Tuesday, January 1, 2019

How did our net worth fare in 2018?

I've been tracking our net worth pretty consistently over the past eight years or so. Each year brings a new excitement & changes. Certainly, the end of the year stock market instability brought some unwelcome changes to our retirement portfolio, but we are staying the course.

Big changes this year: 

  • We paid off our vacation house mortgage
  • There was a modest increase in value of our vacation house
  • And also an increase in our primary residence
  • I also kept more in cash (well, high yield savings) than is recommended, mostly because I was concerned about the stock market, and also to give us more flexibility as I was making career changes
We continued to fully maxing our 401Ks, and used extra money to pay down our vacation house mortgage vs investing, so it was bit of a combination this year. We also aren't including the kids college account savings here, although they have just over $100k combined for college.

In summary, we grew our net worth by 9.3% since this time last year. While we were up in significant double digit growth earlier in the year, the recent market changes have made us happy we were able to eke out positive growth. As M is now 51, we will likely make a slight investment shift to a more conservative mix in the upcoming few years.

Here's some net worth growth numbers from prior years as well:

  • We are up 16% since this time two years ago
  • And, up 88% since this time four years ago
  • Up 258% since this time six years ago
  • And, up 433% since I started tracking (9/1/2010)
I'll do a more comprehensive net worth growth post soon, but I always check in on our net worth at the beginning of the year. How about you? Do you track your net worth? How did you do in 2018?

2 comments:

  1. I do not track my net worth, I just pay off debt and I do watch where our investment accounts are going, either up or down, but as long as I don't touch them I feel that I am on the right track.

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    1. That sounds like a great approach! Especially when you're paying off debt, which is the area you can best control vs how the stock market is performing.

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