This is my official December 2016 Net Worth Update. Below are my actual numbers for ALL my investments and liabilities as of 12/31/2016. Detailed explanations and a quick summary can be found below. If you would like to see my previous months net worth posts, please visit my Net Worth Tracker.  I have been tracking my net worth monthly since May 2015.  If you want to learn how to track your net worth then check out how I am doing it.

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TOTAL NET WORTH: $450,615

Quick Summary and comments: +$6,677

 

Wow what a year!!   Happy New Years to anyone reading this.  2016 is going to go down as one of the best years I have ever had.    So many accomplishments that I am proud.   December is now over which means the holidays are over.   In a way I am glad because I spent way too much money during the holidays.  😉   With all the travelling we have done in December which you will read about below and all the xmas gifts for the kiddos in our family, it really put a dent in my pocket.

Fortunately my net worth still went up which is amazing.  Now that we are in 2017, I can concentrate on building my finances to another level.   A whole ‘nother level!!

Here are some notable accomplishments I am proud of from 2016:

1. I got married!!  This one was the big one for me.  I married the love of my life and our love continues to grow stronger by the minute.  I couldn’t have asked for a better wife.
2. I bought 2 more rental properties.   My portfolio is now up to 7 investment properties and my cash flow continues to increase.
3. I increased my net worth in 2016 by $105k.
4. I changed my whole life around, cut bills and live a much less stressful life by moving to Indianapolis from Austin.
5. I traveled all through out the United States and even went to Costa Rica for my honeymoon.  As you might be able to tell, I LOVE TRAVELLING!

For 2017, I want to continue this trend of personal, emotional and financial growth.  I truly hope I can keep this up.  I want to buy at least 2 more rental properties and continue travelling with my wife.   My wife and I have also decided that 2017 will be the year we try to start having babies!!    Can’t imagine what my future looks like but I am sure it will be great!

 

Personal Life Update – My wife and I went on a two and half week vacation/road trip in December for the Holidays.  We drove from Indianapolis to Memphis, Memphis to Tyler, TX,  Tyler to Austin,  Austin to Houston.  Then on the way back up we did Houston to Little Rock,  Little Rock to Nashville and finally Nashville back to Indy.  We stopped in each of those locations and had a chance to explore and experience each city during our road trip.   We partied in Nashville for the New Year’s celebration and enjoyed every second of it.  Nashville is a super cool city.   We just got back to Indy actually and life will all go back to normal now.  Which is a good thing!   It’s not easy hitting the road for so long and not having the comfort of your own bed.

Anyhow, we are now in full-blown winter here in Indianapolis but the temperature is only in the 40s today which is not bad at all.  It’s supposed to dip into the 20s later this week though.  For those of you wondering, we have still not really been affected by the “cold” winters here in Indy and everything is still going great.  We had a few single digit temps before we took off on vacation but it wasn’t the bone chilling cold I thought it would be.  Grant it we weren’t just hanging outside for long periods of time either.   We still love living here and we think 2017 is going to get even better for us.  I want to buy at least 2 more rental properties in 2017.

Amazon FBA Update –  December came on strong with the Amazon sales and for the first few weeks I was selling anywhere from 10 to 20 units a day, most days closer to the 20 mark.   It was amazing and it felt really good.  This was a huge increase as I was only averaging about 5 sales a day before this.   Well this was all great and the money was rolling in UNTIL…..   AMAZON DESTROYED ME!!!

Amazon decided to deactivate my listing due to a fraud concern.  I received an automated email indicating there was a complaint on my listing for fraud.  It made zero sense to me and it took me almost a week just to clear it up.   Once that was cleared up, Amazon still would not let me activate my listing but now for a different reason that I am not approved to sell in the category that they moved my product to.  And they won’t move my product to a different category.

As of right now, my listing is still inactive and I am unable to sell my product on Amazon.  I will spend the next few weeks trying to figure out the best course of action and how to get my listing active again.   The good news though is that I only have 218 units left to sell out of the original 1000.   At the rate I was selling in December, I would have cleared out all my inventory before Christmas.

I was and still am very disappointed in what has happened to my amazon business but to be honest, I am not surprised.  I have read so many other stories of this same thing happening to a lot of other sellers from the Amazon Sellers Facebook group I belong in.  This didn’t just happen to me.  Setting up an amazon business can be great but it can also be devastating especially if you only rely on amazon sales for income.  Lucky for me, this is just a side hustle I was trying to generate more income so I can use that money to buy more rental properties.  🙂

Anyhow,  I will be working on trying to fix this so that I can finish selling my remaining inventory.  I will write a more detailed post with numbers and a more in-depth explanation of how and why this all happened in a future post so stay tuned.

Assets: Explanations of each of my assets.

Cash: +$9,607

My cash position continues to increase despite all the spending I am doing which is great.  I know I spent thousands in December for travelling and christmas gifts so I love that my cash still increased.   This of course is all because of my amazon business.   The majority of that cash was payments from Amazon for all the units I sold in the first half of December.  I’m also expecting a big chunk of this cash to be used for paying taxes later this year.  I plan on owing a lot of money in taxes this year.

My cash as noted above in the spreadsheet consists of my wife and I’s checking account.  My REI (Real Estate Investing) checking account as well as my separate Amazon business checking account. Satisfied!

HSA account: +$209

Slight increase in my HSA account from my paycheck contributions. Nothing crazy.

My HSA deductible is $1300 for the year and I have close over $5k in this account so with that being said, since I am maxed out already with my yearly deductible, I don’t see a need right now for depositing more funds.  I am only taking a very small amount out from my day job paycheck to fund this account. Any money after that deductible will just sit in that account not making me money. I know I can use the money that I don’t put in there to get better returns as long as I invest it in more real estate. This number should increase each month a tiny bit. Satisfied!

Company Stock Options: –$1,811

Back in November I sold a bunch of my stock options because they hit my sell mark however I did not sell them all .  I really just do not need the cash right now so I would rather keep the remaining stock options to see where it goes.  Unfortunately as of today, the price has fallen a bit and is now back below my initial “sell mark”.  Oh well!!

These are stock options from my day job. I am fully vested.   For now I will hold on to these and sit tight to see what happens with the stock price.  I am not in need of cash right now and don’t plan on buying another rental property until early spring.    Satisfied!

Stock Portfolio: –$1,559

The majority of my stock portfolio is built of precious metal mining stocks.   Overall I am still up on my stock but it has been going down for a while now.  I’m not worried about it at all though, I’m just planning on riding it out.  I think 2017 will be a good year for these stocks.  Just have to wait and see.   Overall I am still profiting from these stocks as I bought them for dirt cheap.

I bought all my shares using tradeKing.         Satisfied!

401K: -$117

I made an executive decision awhile back to take money out of my 401k and no longer contribute any more money to it. Mainly because I do not get matched contributions from the dreadful day job. But also because I KNOW I can make better returns using that money on rental properties.    Any movement you see in this asset is only from market fluctuations.   I am not able to withdraw the remaining amount in here until I quit my job.   I really don’t like the idea of having an account that punishes me to take money out because of age. Satisfied!

Property # 1

This is my new primary house which is actually one of my older turnkey rental properties that I have purchased.   I moved into this rental because I love the location, the size of the house and because my mortgage on it is less than half of what I was paying when I was living in Austin, TX.    Super Satisfied! Here are more details on when I originally bought this one as a rental property.

Property # 2

Rent paid on time, no repairs requests.  This is the property I self manage in Austin.   Even now that I live in Indy, I will continue self managing this one.  I think I can do it from afar and if in the future I realize that I can not continue being my own property manager, then I will probably just find a PM to handle it.   So far everything is going great.  I have not heard a peep out of them and they locked in for a 2 year lease so I’m hoping this one is a cash cow for a long time.

This is my first rental property. It used to be my primary residence at one point. I expect gradual appreciation from this property because it is in the suburbs Austin which has been growing tremendously.  Love me some HOT markets!           Satisfied!

Property # 3

Rent paid on time, no repairs.  All was good on this rental for the past month.

This is my first turnkey rental property I purchased out-of-state in Indianapolis. I do not expect much appreciation on this property. I purchased this for CASH FLOW purposes only. Satisfied!

Property # 4

Rent paid on time every single month and haven’t had any repairs on this since the last one which all went down when I fired my property manager from.    The tenant is happy, the PM is happy and I am happy.  Hopefully I will continue to not have anymore problems with this one now that we have resolved all the issues we had before with the plumbing and the horrible PM.

This my 2nd turnkey rental property in Indianapolis I do not expect much appreciation on this property. I purchased this for CASH FLOW purposes only. Satisfied!

Property # 5

Mortgage paid on time. No issues. This is a note that I own from a house that I sold via owner finance in the Austin area.  If you notice though, the reason why this asset will continue to go down from the spreadsheet above is because it is a note and the principal balance on it goes down each month as the buyer pays me. Remember, I’m the lender on this one. Satisfied!

Property # 6

Rent paid on time and no repairs on this one either.    This is the last turnkey rental property I purchased located in the Kansas City area.  I bought this in late October 2015. I purchased this property also for CASH FLOW purposes only. I am not expecting appreciation gains on this one. Satisfied!

Property # 7

Rent paid on time and no repairs on this one.

I bought this rental property from a wholesaler here in Indy after I moved here.  I paid this one in cash and it came with a properly screened and paying tenant which was great.  The property needs some fixing up however I won’t mess with it until after the tenant moves out or submits repairs.   This is the one I really want to convert to an AirBnB.

Property # 8

This is my newest rental.  I bought it from a wholesaler here in Indy for $65k in a very popular Indy neighborhood just a few months ago.   I finished the rehab on this one in late November/early December and got it rented out for $950 just in time for christmas.   December is not easy to find a qualified tenant.  Not only did my property manager find a qualified tenant but the tenant signed an 18 month lease so that we both don’t have to deal with a vacancy/move in December again.  Talk about a Christmas miracle!!!

Liabilities: These are self-explanatory so I wont dive too deep into these however I would like to include the items below for informational purposes.

Credit Card

I only use one credit card (rewards card) that I use to purchase my everyday expenses. I pay this off in full every month. I am receiving 1.5% cash back on this card and am very pleased with it. Satisfied!

Car Loan

I purchased this vehicle before I had the proper knowledge on how to be totally awesome with finance and investments so that is the only reason why I have this loan. If I knew then what I knew now, i would have purchased a used vehicle all cash. It is not worth it to me to pay this loan off because the interest rate on this loan is 2% and I would rather use that money to buy more rentals where I will make a much greater return. I will continue to pay it down slowly. Satisfied!

Last 30 days net worth graph from Personal Capital

I really do love this chart, it looks great and its nice and big. The big dip you see at the end is from when I bought my new rental property cash, then it goes back up after I added it as a new asset in the account.  Good stuff!

 

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