Beginning My Legal Career – (March 2021 Net Worth Update)


This is the 14th update in my net worth series, in which I am documenting my path towards reaching two goals: 

  • $30,000 in passive income by 2025
  • $1 million net worth by 2027

If you’re interested in real-time updates on the numbers, you can check out my net worth tracker, which I update on the 1st of every month.

The Bar Exam is Finished  

Last month, I took the bar exam. I’ll be receiving the results within a month.

I did a couple of vlogs about the experience if you’re curious. Here’s the first one:

In the meantime, I am now a real estate law clerk for the firm I will become an attorney at after I am fully licensed as an attorney. I’m working mostly remotely for the time being.

As I prepare to move forward in my career, I’ve begun to think about our current living situation.

We recently had our house hacking roommate move out. I have been house hacking for over two years now and it’s been a fantastic way of reducing our housing expenses.

It was extremely valuable during law school when my income was lower.

That said, after the pandemic hit, everyone has been at home more so than before. In other words, having a roommate is a bit more awkward than it might have been before.

When we were leaving the house all the time to go to work and school, renting out that second room was a great way to garner some income. For now, it may be more productive to sacrifice that income and use the space for ourselves. 

Now that I’ll be working as an attorney soon, having more workspace would be very helpful. Not to mention I’m going to be dealing with confidential information, so having more people around the house isn’t necessarily the best idea.

So, for now, we’ll use our second bedroom for ourselves rather than rent it out, at least in the short term.

We do plan on moving out this summer to buy another place, so it likely would be a temporary situation anyways. This unit we’re in now will become a full rental.

At least so long as I pass the bar and start making a full-time income. 

Time will tell.

Let’s get into the numbers.

March 2021 Net Worth Numbers 


As a reminder, my net worth last month was at $73,973.91

Assets – March 2021

Assets March 2021

We still have about the same amount of cash as before – which we’re keeping for potential investments and as emergency savings. 

Any extra cash we’re bringing in is going towards paying down debts and making investments. 

One thing that’s new is our cryptocurrency holdings. I bought some Bitcoin a while ago, and I view this similarly to how I view gold: as a hedge against inflation. Though there’s probably quite a bit more speculative upside (and downside…).

That said, I definitely want to have substantially more income producing assets than I do speculative assets. 

However, mixing in those speculative assets here and there should help to boost potential returns. And it scratches the gambler itch.

This leaves our assets at $388,534.75.

Liabilities – March 2021 

Liabilities March 2021

Like I said in my last update, we’re calculating tuition on a monthly basis so the hits to our net worth are smoothed out. It’s for EmilyAnn’s audiology degree, which she’ll finish in the next year and a half.

We also recently paid our property taxes, which we’re accruing on a monthly basis. 

As I mentioned, we recently had our house hacking roommate move out, so we returned the security deposit for that.

This means our liabilities for this month are $315,516.76.

My Net Worth – March 2021 

All in all, that leaves us with $73,017.99 in net worth. 

That’s a decrease of $955.92 from the previous month.

That means our debt ratio is 81.21%

And our passive income remains at about $350 per month. 

What’s Next?

I’m really excited to move forward in 2021. 

There are a lot of things that I’ve been wanting to do that I feel I can actually pursue now (since I’m done with school and I’ll have more money coming in shortly). 

We’re planning to move sometime within the summer, as long as I pass my bar and begin making full-time income.

Ideally, with my projected salary, we can get approved for a small multi-family property in Chicago and house hack that. But we’ll have to find a good deal first, which might prove especially difficult in this market.

On top of that, I’ll be able to start slashing some of our debts and begin to get more aggressive with potential investments.

In any case, I’ll be sure to keep you updated.

This website, and any communication stemming from it, while hopefully informative, should not be taken as financial or legal advice. Assume all links are affiliate links. I am an Amazon affiliate.

Jack Duffley

Jack Duffley is a real estate investor and attorney based in Houston, TX.

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