Mid-Year Financial Check In

[kork13]

Not sure how you guys monitor your financial journeys, but I track our assets semi-annually. So we’re now mid-way through 2022, which has had some great highs (hello real estate!) and some wicked lows (markets down >20% and >7% inflation sucks). So how’s 2022 going for your finances?

I think my actual post from July 2019 disappeared in a massive glitch on the site around that time. Short backstory: over the July 4th 2019 weekend, we crossed the line of $1M in assets. So Independence Day is always a double holiday for us.

3 years later, we’re sitting at $1.55M -- that’s about $640k in debt-free real estate, $840k in market investments (taxable brokerage, Roth IRAs, TSP, 529s, UTMAs), and $80k in cash & I-Bonds....zero debt.

……Funny enough, a year ago in Jul’21? We were also at $1.5M. Jan’22 was $1.68M, so market losses have definitely hurt... but the real estate boom has buffered those losses somewhat. So the numbers show us in the same place as last summer, but we have picked up alot of stock/MF shares along the way, so we’ll ride the market back up whenever things recover. Overall, I'd call us in a neutral position, if not stronger than last year, in spite of the numbers. And the future is still promising.

Admittedly, there is some risk that real-estate values could dip back down over the next year or two, but I’m betting that (if they do dip down) real estate values will move more slowly, and the markets will find a good footing again at some point within that time. Other risks exist for us looking forward, but I think I’ll save that for later discussion.

[Singuy]

No one wants to check in during a market crash...lol.

Currently I am sitting on 4M in taxable, 1M in retirement, and 1.2M in real estate.

Peak I was sitting on 7M taxable, 1.4M retirement, and 1M in real estate.

Market does market things. Bear markets is how money is made guys, better do your homework and load up on your favorite companies before the next decade long bull run.

[srblanco7]

Thanks for starting the thread kork. I was going to start one after reading an article summarizing market performance in H1 2022 as the "perfect storm" and historical context that similar H1 pullbacks were, in general, followed by positive H2 performance (note that I'm not making a prediction regarding H2 2022 market performance).

We're down a bit over 16% for H1 2022 (-$917k) in our retirement accounts. Ended last year at $5.71M and after H1 we're at $4.79M. Not much in the way of safe havens amongst our investments - though we have a couple of value/dividend focused mutual funds that limited the bleeding to less than a 10% drop. This H1 2022 drop basically reset our investment accounts to end of year 2020 totals.

[kork13]

No one wants to check in during a market crash...lol.
........
Market does market things. Bear markets is how money is made guys, better do your homework and load up on your favorite companies before the next decade long bull run.

Yeah, that's for sure... Kinda stings to see myself down $100k+... Though of course, my numbers are peanuts next to you guys ($1M-$2M down! woof). But as you said, it's an opportunity to stock up at 2020-2021 prices, so it's not all bad news.

[ua_guy]

I think we missed the boat on real estate. We bought a house for 1.1M in 2020 and the current value is floating somewhere between $1.5 and $1.7. We'll have owned it 2 years in October which would help some from a tax perspective if we sold it -- and we've thought about doing that -- but can't come up with a better place to be!! We're stuck! (I'm not complaining, it's a good home). Mortgage balance is sitting right around $100k, meanwhile rates are way up and the market is starting to cool. How much it will cool is anyone's guess, but it really feels like we're missing an opportunity to sell at a hot time.

I don't even want to look at retirement. I'm catching up my annual max-out in a 403b...maybe someday it will be worth something. lol

[rennigade]

We're down approximately $330k from the high in Jan 1. We haven't stopped investing so if or when the market rebounds we should be in a good position.

Also note, this is a great financial topic that everyone should have participated in yet it only has 5 posts as of now, 2 days after kork posted. Smh.

[james.hendrickson]

We're down approximately $330k from the high in Jan 1. We haven't stopped investing so if or when the market rebounds we should be in a good position.

Also note, this is a great financial topic that everyone should have participated in yet it only has 5 posts as of now, 2 days after kork posted. Smh.

Honestly Rennigade, with the market downturn, I'm feeling a bit depressed about my investments. I haven't really felt the joy in checking them or allocating additional capital. I know this is irrational, because when stocks are down its time to buy...but its just so depressing seeing everything loose 2 or 3 percent of its value every day.

[srblanco7]

Honestly Rennigade, with the market downturn, I'm feeling a bit depressed about my investments. I haven't really felt the joy in checking them or allocating additional capital. I know this is irrational, because when stocks are down its time to buy...but its just so depressing seeing everything loose 2 or 3 percent of its value every day.

When the market drops I'm more of the mindset that I need to know - almost like "facing your fears". I'd rather know where I'm at and model if it truly impacts our plans for ER.

[kork13]

When the market drops I'm more of the mindset that I need to know - almost like "facing your fears". I'd rather know where I'm at and model if it truly impacts our plans for ER.

Another silver lining to troubled markets is that it provides the opportunity to really understand yourself & your investing nature. Is your asset allocation correct? Do you have the risk tolerance needed to invest as you are? Should you make an adjustment? Or should you double down on stocks even more because your risk tolerance is high?

Great opportunity to self-assess and refine your investing strategy so that you won't mistakenly panic & make bad choices.

[bjl584]

I'm doing surprisingly well all things considered.
I'm only down a little over $100K
Investments and contribution amounts have remained the same

[Fishindude77]

Our IRA mutual funds are down approx. $300k from their high point several months ago, but no strategy changes.
Have also spent close to $200k out of savings accounts to pay for home remodeling underway, but that's a planned expenditure.

[scfr]

Net worth down 5.3% from the beginning of the year.

Financial assets are at 81.4% of NW, and non-financial assets are 18.6%. Not surprisingly, financial assets are down and non-financial assets are up.
Financial assets are split 2% tax free, 43% taxable, and 55% tax-deferred.

We haven't changed our investments. Financial moves we have made during these 6 months include selling a car and DH scaling back his business quite a bit more (changing the way he does business to mitigate risk as we get close to retirement).

Current idea we're kicking around is a multicurrency account.

Still chugging along . . .

[srblanco7]

Another silver lining to troubled markets is that it provides the opportunity to really understand yourself & your investing nature. Is your asset allocation correct? Do you have the risk tolerance needed to invest as you are? Should you make an adjustment? Or should you double down on stocks even more because your risk tolerance is high?

Great opportunity to self-assess and refine your investing strategy so that you won't mistakenly panic & make bad choices.

And after self-assessment of risk tolerance and investing strategy, best advice is, in general "don't do something -- just stand there"

[riverwed070707]

401k: Down 23% YTD ($70k)
Roth: Down 25% YTD ($5k)
Real estate: Up 12% ($100k) This is a bit of a tricky one to measure because I sold a property earlier this year and walked with $85k. Would be up a much higher percentage if I hadn't cashed out

Overall net worth is about the same as it was at the beginning of the year. My income is down because I moved from full time to part time contracting and thus my savings is way down as well. Wish I had more to put into the dip but just kind of coasting at this point.

[disneysteve]

I didn't do a 6/30 update but I had updated about 2 weeks before that and we were down just over $350,000 or about 11%. I'm sure it dropped a little more after that so maybe 12-13%. The fact that our cash and fixed income allocation is much higher than it has traditionally been has helped insulate us some from the market correction. If were were still 80% stock, the drop would have been a lot larger.