August 2007 Net Worth Review (+0.19%)

By Pinyo, on September 1, 2007

Thanks to the positive stock market close on the 31st, August was not as bad as anticipated. Last month, I started using NetworthIQ to track my net worth. After I entered all my information, the result was +0.19% net worth. My liquid assets went up by +2.71% from 21.74% to 22.33% of $1 million goal; which is not bad compare to S&P 500 +1.29% growth. Overall, this is a nice recovery from July market slides.

Here are key activities for August:

• My retirement portfolio grew by +2.35% from net new money and stock market recovery:
  • I sold Hennessy Cornerstone Growth Fund (HFCGX) because I tried to trade out high expense ratio mutual funds for low expense ETFs. Coincidentally, the fund suffered from some unknown meltdown since mid-July.
  • I bought shares in 3 ETFs: Vanguard Small-Cap ETF (VB), Vanguard Small-Cap Value ETF (VBR), and Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) to add to my small-cap and technology positions, using proceed from HFCGX.
• My non-retirement portfolio grew by +5.02%, also from stock market recovery.
• My estimated home value dropped slightly by -0.83% (how I estimated my house value at $625,965).

A couple of concerns:

• Most money is going toward retirement savings, so there is little left for non-retirement investment.
• The baby is coming. I have to start looking at options.
• The house renovation is about 80% done. A rather large bill is on its way.

Overall, August was not a bad month. Hopefully, next month will be better — even with the big invoice on the way.

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Pinyo is the brain behind Moolanomy personal finance blog and a few other web sites. If you like this article, please subscribe for free daily email updates.

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