Note: This is a repost from an old blog of mine, remixed with the graphs, headings ordering, and stylizations I normally do, but otherwise the text is unchanged. Hope you enjoy taking a look back at where this all began! -CJ
Hello readers! For those who are new, these are my monthly posts where I share all the details of my progress on my FIRE journey!
August was a really interesting month, especially work-wise. Without going into too much detail, my place of employment is going through a strange patch where a lot of people have left, leaving me as one of only two developers that know anything about the system. As such, money keeps kinda pouring out of this job. Starting next month, my salary goes to $115k, a jump of $10k, among other things like my retention bonus being bumped up and receiving a sizable amount of stock. It’s enough that I’ve decided I’m in for the ride no matter how strange things get for the next year. It seems like there’s been good opportunity to perhaps get promoted as well, so I’m making the most of things!
Otherwise August had some non work related fun, a nice trip to see my mom, a trip to an amusement park, and nearly immediately giving up on our plan to not eat out in August. Oh well! Markets were up 2.9% again this month, so the bull run just keeps on steamrolling. Guess we’ll see what the rest of the year brings.
August 2021 – $160,111.78 (+$6,802.01)
Pretty good here! I thought that it would be a little slower month because of having to pay for grad school classes but this really isn’t much different than an ordinary month! Still hoping to hit $200k by the end of the year, but I’m going to need to average more like $10k a month to make that happen. Not impossible with the raise and market movement, but I can’t say it’s a sure thing!
401k – $69,145.96 (+$4,083.83)
Same as usual, about $2k from paychecks, all in the S&P 500. I’m getting pretty close to maxing out, so I’m going to slow down contributions next month to put the money in more evenly for the rest of the year.
Brokerage – $42,648.33 (+$5,287.13)
As stated last month and above, $4k went into brokerage this month, which I intend to continue for the next few months at least, until my cash reserves get too low. My BB and CLOV went up slightly, as did my few altcoins (like $70 altogether haha). Otherwise this is just the S&P 500 going up, which seems to have brought me about $1k, nice!
Roth IRA – $31,326.45 (+$922.24)
Another good month of growth with no contributions! All in the S&P 500 as usual.
Cash – $10,967.85 (-$3,868.95)
Woah! A huge drop! But not unexpected. Had $4k come in from paychecks, $4k go out in brokerage, $2k go out for grad school, and about $1k go out for monthly expenses and another $1k in donations. It’s been a slow roll to get my cash to go down and to have the vast majority of my money invested, but we’re getting there!
HSA – $6,023.19 (+$377.76)
Nothing out of the ordinary here! Continuing my slow march to maxing this out by the end of the year.
Hope you enjoyed this net worth report! Happy saving!