May 2013 Net Worth: $371,000 (+1.4%)

	Value	% Change
Assets	$729,000	+0.6%
Liabilities	$358,000	-0.1%
Net worth	$371,000	+1.4%

In April 2013 I was targeting a net worth of $370,000 which I just managed to beat this month.  As I predicted last month one of the big swing factors in the month would be the share market and this proved to be the case.   Also, unexpectedly I had some big personal expenditures and my credit card bill, which blew out significantly last month only decreased slightly this month when I was expecting it to come in.

I confess that although I picked some of the factors that would drive this months net worth performance I was surprised by other factors (both positive and negative).  I have split the factors into both positive and negative factors this month for ease of reading

Positives

• A larger than expected increase in my superannuation account
• My superannuation sector allocations are actually much more conservative than my active share investments and I have diversified among sectors fairly evenly 
• This would seem counter intuitive given how young I am however the risk of my active share portfolio is actually quite high (I have a large beta exposure) so I am comfortable with this
• This has cost me returns in the last few months however it seemed to come good this month when the share market was under-performing
• Continued contribution to my employee share plan
• This has helped my returns time and time again as it is forced investment that I do not even think about when doing my savings / spending split
• If you don't have some sort of automatic savings plan that takes your cash before you see it then I think you should definitely get onto it

Negatives

•  A particularly bad month on the share market
• The share market had been running strongly for the last few months and I had noted in previous net worth posts that I was surprised at the returns I was getting from them
• This month turned out to be a month for correction and almost all of my shares were down for the month
• I used this opportunity to buy some shares.  I did not go as aggressively as I could have gone as I think there will be further buying opportunities to come
• A surprisingly high credit card bill
• At the start of the month I thought I would be able to pay down my credit card significantly over the month
• As it turned out however my balance at the end of the month was only marginally lower than last month (which was a terrible month)
• My May 2013 expenditure tracker will go into more detail around this but I had a weekend away with my girlfriend as well as having a rather expensive service done on my car which contributed to blowing out my credit card bill
• A lower than expected pay down on my home loan
• I normally pay off all my bills, allocate a portion for personal expenditure in cash and then use the rest to pay down my home loan or to invest in shares
• This month I had less to invest because I was paying down last months credit card bill - unfortunately this will also be the case next month

June is going to be impacted again by my credit card repayment and the associated inability to pay down my home loan further.  I have just paid for a weekend overseas trip and have a few weddings coming up so I fear for the state of my credit card bill...again!  The lower interest rates on my home loan should help but I am not forecasting a stellar performance unless there is another bounce in the share market.  For June 2013 I am targeting a net worth of $375,000.

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