The Monthly Financial Update gives our readers an inside look at the allocation and performance of our personal portfolio. At the beginning of each month, we share a snapshot of our investments and highlight their performance over the previous month. In addition, we compute our progress towards achieving our retirement number.
Headed Back In The Right Direction...?
Well, we haven't gotten back to the days of 2-3% monthly growth. In fact, we didn't even hit 1% growth this month. What we did do, however, is reverse the negative slide that began last month. As I mentioned then, when the market falls, to me it just means I can purchase the same things I've been purchasing, only at a discounted rate. And while I truly believe that (and love a good discount), I'm pleased to say we are back in the positive this month. Even though we achieved a relatively small growth in net worth, the actual volume of our holdings increased by much more (due to buying at a "discount"). For this reason, I consider this month a great success.
Results:
0.38% month over month growth
34.7% of retirement number saved
Check out our performance in the table below.
The Numbers
Accounts Portfolio Allocation Change In Value (March-April)
Liquid Funds 1.6% 7.1%
High-Yield Savings 8.1% 0%
REITs 1.3% -9.1%
401(k)s 51.6% -0.6%
IRAs 3.7% -1.2%
HSA 0.2% 48.5%
Cryptocurrencies 0% -44.3%
P2P Lending 0.3% 1.1%
Taxable Stock Investments 33.2% 2.1%
Debt 0.0% -59.9%
Total = 100%
Portfolio Allocation = Current asset distribution of our portfolio
Investment Performance = Change in account value due to asset appreciation/depreciation, deposits, and withdrawals
Tools To Get You Started
Get a head start on your journey toward achieving financial independence by analyzing and tracking your income, expenses, investment performance, and overall net worth with the free online wealth management tool Personal Capital.
We use Personal Capital regularly to analyze our investment fees, track our investments, and project our net worth. We also periodically review our progress toward retirement with their retirement planning calculator.
If you’d rather do things on your own, become a subscriber today and you’ll receive our Free Financial Planning Dashboard. This tool allows you to enter your income and expenses to create a detailed budget. You can use it to track your spending habits over time or just to get an idea of where your money is going each month. Take a look at the automatically generated charts and you may discover you have a little more cash to invest than you thought.
If you’re interested in detailed instructions on how to budget, save, pay off debt, and invest, check out The 6 Phases of Building Wealth. This book provides step-by-step instructions for working through each “Phase” in the process of achieving Financial Freedom. If you're just starting out, the information in this book will provide you with an invaluable resource. You can pick up the digital version for only $2.99 on Amazon.
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