Today marks one year since I began my net worth series.
This is the series I began in February 2020. I’m documenting my progress towards reaching two goals: a $1 million net worth and a $30,000 annual passive income.
If you would like to see my up-to-date numbers, you can view my net worth tracker. I recently updated it to add my stock holdings, so you can see my exact stock portfolio.
Before we get into the numbers, let’s talk about what’s been taking up the vast majority of my time lately.
Bar Exam Prep
The overarching theme this past month has been bar exam review prep.
Four weeks from now, I will be taking my bar exam in Illinois so I can start practicing as an attorney.
This is nothing short of a grind – I’m working 8 to 9 hours a day of just bar exam prep. Seven days per week.
It’s mentally taxing stuff, so it’s hard to stay focused for that long. But it’s a necessary slog to get to the promised land.
On the bright side, as long as I pass, we’re looking at a pretty significant boost in income since I’ll be able to start working as an attorney.
I am definitely looking forward to being able to bring in a full-time salary, which is something I’ve been missing out on since my 2nd year of law school.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at this month’s numbers:
February 2021 Net Worth Numbers
As a reminder, my net worth last month was $71,487.62.
Assets – February 2021
Earlier this month, I started a new Fidelity account. I actually started with about $10,000 in that account and it took a noticeable dip towards $9,000. The vast majority of that is invested in Pershing Square Holdings – Bill Ackman’s fund. It now makes one of my largest individual holdings.
In my M1 Finance account, I transferred a good amount out of REITs. I had a smaller account that was just going towards REITs, but I moved most of that into my other stocks.
For the most part, my M1 Finance did very well in 2020. But so did the entire stock market.
We also had an influx of cash this month because we got a refund from EmilyAnn’s school since we overpaid at some point within the past year. So that’s nice.
That leaves our assets at $388,846.67.
Liabilities – February 2021
We paid down a few grand in student loans using some of that cash from EmilyAnn’s school refund.
We used some of it to pay down the HELOC as well. We have about $52,000 that we could pull from that at 2.25% interest. We’re trying to keep that flexible in case a good real estate deal pops up.
I’m going to start accruing tuition for the following semester at EmilyAnn’s school now. Every month I’ll add a few thousand to the balance to smooth out the impact to our net worth over time (rather than only increasing it when actual tuition payments happen).
The result over the long-term will be the same, but it will negate some of the short term volatility for the purposes of this series.
One thing I should mention: we’re starting a refinance on the Indianapolis property. That will pull out likely $65,000 or more from that property. We’ll use that to pay down other debts and do a sort of restructuring of our liabilities.
That leaves us with $314,890.76 in liabilities.
My Net Worth – February 2021
All in all, that leaves us with $73,973.91 in net worth.
That’s an increase of $2,436.29.
Our debt ratio at 80.98%.
And our passive income remains at about $350 per month.
What’s Next
As you can see, it’s been a fairly uneventful month. Bar exam prep will do that to someone.
On top of that, with the massive increase in money swimming around, it’s been harder to find great real estate deals. There are definitely still good deals out there. I’ve been looking at new listings and making offers here and there, but a good deal is definitely hard to come by.
But, over the next four weeks, most of my time will be focused on preparing for the bar exam. That’s obviously my biggest priority right now, as my potential to make a far greater full-time income is contingent on me passing the exam.
Time to buckle down!
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