By: Revanche

Historical Net Worth: 10 years of money

October 23, 2017

Othalafehu’s post on their year on year growth got me thinking about exactly how much our money has changed over time. I took advantage of a really bad pain day to dig out the stats because what else could I do with my bones on fire and my brain on the fritz?

I still spent way too much time on this but data! Pretty graph! (Ok, not so pretty.)

A few explanatory notes:

  • There’s a big gap from 2011 through 2014. I wasn’t publishing real snapshots because we were going through a lot of change in our household and wasn’t quite sure how to share “my money merging with his money sorta kinda”. I took the easy way out and just didn’t share numbers. When I started again, readers all voted against my sharing actual numbers, and I’ve abided by that vote ever since.
  • There’s a debt line in there but that doesn’t reflect the real debt that I paid off. I only included debt in my name for those snapshots, I needed these to be truly MINE. Over the life of this blog, I’ve paid something in the neighborhood of $250,000 in debt and expenses for my parental family unit.
  • To give you a sense of where I started – in 2007, when I was out of college and had been working a while, I had all of $45,000 in cash and investments to my name. That’s all the money I had in the world at that time.
  • Combining our incomes was not an easy process. It literally took years. Most of our assets are now held in our family trust. Merging our money wasn’t the only reason my net worth soared but it was certainly a significant factor. It’s hard to untangle exactly how much that was the influence versus my management and what I brought into the partnership and I think we’re both ok with that.

Historical net worth chart from 2008 to 2017. Looks like a plunger on its side.

Observations:

  • I knew what our progress was on the day to day crawl but the leap that the money has made between the two of us and being diligent is huge. Is it possible to multiply our net worth this much again over the next ten years? Probably not – maybe it’s possible to get to half again as much. I nearly quadrupled my income during the past ten years, I’m not making any specific moves now to get myself to 4x my income in my current profession because I’m nearing the top of the possible income levels right now.
  • PiC purchased the first home on his own but we paid the mortgage with combined money at some point. We purchased this new home together with combined money, and banked the sale money as combined money. While we had planned to (maybe) buy in the future, before this place, we don’t have plans to buy again. Though I do have random visions of buying that fixer up the road and flipping it. Probably shouldn’t, though. (Or should I?)
  • We don’t plan to get divorced or leave each other but we have a tacit agreement that JB’s welfare comes first for one thing, and if it ever came to that, we would divide everything evenly. We both brought assets and liabilities (mortgage for him, my family burden for me) into this partnership, tangible and intangible, so we won’t try to separate things by what we brought in on paper.
  • We hit two huge milestones in this chart – one with our net worth and one with my income. PiC doesn’t see income levels as a goal so I leave him out of that 🙂
  • The first version of this chart only showed a climbing mountain because I had already calculated the net worth data but I hated that it hid the corresponding mortgage debt. That debt is giving me heartburn so it had better be visible somewhere! Now my pretty graph looks like a plunger. Make of that what you will.
  • This has me even more fired up to find a good way to eliminate all that debt.

:: Do you keep historical data? Do you know how much progress you’ve made over the years?

14 Responses to “Historical Net Worth: 10 years of money”

  1. I’ve kept historical data, but mostly through Mint so it’s sometimes wonky to look at and sometimes the data just goes missing. We’re still very much in the linear growth-is-mostly-from-active-savings phase, but looking at the numbers (and just, viscerally) I can definitely feel we’ve made a lot of progress.
    Yet Another PF Blog recently posted…What Is A Good Cost Per Wear?My Profile

    • Revanche says:

      I’m so glad that I mostly kept my own records, right here on the blog! because I’ve had that experience with Mint going wonky. We’re right back in your shoes, it feels like, so solidarity in active savings!

  2. Cassie says:

    Yep! Though like you I have a wobbly gap from when I moved in with my now husband. I punch our account balances into a spreadsheet on the first of every month and share the updated total with him. It’s helpful, because he feels like we’re on a never ending cycle of not getting anywhere, and every month I tell him how many thousand we’re up. I know this will likely change during the next market drop, but I haven’t yet had to tell him there was a decrease.

    • Revanche says:

      I love being able to share those updates, good or bad, with PiC so he knows that SOMETHING is happening with our money since his lack of involvement also makes him feel like there’s not necessarily progress happening. I prefer the good but I’m always bracing for the bad.

  3. You’ve come a long way in 10 years. Great job!
    I guess that your NW is down a bit this year because of all the remodeling. I’m sure it will pay off in a few years when your RE value increase. You’re doing really well. Keep at it. 🙂

    • Revanche says:

      Yes, it’s down both because of the new house and the remodeling, but I am hopeful that we’ll rebuild our other asset values soon enough to make up for that, AND reduce the debt!

  4. I’ve kept historical data for about four years now, and initially it was sad because my net worth was going down despite earning a good income. After I started budgeting, it was really encouraging to watch the net worth stabilize at first and then start growing, especially after I finished training and got a “real job”. Hopefully in ten years I’ll be able to look back at a lot of growth!

    Also…paying off $250,000 of someone else’s debt, especially while dealing with chronic pain, is just amazing. I am in awe.
    Solitary Diner recently posted…C’est trèe difficileMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      Yay for making positive changes with budgeting! I’d love to hear what your ten year recap looks like when the time comes.

  5. SP says:

    Ah, so pretty!!!! I have a NW graph going back to 2007. It was just a mountain, but I recently added a line breaking out home equity and other. I like your picture showing the mortgage though! I may mimic this prettiness!

    Does this show negative cash though?
    SP recently posted…Our approach to married financesMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      That does and I’ll tell you why – I’m a doofus and didn’t make sure the graph extended through September 2017! It stopped at July 2017 for some reason. Let me noodle with it.

  6. Quest says:

    Yes, I’ve kept all of my historical stats for 10 years now! Sometimes I like to look over it and ‘pat myself on the back’ for sticking with the things I knew I needed to stick with. From being bankrupt and right on the verge of being homeless, some tough life lessons mixed with good fortune saved my butt. Attention to details and writing down goals all help a great deal. Well done on your progress because your graph is quite amazing!
    Quest recently posted…Disaster PreparednessMy Profile

    • Revanche says:

      True to form, I find myself focusing on that debt portion a lot more than the assets portion but it’s really interesting to see what an effect that following my gut has had on our money.

  7. Interesting. I don’t keep track to this extent, but I do have a spreadsheet that tracks net worth on a monthly basis. Looks pretty nice just now. But what goes up…

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