Thursday 1 September 2016

August 2016 Net Worth: $800,000 (+1.5%)

When I last updated my net worth I listed the 4 major things I wanted to do during the month with my investment portfolio.  They included:

  1. Get my individual stock holdings down to 10 (from 11)
  2. Progressively transfer stock holdings into my wife's name for tax reasons
  3. Work out what I want to do with my managed funds
  4. Move cash and stock progressively out of my Interactive Brokers account
I managed to get exactly none of this done and actually did very little in August at all on the savings and investment front.  Why did I get so little done?  Frankly work was so busy for me during the month that I spent the whole month just trying to get enough sleep and not burn myself out.

I now have more time so will be working on doing some of that this month.  One thing that I am planning on doing this month (which ticks several of the boxes above) is selling index funds that I hold in my Interactive Brokers account and buying them in my wife's name:
  • Given the shares are held in the name of interactive brokers I don't get the benefit of the franking credits of Australian index funds (costs me 1% p.a.)
  • I have a capital loss on some of these funds so the transaction costs are far lower than would normally the case
  • I get the benefit of having the earnings taxed in my wife's name going forward.
It's a no brainer and I'm just putting things into place so I don't get burned too badly from market moves while I buy and sell in different accounts.

So if I did nothing this month how exactly did I manage to get an increase of $12,000 in my net worth?  There were a couple of bit things which really benefited me including:
  • The vesting of my employee share plan
  • Continued saving into my employee share plan and superannuation plan
  • A positive share market move which helped increase both my share portfolio and superannuation valuations
  • Small increases in my home loan savings account and a pay-down of my credit card bill

August was the first month where I got to a net worth of $800,000!