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.
Amazing (financial) Year
What an amazing financial year!! Although we continued to struggle through a, seemingly, unending pandemic, our investment portfolio made a killing over the past 12 months. During the entire year, we only had two small month-over-month pull backs. Every other month resulted in solid growth, so much so, I was sure we would meet and possibly even exceed our financial goal for the year! While we didn't quite make it, I'm still very pleased with our results.
Just like we mentioned at the start of 2021, our ultimate goal is to reach 150% of our retirement number. We feel this will give us a large enough buffer to retire comfortably, without fear of an unknown future. This year we are shooting for that goal. In 2022, we want to save 150% of our retirement number, after which we plan to officially enter early retirement!!
Goals for 2022:
1. Reach 150% of our retirement number
2. Set an official retirement date
Results:
5.46% month-over-month growth
124.6% of retirement number saved
2021 Total Net Worth Growth (Jan. 2021 - Jan. 2022) = 32.1%
Check out our detailed performance in the table below.
The Numbers
Accounts Portfolio Allocation Change In Value
(December-January)
Liquid Funds 0.21% +27.29%
High-Yield Savings 4.72% +0.81%
REITs 0.31% +4.96%
401(k)s 41.15% +4.22%
IRAs 4.62% +5.53%
HSA 1.69% +6.62%
Cryptocurrencies 0.07% -18.57%
Taxable Stock Investments 45.91% +6.84%
Debt 1.31% -0.50%
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
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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