August 2014 Net Worth: $508,000 and Expenditure Tracker

This post covers my net worth and budget tracker for the month.  This month I suffered only my third monthly loss since I started tracking my net worth more than 3 years ago.  For an overview of what drove my performance keep reading below.

August 2014 Net Worth: $508,000 (-0.4%)

	Value	% Change
Assets	$876,000	+0.6%
Liabilities	$368,000	+2.0%
Net worth	$508,000	-0.4%

What drove my net worth performance this month?

In my last net worth post (July 2014) I mentioned that I expected this month to be challenging driven  by the fact that I was buying a diamond ring to propose to my girlfriend.  I had hoped to stay even with last month's performance (at $510,000) but in hindsight I was lucky to only be set back one month.

I have provided a break out of the key positives and negatives which affected my net worth performance below

• Positive factors
• Almost all the positives this month were driven by the share market
• My portfolio increased nearly 2% over the month almost entirely driven by my investment in FKP (which I have written about extensively before).  I am currently looking to sell down this investment as it has performed well beyond what I expected.
• My employee share plan vested and I received the inbuilt profit associated with these shares. 
• I recently started accounting for the tax owing on these transactions as part of my net worth performance so the gains aren't quite what they used to be!
• I continued to invest in my employee share plan in this month
• Negative factors
• My credit card bill was higher than it has ever been
• I have a $12,000 limit on my credit card and I was butting up against this limit all month as I paid for the engagement ring on credit
• Note that I had the cash to back this (I wasn't using debt to buy the ring!) 
• I was also paying for various trips and holidays associated with the proposals (I had to pay for a flight to visit my girlfriends parents to let them know about the proposal...something I hadn't factored into my calculations!)
• This month I experienced a significant cash drain 
• In addition to the big expense above several large expenses fell due this month including my car registration
• It was actually an interesting experience trying to manage all these expenses without dipping into savings (in the end I had to withdraw $2,300 from savings to cover some expenses)

What is my outlook for next month?

I am going
to be proposing to my girlfriend this month.  Although I have pre-paid several of the expenses associated with this trip and proposal there are still others that I have to pay.  There are so many moving parts that it is actually quite hard to forecast what is going to happen next.  If I manage to get to my July 2014 net worth of $510,000 for the month I think I will be quite happy.

August 2014 Expenditure Tracker

Item	Aug 2014	Monthly Target	Perf. vs Target
Accommodation / Living expenses	$2,017	$2,246	-$229
Car expenses	$927	$692	+$235
Health / Well being expenses	$596	$566	+$30
Entertainment / Personal expenses	$1,204	$1,230	-$27
Travel expenses	$600	$675	-$75
Other 'big' expenses	$2,127	$3,508	-$1,381
Savings / Investments	-$1,020	$1,051	-$2,071

If we look at the major line items in my tracker above

• Accommodation and living expenses
• This was a rather 'normal' month for me with fewer utilities bills than usual.  I shopped at Costco and bought enough stuff to last me a fair while so my groceries bill was significantly higher than usual
•  Car expenses
• As mentioned above my car registration fell due this month which completely blew out my budget.  I had forecast $500 in registration costs and it cost me $250 more than I had expected
• Health / well being expenses
• This was pretty much in line with where I expected it to be
• Entertainment / personal expenses
• This was one of the few months where I didn't bust through my entertainment budget driven entirely by the fact that I didn't go out eating and drinking as much as I usually do.  Knowing that my credit card was so high probably had me staying at home far more than usual
• On the downside I had a few weddings which really blew out my gifts budget.
• Travel expenses
• This part of the budget is really starting to worry me.  I have some really big expenses coming up in this section next month and I have not been stocking away nearly enough cash to cover it
• Other 'big' expenses
• This month was the first time something in my 'big expenses' section did not go to plan. I have gone about $1,000 over my budget on the purchase of the engagement ring and corresponding trip to propose
• I have promised myself that any budget failures will be coming out of my sports car so I definitely need to pull my socks up if I actually want to buy this car at all!
• Savings / investments
• This is the first month where I have actually had negative savings which was entirely driven by my cash flow issues outlined above.  I keep a running tally of the amount I take out of savings to ensure that I put them back in
• As at the end of August I currently 'owe my savings account' $5,800

This year was always meant to be my 'hold nothing back' year where I did all those things which I had been putting off for a very long time.  However the one requirement that I had was that at the end of the year my savings and investment balances were not allowed to be diminished.  I am still holding to this goal however I do find it challenging to see money flowing out of my accounts (even if it is for things that I am really enjoying doing and experiencing!)

You May Also Be Interested In
July 2014 Net Worth ($510,000) and Expenditure Tracker
How to buy a Diamond Ring (Part 1)
FKP: Another year, another rights issue
2014 Financial Goals