Wednesday 1 May 2013

April 2013 Net Worth: $366,000 (+2.4%)


Value% Change
Assets$724,000+1.6%
Liabilities$358,000+0.7%
Net worth$366,000+2.4%

In my March 2013 net worth I forecast that April would be a much better net worth result than March had been due to lower credit card repayments and a greater ability to save and invest money this month.  My performance was so much better than I expected mainly due to the continued strong run in the share market.

I was particularly happy with how this month turned out and I have outlined some of the reasons for it below.  As you can see this was mainly an asset driven performance outcome.
  • The strong share market returns helped my performance
    • I bought some broad based index funds over the month.  I was actually planning on spreading my purchases from week to week but the first purchase ran so strongly that I thought the market would correct and held off from putting in more which turned out to be an error.
  • A big increase was from my managed funds
    • I have some externally managed funds outside of my exchange traded funds.  I only check the value of these whenever a statement is sent out to me (once every six months).  I do not add to these at all because the expense ratios are too high so I do not keep a close track of them.
    • The value of these increased significantly since I last had a statement (6 months ago) and this helped my performance this month
  • My cash on hand increased to a more 'normalised' level
    • In April I ran my cash down to a really low level (I outlined some of the ways I saved cash when things got tight in this post) and I put some of my wage towards increasing this to a more normalised level
    • I try to have at least $500 remaining in my transaction account by the time payday comes around which translates to approximately $1,000 at the end of the previous month and I am currently right on this level
  • The automatic contributions to my superannuation and employee share plans continued
    • Superannuation is one of the best savings tools there is for individual as it is enforced savings
    • I view my employee share plan in much the same way - it allows me to save and invest a significant amount before I have the cash to consider blowing on something else
  • My credit card debt increased significantly
    • Unfortunately my credit card debt increased significantly.  Part of this was expected - when I was running low on cash at the start of the month I was funding a lot of my expenditure on my credit card however some of it (such as car repairs) were unexpected and increased it significantly
    • I am also going on a weekend trip away and had to pay for my accommodation on my credit card.
In my April 2013 expenditure tracker I will outline in more detail the interplay between my cash and credit card balance.  I'm currently trying to find a more dynamic way of keeping track of my expenses.  This is becoming more relevant as I have to do my own shopping since moving out of home (as well as socialising a lot more).

The share market is the big swing factor in how I have been performing.  Indeed I thought this month was going to be a close to negative performance again because of the share market dip at the start of the month.  Assuming the share market remains flat I do not think May 2013 will be that good in terms of my net worth performance.  I have a reasonably big credit card payment coming and will be going away on my holiday which will soak up some cash as well.  I am targeting a net worth of $370,000 for May 2013.

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