How to Build Wealth During Love and a Bear Market

All isn’t Fair in Love and War, while Stock Market Greed is still on the Air

February 2023 came in as clumsy as it left. This year feels off for me. But alas, we are on to March and the rest of these months.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict continues, President Biden took a victory lap of sorts via flights, and the market nearly collapsed (again) under the weight of inflation. But our spending is propping up the numbers.

Eggs are the talk of the town. Seriously, have you ever heard so much talk about eggs outside of Easter?

FTX, Cryptocurrency, and day traders are all but quiet. This feels like the calm before an anticipated storm. Consumer credit data is forecasted to show a rise of $22 billion in January, according to consensus estimates from Dow Jones. That would follow an $11.6 billion increase the prior month.

Here’s hoping you don’t get swept up under a wave of unnecessary spending. Instead, work on your financial plate and go beyond low vibrations. Looking further ahead, millennials and gen-z are getting burned out. Over the last 50 years, a lot has changed. It stands to reason that by 2050, we will likely see the end of our 40-year career cycle. See the video below.

However this shakes out, the average American household will have to become more mindful of its cash flow. While financial literacy is not a panacea for all your life’s issues, it can help cut down anxiety and stress.

With all the love talk aside, time to get Back into the Financial Driver’s Seat

Welcome back to the TNFG’s monthly breakdown where I dish out all the secrets on the way to becoming a millionaire household in this lifetime.

Disclaimer: like all married men, I have to get approval from the Mrs to say, write and do anything. And even then, my actions can be repealed or sanctioned.

On a personal note, this month, I felt millennial burnout. I just want to be on vacation but it’s likely because I need to work out more. Working out is often overlooked, however, it’s the best way to get out in front of uneasiness and/or depression.

Check out QuadFi’s “Why Exercise is a Good Financial Investment.”

Our current net worth goal is to hit $900,000 (by December 2023) which would put us in the millionaire range by next April 2024.

We have never seen anyone that looks like us, shift from poor working class (household making under $40,000 per year) to millionaire status in one lifetime. So we decided to share how it’s possible.

This doesn’t make it easy but possible. Possible is all I need to move the needle forward.

Inflated Prices and more Supply Chain Issues Requires Us to Change

An ongoing benefit of tracking our household spending, we found even more financial leaks. Food costs have increased since 2019 but so have our tastes and appetites. People are spending as much as $1,000 per month on meal deliveries to their homes, before groceries and going out.

It’s a problem. One that too many are uncomfortable addressing.

Other people are giving too much to charity. The worst part is that they don’t even have the money to give. Click on the picture for the link.

On top of that, February was a massive financial reset for a lot of families dealing with high prices on all goods and services.

This is likely to cost most families as much as $5,000 by the end of this year. Fox reported that “High inflation costing Americans an extra $395 a month.”

Singles are having a tough and more expensive time. The average cost to take someone out to dinner and a movie in 2023 averages $159, according to MoneyGeek. My wife and I can easily spend over $150 on a date night in the DMV. If you are considering starting a family, each kid is expected to set you back over $300,000 (nearly $1,500 per month) through age 17.

For context, if you invested $1,500 per month, you would have $629,470. Instead, you have a lovely child headed to college. Nice! This is why it’s crucial to invest versus sitting on large cash reserves. It’s getting very expensive.

Here’s hoping that March doesn’t dissolve into madness with the next Federal Reserve rate hike.

Here’s our Monthly Net Worth Summary:

Market Swings with Turbulence Scheduled Ahead!

“I blame the Media and Retail investors because things were going great!”

We are in a cocaine Bear market, so expect some extreme highs and lows, to say the least. A lot of people are jumping into low positions and risking more than they have for a life shortcut to avoid FOMO. However, it doesn’t really work like that and there are stories coming out, chronicling the failures.

At this stage, is best to plan for the future and continue long-term investing while the market continues these violent up-and-down mood swings. Costs are only slated to rise by 2040. The only hedge against that is investing for the long term.

Overall our portfolio took a slight 1% dip, however, it’s still up 8% for the year. Beats the old bank savings account seating at 0.01% or the new variable high interest at 3.5%. We are sticking it out and now betting against the market since we have a time horizon of 15 years. When we get within five years, I might change some of our strategies.

Spending a bit too much on everything

With prices up on just about everything, we didn’t love our February spending.

Lingering medical spending came into play, this explains the spike in spending. The next huge jump was in the Bills/Utilities section. New cell phone alert for the lady. We paid it in full and got a $100 trade-in credit for the next bill.

How did we spend nearly $300 on Brownie? Oh yeah, his expensive medicine.

Our food & dining grew to $800+ where as it was sub $450 (2019). This is nearly double and I’m eating way more salads. And we will be going to a different grocery store for most of our items. Wegmans is too expensive and Giants have more options.

We really have to do better with our Amazon shopping since it’s up to $368. I guess it could have been worst…  

While my initial estimation put us at an $825,000 net worth, anxious retail investors kept the market on its toes.

Luckily, at the end of the month, a quick upswing helped our net worth settle at negative 0.30% – a cash loss of $2,407.  

We barely broke even. Up next, electrical repairs, and travel purchases in March. We should be getting back $2,000 for a 401k overpayment during the job switch in 2022. And, we should get nearly $10,000 from our group investments.

We are seriously catching zero breaks this year but we are learning along the way. We welcome the challenge every day since it helps us improve.

For the Love of Wealth, What is the Next Step for Us?

Since our love language includes retiring early and traveling the world, here are our overarching goals this year:

1. Build the Mrs. Credit to get new credit cards in the long run. These reward points are too good to pass up. My credit hovers north of 825-850.
2. Investing an average of $1,500 per month in M1 Finance Brokerage focused on Growth and Dividend Income that generates a future passive income of at least $3,000 per month in retirement. Check out the portfolio in real time. If you like the platform and want to start investing, I have the $10 for $10 referral if you need it – https://m1.finance/SYdqDJ2SyADC.
3. Shooting for a sustained savings rate of 40 percent with the push for a $900,000 net worth by year-end. To help monitor your savings, cash flow, net worth, investments, retirement, and freer with Personal Capital! Sign up with my link & get a $20 Amazon gift card. *Terms apply. https://pcap.rocks/lawrencegonz
4. Light changes to our Investment Strategy – create a 10% buffer in ROTH accounts and M1 for future buying opportunities. That’s $50,000 on standby for future buying opportunities.
5. Working on the remaining post for the blog through 2024. With the $1 million mark in sight for April 2024, I guess it will be a great time to kick back and enjoy. This blog doesn’t make any money so it’s been more of a notepad for me and other wealth enthusiasts. I really want to focus on living life more.

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