I just realized how bad I have been at keeping this blog going. I’m sorry!
Looks like the last monthly update I did was way back in September of last year! 😬
So here is a snapshot of how things have changed in the past nine months…
I wish I had a good excuse for you as to why I haven’t been keeping up, but I don’t. It’s been a combination of managing life as a single Dad, health issues, and getting back into the dating scene. In the paragraphs that follow, I’ll give you the full rundown.
But before we get to that, I wanted to let you know that I continue to post my monthly numbers here, even though I haven’t been giving monthly details on the regular.
Ok, as for my personal life, here you go:
- Business Update. I hired an intake person for my law firm in January. Aside from being a huge expense, my business started to drop off after I hired this person. Since their job was to bring in MORE clients, (and not tank my business), I finally had to lay them off in June after multiple months of missing our benchmark numbers. I felt bad about this, but revenue was down and I couldn’t afford to keep them.
- Because revenue was down, I was unable to pay my business credit card bill in full last month (I do continue to pay off my personal credit cards each month) – this is the first time this has happened in many years. This is also one of the reasons I ultimately had to let my intake person go. Throwing good money after bad is never a smart decision.
- Retirement Planning. I set up a Simple IRA for my business at the end of 2024. If you are wondering why I didn’t go with the SEP IRA, it’s because I have an (another) employee who I do want to keep and who was looking for a way to contribute more to her retirement. I’ve been contributing $1,500 per month to this account plus a 3% match that varies with my salary. As I write this, I realize that $1,500 alone will not maximize this account for me for 2025 (I turn 50 in December and am eligible for the catch-up contribution). So I’ll need to up my contributions to $1,833 beginning this month.
- A torn Achilles Tendon. Further complicating my financial life, in April I suffered a torn achilles tendon. Thankfully I have “decent” health insurance by US standards and my deductible was only $5,000. So I blew through that and am now paying off those medical bills. 😖 This is part of the reason my credit card balance has spiked. Fortunately, my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card (use this affiliate link to get 100,000 points and a $500 travel credit when you spend $5,000 in the first 3 months) allows me to split payments over time with zero interest, which I’m taking advantage of so that this card will be fully paid off within 6 months.
- Stock Market Turbulence. The stock market has been up and down pretty regularly since the new president took office. As a result, even though I’ve paid off debt and contributed to my retirement portfolio and investments, my net worth is about flat from where it was last year at this time.
- The Divorce Effect. I drew down my emergency fund last year to pay off my ex-spouse and get rid of marital debt. I’ve started rebuilding that this year and it is back to around $8,000. My goal is to get this up to $50,000.
- Holding onto my Rental Property. Speaking of emergency funds, I had planned to sell our old marital home this year to fast track the replenishment of that account. However, my tenant signed a new two year lease in January. On the plus side, he is now paying enough rent to cover my mortgage and interest payments to my ex-wife.
Now that we have all the personal stuff out of the way, let’s get to the real numbers…
For those of you that are new to the blog, this is my sixth month of posting about my net worth and the ups and downs of pursuing FIRE. I actually started tracking my net worth sporadically way back in 2017, and have posted all of my monthly numbers here. If you would like to check out my first net worth post from June 2024, click here.
My Net Worth Update for June 2025
As you review my spreadsheet for this month, two major line items have been removed. The first is my personal loan, which I paid off last fall. The second is my student loan, which was paid off at the end of 2024. 🎉🥳
I had a number of “surprise” expenses over the past 8 months since I last posted an update. Namely, my achilles tear which set me back $5,000 as a result of my annual deductible. I also shelled out $4,000 for my kids to attend summer camp that I am currently paying off. Lastly, I elected to get a vasectomy in December, which was another $700ish dollars.
Now that we have the personal stuff out of the way, let’s review my assets and liabilities.
Assets
Real Estate: (+$9,163) This is a rental property that I received as part of my divorce settlement. It used to be our primary home, but I’m renting it out to a family member until August 2025 January 2027. The value of this property is an average of the values found on Redfin and Zillow. This is a huge thorn in my side right now. Although my tenant pays enough rent to cover my mortgage and monthly interest to my ex-wife, she is not happy about this and wants the house sold ASAP. I’ll probably do an entire blog post about this once the dust settles. But the bottom line is that my current tenant wants to buy the house after his lease is up – but can my ex-wait that long to get her money? We’ll wait and see. Right now, I also have about $148,000 in equity, and I would like to cash out as well to buffer my emergency fund, pay off my car and invest the remainder.
Retirement Accounts: (+$10,014) When I first saw this number, it seemed crazy to me, especially since I have already contributed $9,000 to a new Simple IRA this year alone. However, I forgot that I pulled $40,000 from an inherited IRA last year to pay off marital debt. So the actual increase is closer to $50,000 if I hadn’t pulled those funds out. Thankfully, I pulled the money when the market was still going up and before the effect of the tariffs took hold.
Investment/Savings: (+$2,318) Each month I’ve been depositing as much as I can (typically $500 to $1,000) into an investment account which has slowly grown to almost $7,000 from nothing a year ago. This line item also includes a small Roth IRA ($200), and Webull account ($100) and an additional investment account that is valued at about $1,400.
Checking Accounts: (+$750) This is the balance of my checking account immediately after I deposit my paycheck. I pay myself a salary on the last day of the month, but for cash flow and budgeting purposes I treat is as if I get paid on the 1st of the month. This initial cash inflow is used to pay my bills through the 15th of each month, as well as to pay off the credit card that I use for spending from the prior month (more on this in a bit). I take a second draw from my businesses on the 15th to cover any additional debt payments (which are minimal except for the Chase card that I am currently paying off).
Car: (-$816) I use Monarch Money to track my spending and net worth on a “daily” basis. The software automatically tracks the value of your car. I don’t envision this ever going up! But I also don’t ever plan to purchase another car in the foreseeable future!
Liabilities
Here is what has happed in the past 9 months…
Mortgage: (-$5,449) When it comes to mortgages, and deciding whether or not to pay yours off, you have to consider your interest rate. I refinanced this loan in 2019 to an unfathomable 2.85%, so I have no reason to pay this off anytime soon. If my interest was higher (say 6-7%), then I may consider adding more to principal each month. But it’s not, so any extra funds I have after maxing out my retirement go straight into building my emergency fund.
Promissory Note: ($0.00) I’m toying with the idea of starting to pay down the principal on this, but need to review the particulars with my ex-wife first.
HELOC: (+$20) I use my rental income to pay down the HELOC, then draw on it to pay the mortgage on the 15th of the month. I would like to see this come down, but right now it doesn’t move too much. The interest rate dropped to 8.49%, so if I were to keep the house I would start aggressively paying this down. However, I’m likely to sell the rental in the next 12-18 months, so I’m more concerned on building up my emergency fund first.
Auto Loan: (-$3,207) I refinanced my car loan last fall and was able to drop my payment from $607 to $541 per month. After I create an emergency fund of 6 months living expenses, I intend to begin paying this off aggressively. Depending on the price I can get for the house, I may use a part of the proceeds to pay this off completely next year.
Credit Card Debt: (+$10,036) Ugh. This is painful. Sometimes I feel like I take one step forward and then two steps back when it comes to consumer debt. However I have only one credit card that I currently carry a balance on. I have a few other credit cards that I put small charges on and pay off each month. But with the main Chase card, I’ve set it up such that I pay the “interest saving” balance each month and therefore do not accrue interest. This should be paid off by the end of the year.
As I’ve mentioned before, I keep the spending on all my cards low and in line with my budget so that I can pay these cards off each month. I previously hinted that I may remove them from the spreadsheet next month If I can continue to pay them off in full (which I believe I can).
How I Plan to Track My 2025 Net Worth Goal
For years I’ve been adding up all of my accounts in a Google Sheet and tracking my net worth manually each month.
But recently I discovered Monarch Money.
Monarch Money allows you to see your net worth in real time, every day, without adding everything into a spreadsheet.
Not only that, you can track your spending to make sure you aren’t going out of whack.
So far I love it.
I’ll talk more about Monarch Money in a future post, but for now you should use this link to check it out and see if it will make it easier to track your net worth.
FYI, this is an affiliate link. Which means if you sign up for Monarch Money, it won’t cost you anything extra, but it will help to support my blog.
Thank you in advance!
