It’s check-in time!
I love writing these posts, I feel like it validates our approach and gives me some warm feelings on the inside. Just like a pull of fireball while ice fishing – just feels right.
That reminds me, Summer is over, might as well go straight to -10 if you ask me. Not a huge fan of fall, it messes with my thermostat and in MN it’s a toss-up between 35 degrees and 95. Doesn’t make planning really easy!
Some Random updates from the AE household
- Little AE just turned 6 Months old and is adorable. Not crawling yet, but we are getting close (if you follow me on Twitter you will get the occasional baby pic tweet!). She also has a few teeth!
- We started finishing our basement! It’s a major project that will take at least 3-4 months. Will be calling in favors from friends and family to help out with stuff I am not comfortable doing.
- Mrs. AE got a new job! At a new company! More on this later – but it helped us surpass one of our yearly goals
For anyone that has not seen this done before, I hold myself accountable by posting my net worth progress for everyone to see. I firmly believe there is more value in setting and tracking goals, but like to check in on our progress quarterly.
On to the Numbers!
Breaking Down our Net Worth progress this Quarter
Two things make me think our ball might be starting to roll a little bit on its own…..
- Over a $19,000 Increase in our Net Worth (13.04%). Record dollar amount gain in one-quarter
- Over a $14,000 Cash/Investment Jump – Which is mostly attributed to investment increases. This is also a record dollar amount gain in one-quarter.
The only difference between this quarter and last quarter is an extra month of increase 401K contributions. Only explanation is our money is doing more work for us. Might be a short-lived situation if the market turns, but I love seeing our decisions validated with real dollars. I can definitely see how people say the first $100,000 is the hardest – the second is coming way easier already.
The Good
Even More Stock Market Power
I have thanked the stock market 3 updates in a row. It is doing some heavy lifting and making these updates look pretty good! More please.
401K Contribution
You can see sizable jumps the last two-quarters in the chart above, making a huge difference already. Another real-world example of why investing in your 401K is so important. Especially for Millennials – start now! Mine might hit 50K by the end of the year (also might have just jinxed myself).
Student Loans
Another $2,876 falls off the top of my Student Loan balance – not as great as last quarter and sooooooo close to breaking the 10K barrier. Still a win.
House is FINALLY fixed
It took just over 3 months for our house to get back to normal after a nasty storm ripped through our neighborhood. The siding order was delayed so we spent a decent chunk of the summer with hundreds of holes in our home. Thankfully we are done dealing with insurance companies and contractors. Better be for a long time too.
The Bad
Not a lot to complain about!
Extra Medical Bills
After battling over the extra medical bills we got last quarter we found where the mistake was made, and unfortunately, they were not billing us incorrectly. Just at a really random timeline (over 4 months late) and our insurance didn’t factor in our deductibles in the first round of bills.
Q3 Goal Check In
Our Q3 goals were to get back to our pre-baby saving levels so I will use that as the template for our Goal tracking.
Return to our Pre-Baby savings rate (39%)
- Passed! Last I calculated it was closer to 40%! Our raises starting May 1st are the only reason we were able to bridge this gap. I have also found we are spending less on evenings and most weekends with a baby (helps cover the insurance/daycare costs). The allocation has changed slightly (not contributing to Mrs. AE’s Roth IRA, but my 401K contribution is up a ton. I also upped Mrs. AE’s allocation another Percentage point after writing the 1% post.
Continue Making Double Student Loan Payments
- Passed! Continued paying down my student loans at an accelerated rate.
- Fail! Extra $125 student loan payment every 2 weeks (this used to be our emergency fund contribution). Assuming daycare ate this. Might try to get back to it by EOY
Extra Goals
Pay off our hospital bills
- Fail! We have an outstanding balance on one of our bills. Mostly due to billing issue I discussed earlier. Will get it done by EOY.
Yearly Goals to check off
Grow Combined income by 6%
- Passed! Combined with our 5% and 6% increase in May, Mrs. AE’s new job puts us over the top of our goal for this year! She is getting a 9% bump for the move along with some other perks that could push this even further. Year to date we are up 9% over last year!
Blog Updates
- RockStar Feature – I was featured on Rockstar Finance for my Can You do 1% Better post. Check it out and see what 1% can do!
- FinCon! – THIS MONTH!!!!! Looking forward to meeting my internet friends in real life. I might need to bring a mask just in case I need to quickly hide my identity.
- Traffic – The Rockstar bump helped again! Pinterest was a little more stable this last quarter but still not up to the levels I was seeing mid-late last year. I also had my financial quarter, not sure what happened but the stars aligned or something. If it happens again I will get excited (most of it is being rolled back into the site).
- Guest Posts – Started hosting guests posts again, I do have a few minor requirements but if you are interested shoot me an email.
Thanks for reading! Hope you all had a great quarter!
Nice numbers! As the bottom line gets bigger, those types of percentage increases (or decreases) will be harder to maintain, and will normalize toward the average returns overall. I’ve kept similar records since 1990 and the single biggest downturn period was 7.5% . I’m expecting a similar drop soon.
Thank you for the comment Jim
Yea, I fully expect those % to drop as our pile grows – but I am willing to accept that 🙂
We are prepared for a dip – just hope we don’t see anything major that costs people jobs.
Great job, Mr. AE! We need to get a HH on the calendar soon – I want to see some more pics of your little girl! We just celebrated the 1st birthday for our little one.
I like how in less than two years you more than doubled your net worth – kudos!
Thank you!
Yes, yes we do. Congrats on the milestone. Now that the weather is getting cold all the crazy summer events should wind down freeing up some HH!
It feels good to see some progress!
My net worth updates are my favorite to write too. Looking good. Big change from Q1-16! You need to chart that progress.
I had a chart a while back but it looked pretty lame with only a few data points, but I think you are right, should be enough info to make it look good now!
Awesome to see that student loan balance drop some more. We should definitely meet up all of us. Any chance you’re gonna go to MN Blog Con. It’s on October 14th, which is a Saturday. I went last year and met a few interesting people.
I didn’t know about the MN Blog Con! I just checked it out. I need to move a few things around, but I am going to try and make it.
I don’t think I can make it this weekend, unfortunately, but definitely, want to meet up soon. If anything FinCon?
Happy 6 months to your baby! I think we should have a PF blogger baby meet up, there seems to be a lot of 2017 PF blogger babies…we can teach them basics like dividend investing and compound interest 🙂
Congrats on finishing your basement! Housing projects take a long time but once you complete them, it feels so good! It took us quite a while to baby proof our home (meaning install a gate), have yet to do baby proof the fridge/ stove etc.
Thank you! There were a ton of babies in the last year! More future PF nerds running around
Finding time to get to the basement is going to be a struggle, might have to take a few days off work.
Almost crawling?! Where is the time going! And congrats to Mrs. AE on the new job. Looks like things are going really well for the AEs. Hooray!
I dont know! She is a chunk right now and started scooting around on her butt a little bit. We had a rough week teething (with a cold) last week but are hopefully back to normal
Awesome month AE! I love reading your updates, and so good things have clicked in to place financially and family wise. Congrats to Mrs AE on the new job too. Keep makin your moves bud!
The bads not too bad and the good is great! Congrats on baby’s half birthday, I heard from my mom friends that this is when it starts getting exciting. And congrats on your wife for the new job! All’s lookin’ good. I’ll get the post to you by Monday, I’ve hit writer’s block… *quietly slinks away*
Awesome job! Congrats to Mrs. AE on the new job and baby’s almost milestone. Once they start crawling there is no going back – they are in all the mischief!
The stock market is definitely helping us all see growth in NW. Not excited for the time in the future when that reverses – eek!