only direct new investment towards the new strategic asset allocation that I consider a “compass”.

I would only sell an asset class if it has appreciated, and if its percentage has not been touched in months or even maybe a year.

ProvidentRetriever · November 29, 2020, 7:50pm

I think it’s because the forum has a rather young audience. Which is great because it is important to think about these things early in life.

Mr.Chef · November 29, 2020, 8:31pm

I think is also a great opportunity to have this people sharing that for the young ones

IdleThought · November 29, 2020, 9:08pm

Are all of you guys using Google Sheets or anything more sophisticated?

clon · November 29, 2020, 9:24pm

I use Portfolio Performance https://www.portfolio-performance.info for quite a while

San_Francisco · November 29, 2020, 9:44pm

Must be the early enthusiasm many have when joining a new self-help group.

I do believe the observation might be biased from the frequency and volume of posting of members here. I mean…

Do you believe that having done something successfully over 10+ years makes you (more likely to) frequently post about it on public internet forums?

I don’t. I think it’s quite the contrary, actually. Many people who really do know their stuff and have done something successfully (or professionally) for a long time will only rarely chime in - if they even bother to register in the first place. It’s a thing that can be observed in many internet forums and online communities (though arguably less so on more technically/professionally focused niche forums).

As for me, as someone who’s actually “been on a 10-year savings journey” (but started out on very low income by Swiss standards for the first few years), I’m merely practising my English here.