Tuesday 1 October 2013

September 2013 Net Worth: 394,000 (+2.4%)


Value% Change
Assets$752,000+1.0%
Liabilities$358,000-0.5%
Net worth$394,000+2.4%

As in recent months, this month's net worth performance was quite volatile.  After a flat performance last month I had quite a good performance this month.  My net worth target for this month was $390,000 and you can see above I have quite significantly exceeded that goal.

September 2013 had some swings in various accounts (most notably my share portfolio) which I will outline below however there was a mixed effect including a significant reduction in cash as I had to pay for two overseas trips (one to visit family and the other my annual holiday).  Interestingly my cash spreading technique is starting to work and my credit card bill was not as bad an influence as in previous months even though I had quite a large bill due.

Below I have outlined the factors (both positive and negative) which affected my performance this month:

Positive factors
  1. A really positive performance in the share market
    • The share market and particularly high beta stocks (which disproportionately represent my portfolio) performed really well over the start of the month which boosted my returns significantly
    • They pulled back towards the end of the month however not enough to impact my net worth performance
  2. A much lower credit card balance
    • My credit card balance dropped by almost $1,000 as I had less one off bills due this month
    • Interestingly this month my cash balance did not drop as badly as I had expected because I had started to expenditure smooth some of my larger bills (as posted about before)
  3. Continued saving into my employee share plan
    • As posted about every month, the enforced saving that comes from my employee share plan is a constant source of performance in my net worth performance.
    • I always thought I was a pretty disciplined saver, however if I look at how much I save into my home loan versus my employee share plan, the difference is pretty stark
Negative factors
  1. Lower levels of cash
    • I have had to book 2 tickets to travel overseas this month - one to visit family and another for my annual overseas holiday and both were due this month which has bitten into my cash balance
    • However I was pretty happy with the fact that I could actually fund these out of cash instead of having to temporarily withdraw them from my home loan offset account (which I have had to do before)
  2. No net savings into my home loan offset account
    • I will discuss this more tomorrow in my expenditure tracker post however because my insurance bill and rates bill fell due this month and I had a rather high credit card bill, the net increase in my home loan offset account was only marginal
I have no doubt that the share market will once again play a significant role in my net worth performance in the coming month, however I am going to aim for a big increase and say that I want to get my net worth over $400,000 for the month.  Given that I will be travelling overseas once in October and booking more things for my November trip this may be a stretch but I'm hoping that I will be able to get to this big milestone.

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