Today, I turned 23 years old.
We’re also in the middle of quarantine…
Additionally, today marks my third month of documenting my journey to financially independence.
This means I have 5 years before I am aiming to have $30,000 in passive income. I have 7 years to go to hit $1 million in net worth.
Where Things Stand Now
I Got Laid Off
Clearly, the global pandemic is becoming more serious.
Employees are being laid off in alarming numbers, businesses are being closed down, and commerce has essentially ceased. I was not immune to these changes.
My wife, EmilyAnn, and I were both laid off from our part-time jobs.
We are both full-time students, but we still made a couple hundred dollars per week doing part-time work.
Consequently, we just lost a significant portion of our monthly income.
But, thankfully, because of house hacking, we are still able to cover a large portion of our costs while we look for some new ways to make money.
In short, we are still in a decent position.
However, a summer job I had lined up at a law firm in downtown Chicago is now jeopardized by the pandemic. The job would be a fantastic learning opportunity and a solid start to my career after I graduate from law school. I won’t know the outcome for a few weeks.
In any event, I’ll keep you updated about any potential career moves as they occur.
Hunting For a Real Estate Deal
Despite the uncertainty surrounding my job, I’ve still been looking for a real estate deal in Indianapolis. If you’ve been following me on YouTube, you’ll know that I’ve already been under contract with a building once this year.
I ended up backing out of that deal after a fairly concerning inspection.
Since then, I’ve been struggling to land another deal. We were very close on a couple of deals last week, but were beaten by higher offers both times.
Even in the midst of the ongoing health crisis, the market in Indianapolis is still very hot, though we’ll see what happens in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, I’m preparing a large sum of cash to be ready for any opportunities that might arise in the near future. I’ll explain more about how I’ve done that in a bit.
That said, let’s get into this month’s numbers.
April 2020 Net Worth Numbers
Assets – April 2020
My available cash has doubled in the past month. How? Here’s a hint, it has something to do with my liabilities. We’ll get to that shortly.
I’ve been putting money into my M1 finance accounts, including one which will be featured in a YouTube series I’m starting. The other is a small monthly income portfolio. I put a few thousand into it as a start.
In short, I threw together a collection of ETFs and stocks that almost exclusively pay monthly dividends rather than quarterly payments. The portfolio currently has about a 6% net yield, which is significantly higher than the interest rates on my debts.
I think the income should be fairly consistent, though you never know for certain with stocks.
I sold a large portion of my bond holdings in Vanguard. I transferred a large portion of that money to M1 Finance. Unfortunately, I lost around $10,000 in my stock portfolio since the brutal market dip began about a month ago.
I am even more eager to buy some rental real estate now, specifically to help stabilize some of the portfolio volatility I have due to my current stock holdings. In the meantime, the stock market has been a sad sight to behold.
I’ve also contributed to my Lending Club account this month. My experience on the platform has been positive so far. Basically, I invest in notes that Lending Club issues. The interest charged on the note is my profit.
Besides that, EmilyAnn and I were finally able to file our 2019 tax return, and we should be receiving that soon as well.
On top of that, we’ll be receiving our helicopter money stimulus checks soon! Nothing like some freshly printed dollars hitting your bank account.
Thus, our total assets this month stand at $329,085.00.
Liabilities – April 2020
To ensure that I am still well prepared for potential opportunities, I have taken out a large portion of my HELOC and have it available as a cash pile.
Right now, the interest rate is only 2.25%, which is extremely low, and I would hate to have my HELOC frozen due to the uncertain credit environment.
So the money doesn’t cost much to keep taken out, and now we have immediate liquidity to pursue new investments.
Other than that and the $20,000 in student loans to cover EmilyAnn’s tuition at Northwestern. Speaking of low interest, student loan interest rate charges have been frozen by the government. So it doesn’t make sense to pay those any faster than we absolutely need to.
All in all, our liabilities this month tally up to $270,594.52.
My Net Worth – April 2020
March was certainly another strange month for us.
All things considered, our current net worth is $58,490.48.
This means that our net worth has decreased by -$20,047.11. Ouch.
Our debt ratio has jumped to 82.23%.
Our Next Moves
Moving forward, generally, my plan has not changed.
I’m still looking to invest in a rental property as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, I’m still working on building my portfolio in other places.
I’ve also started writing a book about retirement and real estate investing, with the goal of finishing a draft by the end of May. I’ll keep you posted on my progress there!
Even if the outlook appears bleak in the short term, there are the same number of hours in the day to improve and experiment with my strategies to build a strong financial future.
Otherwise, happy birthday to me!
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