Tag: net worth

October Net Worth Update

We have crept into November, here in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Our trees are now handsome shades of red and orange, and while nothing rivals the splendor of a New England Fall, the foliage is looking particularly lovely right now.

And I don’t have to brace for seven months of winter, either.

Life is good.

I thought as much on Sunday when I looked next to me and saw my sister on the pew next to me in church. We’ve started attending the same church on Sundays and it’s just another way I get to see my nieces and my sister and BIL regularly. It’s hard to explain the satisfaction that comes from living close to my family. But it’s a feeling of relief. I’m not living 14 hours away anymore. I don’t have to plot and scheme to figure out how to move closer to them. We’re currently living in the most idyllic of locations, our little town of Davidson. The weather is lovely, most of the time.

This week was Halloween and at my school, we had a Trunk or Treat event for the kids, replete with a Halloween-themed scavenger hunt. My middle schoolers brought flowers for the Ofrenda we created for a beloved teacher who died last year.

My own kids trick-or-treated in our neighborhood, despite steady rain, and came back with an impressive haul.

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I get an entire week off. We’ll head to the beach house to soak in some sand, turkey, and family.

Our Progress

We did so well in September with our spending, but October saw us back to our newly-spendy(er) habits.

We’ve been using the part of my salary that’s not designated for my 403b to fix up several things in the house that need fixing. We’ve updated our dishwasher, which was essentially worthless, and just finished getting our cabinets painted. We toyed with the idea of doing it ourselves, but the truth is, we had no idea how, so I’m infinitely glad we left it in the hands of professionals.

Continue reading “October Net Worth Update”

May Net Worth Update

The final countdown… yes, we have one more week of school left. The kids are remarkably sanguine. I am excited for the days where we won’t have the mad morning rush for a few blessed months.

We had another extremely full month in May. Since the weather has warmed up, there has been almost more to do than I can keep up with, leading to this post on how it’s a lot harder to be frugal when you’re busy.

We’ve also been spending a lot and not saving as much as I’d like, which has reminded me why I like having a job so much… extra income. While I’ve been on several interviews, I still don’t have anything lined up for fall. However, I have two promising meetings this coming week, and I’m continuing to apply to many different schools (and universities!).

Our Progress

This month our net worth dropped, because the stock market dropped. So, sadly, we ‘re one step back. We usually have less net worth progress in the summer months, so I’m prepared for several months of disappointing net worth reports.

Continue reading “May Net Worth Update”

The Golden Rule of Building Wealth

Everyone wants the magic formula, the hat trick, the secret, to becoming wealthy. And no, it’s not “you attract to you what you think about.”

The golden rule of building wealth is simple. It’s so simple, it’s been repeated ad infinitum by the personal finance community, financial planners, and people who actually have wealth.

It’s been systematically attacked, hacked, subjugated, by practically every other entity in our society.

Ready? Here it is: spend less than you earn.

Oh, and we can’t forget the corollary: invest the difference.

Boom. We’re done.

Oh, if only, dear reader. If only it were that simple. If only I hadn’t felt dread course up and down my body yesterday as I calculated how much we’ve gone over budget in March. If only Payday Loan Centers didn’t sprout like fire ants across the small rural communities of this country.

If only we didn’t have the hear the siren call of advertisements fill our every waking moment, to peruse the endless streams of social media promising you’ll be better, faster, and stronger, if you click here and buy it now.

Spending less than you earn, as simple as it sounds, is one of the hardest things to do as a human being living in our modern (especially first world) society. It involves saying “no” one hundred, one thousand, ten thousand times per day to what can feel like everyone and everything around you. It involves staying true to a distant goal for a distant self, living like you’re in a different economic class, developing copious amounts of will power over time, and not letting it all fall apart if your life becomes unglued, through death, divorce, or some other tragedy.

It sometimes feels like an impossible task. And yet, people accumulate wealth every day. People save; people retire; they pay off their mortgages.

In my experience, as a reformed spend-a-holic, we’ve been able to slowly accumulate wealth in the face of all these temptations because of a couple of behaviors that have allowed us to practice “The Golden Rule of Building Wealth” while still existing in a consumerist society.

Continue reading “The Golden Rule of Building Wealth”

January Net Worth Update

Ahh, January. What can I say about my least favorite month? You’re cold. You’re long. You’re at the beginning of the year and don’t really contain any fun breaks or holidays (not forgetting about you, MLK Jr. Day and Presidents’ Day, but you’re not quite as fun as say, Spring Break).

We have made it through our first January in North Carolina, and I have to say, although we didn’t suffer through -14F temps like we did last year in New Hampshire, it was still pretty darn cold most days.

I struggled to keep up with Lucy the dog’s massive energy, and tried to walk her each and every day, even as my fingers and nose protested bitterly in the wet and chilly 20F temps of the early morning.

Our Progress

We eeked out another small gain with our net worth this month. We’ve definitely seen a difference in our net worth growth with me not working (it’s been slower!).

Continue reading “January Net Worth Update”

November Net Worth Update

Wow! It’s almost December, which means we’ve got just one month left of this year. This year has definitely been an eventful one for our family.

November Net Worth Update www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

This month has been a good one. We’ve been surprised by how cold it’s gotten in Charlotte during the fall (it’s been in the 20s this week in the mornings, but it does warm up to the mid 50s or 60s during the day). The boys both seem to have gotten into a groove at school, I’m running now with a running group, and Mr. ThreeYear has been regularly playing tennis.

Last night, we went to our town’s downtown Christmas celebration via trolley! We parked in a parking lot at the edge of our neighborhood and the cutest little trolley picked us up. The boys actually got to ride standing up in the back of the trolley as we cruised the four miles downtown.

Once we got downtown, there were carriage rides, vendors, a Christmas tree display, bands playing, and Santa Claus. The boys and my niece, who was with us, had a blast. It made me so glad we decided to move to this town, because it’s ridiculous how festive and involved our town is. We are freakin’ Mayberry over here. I absolutely love it.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Since we’ve achieved the latter goal, we’ll be primarily focused on the former in each of these reports going forward. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we tried to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Even though it looks like we’ll miss our target by a wide margin, we’re keeping our goal in place to see how close we can get in 2019.  Continue reading “November Net Worth Update”

October Net Worth Update

Hi! I’m back with another net worth update.

October Net Worth Update www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

October was a fun, warm, leave-changing, slow fall month for us. I say “slow fall” because in New Hampshire, the leaves started changing colors around August 1st (every year!) and then from mid-September to the first week of October, went into riotous “bloom” until a heavy rain would take them out and all the leaves would be bare. Fall was brief.

In North Carolina, fall has slowly moseyed its way in, the leaves have taken their time changing color, getting darker and darker over weeks, not days, and are also taking their time dropping to the ground, as the temperatures shift between 40s and 50s to 60s and occasionally, 70s (F).

I know I talk about the weather a lot. But when you spent the last eight years as a Southerner in exile in bleak New England, you get at least a year to geek out about the amazing warm weather in the South.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Since we’ve achieved the latter goal, we’ll be primarily focused on the former in each of these reports going forward. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. It’s looking more and more like we’re going to miss that by a wide margin. But since we know we don’t always reach our goals, especially our BHAGs, we’ll just keep working ’til we hit it!  Continue reading “October Net Worth Update”

It’s All Relative

Yesterday I went running with a group of women from my neighborhood. We recently moved to a large neighborhood in Davidson, North Carolina, and the neighborhood we moved into, to use terminology from The Millionaire Next Door, is “income affluent.” That means that people in this neighborhood tend to have high incomes, but also spend large amounts of money so that they have a low level of net worth.

In other words, they’re broke.

I was proud of myself–I had gotten on Facebook and posted a message to the neighborhood women’s group we have there. I found several women who were interested in starting a runner’s group, something I sorely needed since I have about motivation to run as I do to clean the toilets (read: none). But running, unlike toilet cleaning, is good for me in myriad ways, predominantly mental health-wise, so it’s helpful to have accountability partners in the journey. Continue reading “It’s All Relative”

August Net Worth Update

Happy Labor Day! In the US, this is the day that normally signals the true end of summer. School started for our family last week, and my parents are here celebrating the long weekend.

August Net Worth Update www.thethreeyearexperiment.com

The month of August has been awesome. Weather-wise, it’s the worst month of the year in North Carolina, but I keep telling myself that if I can run in this heat and humidity, I’m set because it’ll just get cooler from here on out. We’ve enjoyed the pool, had Junior ThreeYear go to his first-ever overnight camp in New Hampshire, had two sets of visitors (our friends from NH who now live in TX and my parents), and started school. Mr. ThreeYear and I have been walking the boys to the bus stop each morning, along with Lucy, and it’s been so fun to make friends with our neighbors and see our kids off to school each day.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Since we’ve achieved the latter goal, we’ll be primarily focused on the former in each of these reports going forward. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Given our move and the market, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try. Continue reading “August Net Worth Update”

July Net Worth Update

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I am happy. I know I’m in the honeymoon phase of our move, but I am so glad to live in North Carolina. We see my sister, brother-in-law, and niece, maybe three times a week. We spent the entire weekend with them last weekend. I know we’ll start school and get into routines and not see them as often, but my niece now thinks that when she comes to my house, she is supposed to eat marshmallows and watch Captain Underpants on my bed with her cousin.

We drive through the streets of our little town and I just smile, because it’s so cute. And we picked it! We didn’t get carried by the circumstances of life to a place. We picked the place we wanted to be and moved there. It’s an incredibly freeing feeling. I am also really enjoying Mr. ThreeYear working from home. Yes, he starts early and works hard, but we get to see him more, because he finishes earlier (no commute!), eats lunch with us everyday, and pops out for coffee breaks. He’s there when service people come by the house, which is reassuring.

Financially, I am not happy, because moving has cost an arm and a leg, and we’ve spent another arm and a leg doing repairs on our new house. Carpet cleaning, painting, air conditioning repair, stocking the fridge, paying neighborhood dues, etc.

I’m trying to keep in mind that this month’s spending has been an anomaly, and because we’re not moving again for a very long time, we will not incur these expenses again for a very long time. Despite all the spending, we managed to increase our net worth. Let’s take a look.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Since we’ve achieved the latter goal, we’ll be primarily focused on the former in each of these reports going forward. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending. Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before. This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Given our move and the market, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try. Continue reading “July Net Worth Update”

March Net Worth Update

It’s raining right now, which is a small hint that Spring is making its way, slowly, to New England. The start of April signifies that we’ve entered the fourth month of the year and our experiment continues.

If you’re just joining, our family of four is on a three-year journey to double our net worth and become location independent. Each month, I record our progress on our net worth and our spending (gulp!). Last year, we increased our net worth by 32% over the year before! This year, we’re trying to increase it by more than 65% from where we started in December 2016. Given the wild ride the market’s likely to take us on this year, I’m not sure it’s doable. But we’re going to try.

March is always my least-favorite month of the year. The rest of the country is enjoying the first signs of Spring, and we’re still covered under snow. This year, March lived up to the adage, and came in like a lion, with storm after storm that buffeted us with snow and left the skies gray and damp. It went out like a lamb, with a few days at the tail end full of blue skies and (slightly warmer) temps. But April has brought wind storms, more cold weather, and a reminder that here in New England, there is no such thing as Spring.

Continue reading “March Net Worth Update”