How We Crushed Our Annual Net Worth Goals for the 2nd Time

Lawrence Delva-Gonzalez, The Neighborhood Finance Guy writes about financial literacy topics which include but are not limited to Personal Finance, Net Worth Tracking, Budgeting, Money Management, Investment Strategies, Retirement tips, and more. The goal is to help you make effective decisions and set S.M.A.R.T goals with your money. The information is free but the struggle is not sold separately.

Table of Contents

Your Net Worth is Not Your Self-Worth

Hi, TNFG fans and potential newcomers. Budgeting and net worth tracking isn’t the norm. Most people don’t even know what a Net worth is outside of their favorite celebrity. While many want to be rich and wealthy, in truth, they merely want to be famous or infamous.

80% of millionaires are first-generation, which means they didn’t all come from money. This is a good thing since this should be a sufficient motivator for you to say you can do it too. The first step is to review your net worth. Your net worth is equal to your Assets minus your Liabilities.

Most people don’t know that and most people are broke because of it.

Be Different

In order to decrease the clutter on the homepage, per my wife, I had to come up with a more streamlined process. So I made some subtle tweaks and from now on the month-to-month tracker will be featured here. From this post, you will be able to glean the changes throughout the year and even take a peak behind the curtain of our expenses.

If you want more information, click on each month to get a better view of what changed.

If you want a recap on 2020, check out Drafting a Financial Independence Plan: Marriage, Debt, and Money.

TNFG’s 2021 Net Worth Review

All about how we are tracking our household net worth in 2021. You only live one life, it's best to invest now than regret it later. — *A combination of decreasing our liabilities and increasing our assets.

TNFG’s Expenses For the Year

I’m all about Work Smarter, Not Harder

The wife and I technically don’t need more money.

After trying three times and failing to get the Audit manager position, I realized that I didn’t need it at all. Understanding how money works to generate more wealth than my 9-5 ever would.

I’m going to work smarter and game the system my own way.

The added stress and responsibility just for a title with more work for $10,000 sounds like it would be a no-brainer but I think I’m better served using my mental energy to formulate a better plan to earn a bigger game. Growing the Neighborhood Finance Guy brand can possibly yield +$30,000 per year by 2025.

That’s a better gamble.

Sometimes doors will close so that others stay open. Be flexible with your journey. Strive to learn why things don’t always work out. Know that God wants things to work out for you in the long term.

Building a Million-dollar Investment Strategy that supercharges your Net Worth

We experienced our first super drop of $50,000 in March 2020 but we learned to stick to our guts. Once you establish your financial foundation and stability, the next part is just having fun. Just need to learn how to rebalance to lock in some wins from our growth stocks.

We don’t just low-cost index fund our way to success. 2021 was a big year for investors that stuck it through. At this rate, if you don’t have the stomach for it, just invest in $VOO or $VTI until you figure out what works for you. Learning by doing matters.

We invest and it is paying off in dividends.

Invest in a SMARTER Strategy to build Net Worth that doesn’t include Fear

Dave Ramsey would definitely disapprove. We piled on over $40,000 in 2021.

While packing credit card debt is generally a bad idea, if you can manage it well it might be a trump card. For us, we do have one card with no APR for 2021, and two others with reduced APRs.

While we won’t be able to escape all the interest fees; $1,000 is the price to pay for the business.

We will be tracking the $100k Debt repayment in 12 months. I think this is what he calls gazelle intensity. Fortunately, we are also investing quite a bit.

For us, the goal is to work the math equation on both sides.

To yield and achieve a faster wealth velocity, we need to rethink how to manage money so we can weather the storm.

TNFG’s Net Worth Month-to-Month Tracking

	Net Worth	Growth/Loss in Dollar Value	Growth/Loss as a Percentage
*December 2020	$453,716	$23,925	+5.41%
*January 2021	$457,455	$3,739	+0.82%
*February 2021	$471,130	$13,675	+2.99%
*March 2021	$495,039	$23,909	+5.07%
*April 2021	$509,562	$14,523	+2.85%
May 2021	$524,532	$14,970	+2.85%
June 2021	$549,092	$24,560	+4.47%
July 2021	$558,764	$9,672	+1.76%
August 2021	$587,841	$29,076	+4.95%
September 2021	$585,715	-$2,126	-0.36%
October 2021	$626,330	$40,615	+6.48%
November 2021	$636,693	$10,363	+1.63%
December 2021	$661,254	$24,562	+3.86%

*December ’20 – April ’21 – Estimated Total Bathrooms and Kitchen Renovations on Rental Property – $40k
Estimated Credit Card Debt Free as of 12.31.21

Here is a few ways to Jump Start Your Financial Independence Journey:

Investing $1,500 per month in M1 Finance Brokerage focused on Growth and Dividend Income that generates at least $1,000 in passive income in 2021. Check out the portfolio in real time. If you like the platform and want to start investing, I have the $50 for $50 referral if you need it – https://m1.finance/SYdqDJ2SyADC. Offer only available until March 31, 2022, when it will revert to $10 for $10.
Shooting for a sustained investment rate with the push for a $500,000 net worth. To help monitor your savings, cash flow, net worth, investments, retirement, and more; use Personal Capital! Sign up with my link & get a $20 Amazon gift card. *Terms apply. https://pcap.rocks/lawrencegonz
Build out Financial Literacy Workshops for 2021 – Setting new goals and pushing the community forward. Hopefully dropping Mid-February or early march. I’m tempted to start sooner but greatness takes time. Trust the process.
Work on blog consistency while adding eBooks and eCommerce. Pushing to build out for the next 3 years until we hit a $1,000,000 net worth valuation. It’s all about doing the right things the right way.

Disclosure:

This post is brought to you by the Neighborhood Finance Guy. We highlight financial literacy information, resources, and more on your way to money management goals and personal wealth. Our goal is to help you make S.M.A.R.T decisions with our money. We do not give investment advice or encourage you to adopt a certain investment strategy. Your personal finance is up to you. If you take action based on one of our recommendations, we don’t earn a dime as of 12.2021. We operate independently.

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