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Posts tagged with: full time job

How We Track Our Net Worth (and Why It Motivates Us More Than a Budget)

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I love a good budget! For years I used YNAB before moving over to EveryDollar. There’s something about the tangibility of seeing a budget laid out, moving dollars from one category to another, that really appeals to me. Every dollar has a job. Every dollar has a place.

I still use a budget to help identify areas where we may have experienced some bloat (like our food spending!) and to generally ensure we’re staying in control of our money. But recently, I saw an influencer mention how she tracks her net worth monthly, and it was a lightbulb moment – I need to do this!

I’ve talked about where we save and invest, how we’re planning to handle an upcoming raise, etc. So tracking our net worth seems like the natural next step. It gives a fuller picture than a budget alone and helps keep me motivated toward our larger financial goals.

Net Worth Tracking

I use the simplest definition of net worth: Assets minus liabilities. 

For assets, I include all of our various accounts – from savings (Bank of America, Capital One 360, e-trade), to retirement accounts, mutual funds, and individual stocks (Fidelity, Vanguard, CashApp). I even include an estimate of our home equity.

For liabilities, I deduct our only two debts: our remaining mortgage balance and my student loan balance.

One big benefit of this approach is being able to clearly see progress over time and quickly spot any areas in need of rebalancing.

Rebalancing

When the stock market got a little rocky there for a bit, I didn’t pull any money out. But I did start funneling more money into high yield savings accounts instead of putting as much into stocks or mutual funds. That flexibility helps us ride our market fluctuations while still building toward our goals.

Goals

It’s no secret that I’ve talked about wanting to purchase a rental property. Right now we have a short-term goal to buy a small rental property in the next year or so to start us on our real estate investment journey. Longer term (more like 5-ish years), we’d like to either grow or reinvest by acquiring a vacation property. This might just be another purchase, or we might sell the rental and reinvest those funds into a vacation property. Then we can use it for short term Airbnb rentals and also enjoy it ourselves. And I think management will be easier once we’ve dipped our toes into the “landlord” waters by having an in-town rental as a first step.

Tracking our net worth – not just our monthly budget – helps me feel like we’re making progress toward these larger goals because I can see the funds growing that we plan to use for a home down payment and associated purchasing costs.

How We Track It

I use a super simple method to track our net worth: an Excel spreadsheet.

Each month is its own tab. On the first of every month, I fill in updated balances for all our accounts. That way, I can easily look back and compare across time.

One thing I do not include is our vehicles. I know vehicles have some value to them but, ultimately, they are depreciating assets. Rather than include them in our net worth and figure out how to devalue them every month, I just exclude them from our overall net worth financial picture.

I do include our home, though. For this, I look at the Zillow Z-estimate as a rough estimate of its current value (yes, I know it’s not perfect), then subtract what we still owe to calculate our estimated equity.

Why This Works for Us

I am a very goal-oriented person. When I was in the early days of debt reduction, I made visual signs (like a thermometer I’d color in) to track our progress. Now that debt payoff is mostly behind us, this spreadsheet of assets keeps me just as motivated.

Take May, for example. It was an expensive month! Our dishwasher broke (only 6 months out of warranty!) and the repair would’ve cost as much as a new one. My husband also needed an emergency visit to an oral surgeon for some ongoing dental issues. Between those two things, we blew past our monthly budget and had to dip into savings. That stung.

But when I updated our net worth spreadsheet on the 1st, I realized that even after those withdrawals, our assets still grew. That’s helped me stay focused and positive – we’re still on track!

It’s also easy for lifestyle inflation to creep in when you earn more. Budgets don’t always show how your investments are growing, beyond what you plan to invest each month. But net worth tracking makes it real. It helps me stay accountable and motivated to keep that number growing.

And honestly? It feels empowering to watch us inch closer to big goals like real estate investment and eventual retirement – something a monthly budget just doesn’t capture.

What Do You Do?

Budgeting is still a crucial part of our financial life. But for me, budgeting helps with short-term control (month to month) while net worth tracking shows our long-term trajectory.

I’m curious – do any of you track your net worth? Or is this a newer idea like it was for me? If it’s new, I encourage you to give it a try. It might be the motivational tool you didn’t know you needed. Let me know what you think!



The House – Finally Done

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I hinted at a previous post that there were issues with the sale of the house. Or rather with the mortgage. The sale went like clockwork. Obviously I’m a newbie to selling a house, especially since this was the first one I ever purchased solo. But here’s what happened…

house, keys, financial statement

Timeline

April 25th – I requested official payoff statement from mortgage company via phone call. They stated that I would receive it via email the next day, but if I wanted it immediately, it would be loaded in my online portal. I logged in, grabbed it, and sent it to the buyer’s lawyer who was doing the closing. It was good through May 15th.

May 1st – I went in to sign closing docs, they were wrong. The lawyer had left off the closing costs I was paying for buyers.

May 2nd – I went back and signed corrected closing docs and provided account information for wire transfer for proceeds. I left town.

May 8th – Buyers signed and closed. No issues. Lawyer and real estate agent both communicated closing went smoothly.

May 9th – Lawyer wired the proceeds to my account and overnight check to mortgage company.

May 13th – Mortgage company acknowledges receipt of check. But leaves cryptic message on my voicemail to call about my mortgage, ie. “This is XXXX, please call us about your mortgage.” I had driven all day May 12th and into the wee hours of the 13th to get to Texas. I slept most of the day and was not really functional when I was awake.

May 14th – I called mortgage company back. Agent said lawyer sent the wrong amount for mortgage payoff. It was a LONG call just to get that information. No other details shared. I called lawyer to check and I had them send me the tracking information and stub of the check. The amount they sent matched what the payoff showed.

At this point, I assumed clerical error and left it.

May 16th or early the next week – Automated message from mortgage company that my payment is late and to log on to my portal and pay. I called mortgage company back. Different agent – “oh, the day after you pulled the payoff statement, we paid your homeowner’s insurance, which put your escrow in the negative. The difference between the payoff and what you negative escrow balance is $475ish.”

Me: “But why does it show I owe $1,900ish in the portal?”

Agent: “Let me escalate and have a supervisor call you back.”

Back and forth, back and forth – 9 calls and a week later.

Mortgage company did not apply the check they had received on May 13th (before pay off date) and continued to charge me interest on entirety of loan.

Lack of Clear Communication/False Information on Every Call

From mortgage supervisors:

  • We left message with lawyer.
  • We sent the check back.
  • It’s our policy…
  • Now you owe $900.
  • We will pull recorded calls to confirm.
  • No, we didn’t leave message with lawyer.
  • We hold the check for 30 days.
  • Now you owe $1,700.
  • In small print on the official payoff statement, there’s a statement that says to call to verify the amount is correct.

May 23rd – New payoff issued. Good til May 28th. I called lawyer because mortgage company said they had sent check back per their policy since it wasn’t the full pay off amount. And I had to have it back by 25th. And then pay an extra $789.37. It was a holiday weekend.

May 24th – I heard back from the lawyer. They did not have the check. They called mortgage company who told them, their policy is to hold the check for 30 days. Completely different then what they had told me.

May 25th – I logged on to portal and despite it showing I owed $1,700+ at this time, paid the $789.37. Called mortgage company again, another different supervisor…”ok, we will send the check back.” NO! Cash the check, close this mortgage. He then said he would do some research and either he or a previously spoken to supervisor would call me back by end of the day.

Finally, at the end of the day, a supervisor called me back and said “oh, we do have the check” – the same one who had insisted a week before that it had been sent back. “You just need to pay…” “I already did.” “Oh, yeah, I see that, ok, I’ll email XXX and say the mortgage is paid off.”

The next day…voicemail from mortgage company saying my payment is late and that I need to log on to the portal and make a payment. OMG!

Two days later…your account is paid and closed. Finally!

Never Again

Essentially, this ended up costing a little over $300 more than I should have had to pay. My dad who was witnessing all this happening wanted me to get a lawyer involved and not pay more. And I don’t think I should have had too. It truly wasn’t my fault. But I wanted it done! So I just paid and let it go.

But I have since spoken to not only my buyer’s lawyer, but also our family lawyer, and a number of other people involved in real estate and they are all flabbergasted at how this went down. The lack of clarity and clear communication from my mortgage company. The mis-information…9 phone calls and I got different information on EVERY SINGLE CALL. The lack of accountability. They insisted they sent the check back, they left a message with the lawyer, and so much more…

Now, I acknowledge, that if the lawyer or I had called per the small print on the payoff statement, this would have all been avoided. But the lawyer who is a real estate lawyer says they have NEVER had this happen or needed to call when it was an official payoff statement. Hindsight is 20/20.

But let’s just say that everyone who has witnessed all this has determined never to do business with this mortgage company again.