Friday, December 29, 2006

Year End Check Up: Net Worth Update

With the end of the year approaching I think it is time to take a snap shot of my net worth and find out how I'm doing. In general practice, even if you do nothing else for the entire year of tracking your net worth it is useful to get an end/start of year snap shot of your financial health so you can track your progress at least yearly.

Assests
House $198,000 (I recently did a survey of house listings in the area, apparently my last estimate of $195, 000 is a bit low since a house with 500 sq ft less that mine is selling for $198,000.)
RRSP $11,600
Wife's RRSP $4800
Old Work Pension $10,500 (I'm almost embrassed to say I forgot about this in my first net worth calculation)
Wife's Investment Account $4200
ING Savings Account $1000

Debt
Mortgage $149,900
Line of Credit $0 (As I mentioned before, I keep this as part of my emergancy fund.)

Therefore my net worth now stands at: $80,200.

Even with my 'lost' pension money that is still a nice little increase from my first net worth check back in Nov. See you in the New Year.

5 comments:

pragmatic said...

Do you have any life insurance? Especially since you have a kid and a wife with minimal income.

Tim Stobbs said...

Pragmatic,

Yes. Work covers me from 2x my salary, I have mortgage insurance to pay that out if either the wife or I die and we each have an additional $50K with another term policy. Right now she would be ok, but I intend to increase the insurance amount a bit in the New Year.

CD

pragmatic said...

I'm glad you've got some coverage and are re-evaluating your needs. A friend of mine who sells insurance told me once that mortgage insurance was totally unneccessary and that you are better off getting more life insurance. Why? Two main reasons
1. Life insurance is more flexible. You can use it to cover anything, whereas mortgage insurance only covers one item, which leads to the second and better point
2. Who is really insured with mortgage insurance? You or the bank? Think about it.

Cheers and Happy New Year!

Tim Stobbs said...

Pragmatic,

I've been thinking about taking more term insurance and dropping the mortgage insurance. I've got to get a quote here, but based on some information I had around I could save about $150/year. Thanks for the tip.

CD

Anonymous said...

Just scanned the blog - nice work. I also do a net worth but only once per year, as most of my investing etc is automatic, so looking more often shows little change. I have also added a little footnote where I keep track of the kids RESP's, as well as any major expenditure for the year - ie new deck, new furniture items. I find this is a nice reminder that not only am I increasing my net worth yearly, but also taking care of my family, and doing some improvements to my house/life etc which are important to maintain sanity. You tend to forget these things, but a few years later, if you note it, you can look back and say, - hey, 2003 was a decent year, net worth improved by X, plus we built a deck and got that chair for the livingroom. Take care. Chris