Year-End Monthly Financial Update – January 1, 2021

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.

Unforgettable Year

2020 was an absolutely unforgettable year, in more ways than one. On the financial side of things, the stock market was extremely volatile. At times, it even looked like we might enter a long-term recession. In the end, the market's volatility subsided a bit and we completed the year on a high note. As a result, we were able to meet the two financial goals we set for ourselves this year. The first goal was to reach 90% of our retirement number. As I noted in last month's financial update, we recently met that goal. This month we pushed even further beyond our 90% target! The second goal was to average $1,250 in monthly passive income. It came right down to the wire, but this goal was also met! All of the passive income was generated via dividends and interest.

With 2020 in the books, it's time for some new goals to aspire to. Reaching 100% of our retirement number would allow us to quit our jobs and still maintain our current lifestyle indefinitely, however, we want to go beyond that and eventually build our net worth up to 150% of our retirement number. This would give us the flexibility to adapt if we need to change our spending habits in the future due to an unforeseen (or expected...) circumstance (healthcare, tax changes, children, etc.), without being forced to reenter the job market. It's probably not feasible to go from 90-ish% to 150% in just one year, therefore we have decided that our goal for 2021 is to reach 125% of our retirement number!

Results:
4.18% month-over-month growth

94.3% of retirement number saved

2020 Total Net Worth Growth (Jan. 2020 - Jan. 2021) = 37.4%

Check out our detailed performance in the table below.

The Numbers

AccountsPortfolio AllocationChange In Value
(December-January)
Liquid Funds0.26%9.83%
High-Yield Savings6.79%1.33%
REITs0.48%1.77%
401(k)s43.67%3.83%
IRAs4.30%2.98%
HSA1.48%5.23%
Cryptocurrencies0.04%50.69%
Taxable Stock Investments42.91%5.00%
Debt0.07%-20.47%
Total =100%

Portfolio Allocation = Current asset distribution of our portfolio
Change In Value = Change in account value due to asset appreciation/depreciation, deposits, and withdrawals

Growth Toward Financial Independence

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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