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Quarterly Net Worth Update #4: 15 months Out

By Jimmy Turner, MD
The Physician Philosopher

This is the next installment of our Quarterly Net Worth Updates.  To read my previous Net Worth Updates click the following links.

If you don’t feel like clicking through those, our net worth started at negative (-) $208,000.  By six months out, it had improved to (-) $78,819. Then, by 9 months out we were at  (-) $40,270, and a year out we finally had a positive net worth  a +$45,000!

Where are we now?  Read on to find out.

[Note: I use personal capital to track my net worth.  It’s a great tool and is completely free, though they’ll ask you to manage your money if you have >$100,000 in assets. I’ll refer you to my “Do-it-yourself” Investing Page to see what I think about that.]

15 Months Out: Net Worth Update

Assets

Here are my assets and the dollar amount for each category.  All of this is as of 10/27/18

Asset Class Investment Amount 10/27/18
Checking Cash $26,484
Savings (emergency fund) Cash $30,076
TPP 403B Vanguard Institutional Index Fund $30,673
  Vanguard Mid-Cap Index Fund $17,506
  Vanguard Small-Cap Index Fund $17,323
Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund $11,792
 Mrs. TPP 457 (governmental) NC Fixed Income Index Fund $379
NC Large Cap Index Fund (Black Rock) $7,090
NC Small/Mid Cap Index Fund (Black Rock) $4,559
NC International Index Fund (Black Rock) $2,747
My Back Door Roth Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund $5,300
Mrs. TPP Back Door Roth Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund $5,300
529 TPP Kid # 1 (Utah) $5,157
529 TPP Kid # 2 (Utah) $2,757
529 TPP Kid # 3 (Utah) $2,054
Home Equity (Fair Market Value = $130,000) $32,000
Total Assets
(Total Assets without house included)
$195,897
($163,897)

General comments on my assets

Comment Number 1: The numbers are a bit down for the quarter, but that will be explained below.  Overall, our contributions haven’t dipped to our accounts outside of our 529 which we slowed down because our two youngest are in full time day care now.

Comment Number 2: Our house value has increased as we are planning to sell and have started noting comparable homes in the area that have recently sold.

Investment Comments on Assets

Comment Number 1:  We are invested heavily in stocks. This has impacted our quarterly update a lot as the market entered a correction (down by 10% in the last month).  This cost my net worth update about $15,000, but that’s the way the market goes!  We can expect a correction once every 1.5 years.

Comment Number 2: I recently made the decision to start investing more of our future allocations in bonds (likely be around 90/10 or 85/15 around next quarter).

Debts

Here are my family’s current debts.

As a continued shout out: If you want to read a great book that provides perspective on why you should aggressively pay down your debt, I recommend Dr. Fawcett’s book on Eliminating Debt for Doctors.

Class Amount of Debt
Student Loans $62,211
My Car Loan $37,841
Her Car Loan $22,482
Home Mortgage (~98,000)*
Total Debt $122,534

Some Comments on my Debt

Comment Number 1:  We just received our quarterly bonus check, and this would typically be put towards our debt, but we like to save it up in our emergency fund and smash the debt with a hammer when we apply it every six months.

Comment Number 2:  Given our decision to purchase a house, we have pushed back our timeline a touch from the last quarterly net worth update.  But the goal was always to pay off our debt in 24 months after training, which we will still accomplish.

Comment Number 3: Once our student loans are gone, that will free up $5,500 in cash flow each month.  $2500 will go towards a mortgage payment on a new house (combined with our current mortgage payment).  $2,000 will go to a taxable investment account.  And I’ve decided to put an additional $500 per month towards car loans + bonuses to pay off the cars as quickly as possible.

Comment Number 4: The car loans still exist, but they will be dealt with in short order after the student loans are paid off.

Net Worth  

Net Worth = Assets – Debts

$195,897 – $122,534 = (positive) $73,363! 

Goals / Summary

  • We improved our net worth by $26,930 in the last quarter.  Not too bad given that we lost $10,000-15,000 to the market correction.  Taking the big picture perspective we are doing quite well.
  • Since I finished training (when my net worth was -$208,000), we have improved our position by $281,363 in just 15 months.
  • We plan to buy a house, but still plan to pay off our loans in two years after training, which was the original goal.

This should serve as proof that living like a resident after you works if you make a plan and stick with it!

Take Home

We continue to build our net worth regularly and consistently. The vast majority of our dollars go towards this endeavor + 10% to tithing at our church each month.

We did have to make some compromises in our decision to push back our loan timeline to the original two year mark, but I think it is worth it because we are finding balance in doing so.

Share your awesome financial news!  What goals have you accomplished this year? How did you do it?  Leave a comment below.

TPP

16 Comments

  1. Wealthy Doc

    Congratulations!
    Keep up your solid habits that have built this platform to launch you into a FI future!

    Reply
  2. Xrayvsn

    Congratulations on still having positive gains for the quarter despite a market correction.

    The correction hit all of us (I lost more on this minor correction than I had invested total in the market before the 2009 crash due to the amount of I have currently invested (mo money, mo problems).

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Haha I bet! I am sure the same will happen to me ten years from now. Just gotta keep on truckin’

      Reply
  3. Dr. McFrugal

    Nice work! I’m reading Dr. Cory S. Fawcett’s book right now and it’s fantastic.

    Now that you are clearly in the positive, are you going to start a taxable account soon? Or are you paying off debts first? Just curious 🙂

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Loans, then two cars and taxable account at same time.

      Might just go after car loans, too, before starting a taxable. Good question!

      What did you do?

      Reply
  4. Dr. McFrugal

    I aggressively paid off student loans first because they were at a 4.5% and 6.8% interest rate.

    After that, I started a taxable account.

    I have a car loan that I can pay off really fast, but the rate is 3.25% so I don’t feel like I have to pay it off anytime soon.

    Reply
  5. Dr. GFG

    Nice quarterly job! Surprised that you have $56K+ in cash…your living expenses are probably 4-6K/month. Not tempted to pay 20K down in debt? Shrink your cash reserve to 6 months if you’re at 6K. Also, btw, when will you be doing physician interview number 13? I’ll offer to be one as soon as I get into millionaire territory.

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Yeah I just got paid a bonus. Some of that will go towards paying off loans. We are just waiting for the dust to settle on buying the new house and selling our old one. Will probably combine equity from house and some cash to put a huge dent in what’s left

      Also, the interviews go every Friday until I run out of volunteers. After that, I’ll feature them every Friday whenever I have one. So number 13 comes out tomorrow.

      Shoot me an email whenever you’re interested

      Reply
  6. Dr. GFG

    Nice! Wait until your student loans are paid off! It’s going to feel amazing. Just got through with mine this year! Also, as far as home buying goes…big house, big expenses. My wife and I love our house, but the total monthly payments are probably double the mortgage and interest. This is for electricity, gas, lawn, gardening, cleaning/organizing home, carpet cleaning, repairs, et cetera. Then, consider that more space = more interior decorating, furniture, et cetera. You still may opt for a big dream house. Just something to consider.

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Definitely valid points. We will be shamelessly house poor until the loans are officially paid off. Fortunately, that’s not gonna take too long after the we sell the old house.

      Reply
  7. Greenbacks Magnet

    Wow. This is very detailed. I like it.

    For myself, it was a book I read that sprung me into action to attack my debt. It was advice from John Legend where he said the first thing he did with his first big payday was pay off all his debt and he never looked back.

    What inspired me to start massively saving was Grant of Millennial Money. I decided to just give up like everything for a year and see what happens. I saved over $11,000 dollars.

    Thank you for sharing your financial journey. Keep up the good work.

    Miriam

    Reply
    • ThePhysicianPhilosopher

      Grant’s work over on Millennial Money has helped a lot of people! I think whatever tools or tricks you can use to help you get there are great, too.

      $11,000 in one year is no joke! That’s really strong work. I bet when you sacrificed everything, you found out you didn’t need as much as you thought. At least that’s been my experience when I cut back on stuff.

      Reply

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