Net Worth Update- 2014 December +2.5% 6

Happy new year to the readers of BeSmartRich.

It has been a month since I wrote my last post. It has been quite busy December 2014 for me. I had to go to Korea for business matters with related to my day job and I took extra days off to see my family and my wife’s family members. Of course I had a great time during Christmas break and here I am fully charged for 2015.

My first post of this year is Closing 2014 net worth update. Net worth update is posted monthly to keep track the progress of my journey to become a millionaire. I believe anyone can be a millionaire with right habits and smart investing plans. If you would like to join the journey, please like my Facebook page and subscribe on your right.

December 2014 has been another good month for me. Total net worth went up by 2.5%. Keep it steady and slowly! I broke $100,000 net worth last month and I was able to maintain $100,000 level even though my stocks weren’t doing very well. My main investments are comprised of VTI and VCE and both of them went down by 0.6% and 0.9% respectively over the month however their dividend payments kept my investment value up by $750.

Cash

It went up quite a bit as I did not pay off my credit card bill for December 2014 yet.

My majority of cash is sitting in President choice Debit account. I use it for the most of the money transfer, bill payments, cheques etc… as there is no transaction fee in this amazing card. Due to its partnership with CIBC bank, I can use their extensive CIBC ATMs network which is awesome. Their customer service is great as well.

I use TD bank card as well which I use it for only investment transfer purpose as it is connected to TD warehouse brokerage account which gives me some convenience of transferring fund and invest.

TFSA& RRSP

Both VTI and VCE growth for the month were marginal however considering significant uncertainty over oil price fluctuation, I think the market held pretty steady. I don’t know how high they are going to end up in 2015 but I am very confident that the economy will always improve in the long run and so will the index funds.

As I mentioned, I have been looking into several oil& gas stocks for a while and decided to jump in Penn West Exploration in November 2014 as I believe that they had gone through several ordeals for last couple of years and finally they are in good hands. I purchased about less than 1000 stocks at $4.84 (by contributing to my wife’s TFSA) but now they are down even further at 2.43 as of December 31 2014.

I put about 3.5% of net worth in the stock to test the water and I still believe PWT will do great for many reasons. 1. The company is now on good hands 2. Their Price to Book ratio is 0.15-0.16 which means even if it declares bankruptcy today I would be able to recover all my money and make some profit if all the assets that PWT holds are valued correctly. 3. Some insiders of PWT started to purchase PWT stocks. The company’s CEO, David Roberts purchased 5,000 shares and CFO, David Dyck exercised 250,000 shares worth of options and purchased 53,000 shares. One of the director John Syrdson purchased 300,000 shares. 4. The price of oil won’t stay much longer at $50-$60. It will eventually go up within a year or so. It would take no time for oil companies to start making money once the price of oil goes up.

Credit card

I use Capital one Costco credit card as it gives me 3% cash back on restaurants (6% on first 3 months) I spend about $500 per month on my team meals at work so that would be $15 ($30 for first 3 months) cash back per month. Remember. Everything adds up.

I also have MBNA cash back card that I use mainly for grocery and gas for 2% cash back and everything else for 1% cash back (5% on first 6 months) I have Visa card that I don’t use but kept for places that do not accept master card.

Spending

We spent a bit too much money this month.

First of all, it was Christmas season so about $1,000 was spent on presents to my wife, my family, my wife’s family and our good friends.

Secondly, I had to buy some quality stuff from the Korean trip. Typically I buy shirts, underwear, socks, shoes when I travel to Korea as the price is less than 50% of what I usually pay in Canada and the quality is a lot better. I spent about $500-$800.

Lastly, we took advantage on boxing-day deals. I always make a list of what I want to buy for boxing-day and have been just waiting until the day comes. Last year I purchased a piano and a TV and this year I purchased entire set of my wife’s snowboarding gears; deck, shoes, binding, pants, jackets, goggles, helmet and gloves. We also purchased skates. Winter in Canada is just too long and to make it short we will be enjoying winter sports. We went to Sportchek and they had so many clearance items and entire items were 20% off. Also we were there before 10 am so no tax coupons were also given to us. Total spending for snowboarding gears and skates was $700 which I believe is a steal.

Since we spent way too much in December we will tighten our spending in 2015 until next Christmas.

2014 year update

TFSA value has gone up by 134.4% from 27K to 64K (up by 37K) for 2014. I put 25K on my wife’s TFSA in August to November 2014 and 5.5K in my TFSA in early 2014 so the actual value increase is just about 6K for the year which is not too bad. I received good tax return for 2014 and bonus from my day job which were all invested to my wife’s TFSA right away.

My RRSP went up by 21% from 25K to 30K. What a return. 2014 year is just too good to be true.

Due to all of mentioned above, my net worth has increased by a whopping 70% from $60,682 to $103,219. I think I am on track to be a millionaire before I hit 45 years old. Hope 2015 is another great bullish year for my investments. Regardless of the market, I will keep my bets on Canadian and US equity markets as I am still very young, has no debt and have my day job that pays the bills.

Hope you enjoyed this month’s net worth update. Remember, if you haven’t, set your saving & investing plans up and try to see how much net worth you have reached as of now and how much it has fluctuated in the past. Knowing where you are and where you will be headed will be a great starting point to be a millionaire and retire comfortably. Hang on there. I will be on the journey with you.  Have you enjoyed the post? Then share the post with your Facebook friends, like my Facebook page and subscribe on your right.