Networth update 2019

2019 is coming to an end, so my usual tradition is to round the year up with an update of my networth numbers and also reflect on the figures to see how the direction is aligned with what I want in my life. In general, I think 2019 is a great year for me. Stock market is generally up and I was working a lot more this year than the last, which should contribute more to my income. But I also have more expenses because my child is going to child care center. How would that affect my networth? Let's have a look.

The last I wrote on my net-worth was back in 10th Dec 2018, here. I'm going to do the same below.

There are so many ways to calculate networth, but I've always done mine this way. It's essentially assets minus liabilities but how you define assets and liabilities makes all the difference. Like in the past, I excluded the asset part of my stay-in property, but included the liabilities portion. Besides the stay-in property, my liabilities also included the car that I bought in 2018, which I'm still paying off. As usual, I'm also not going to include the value of my car in the assets part, but will include the liabilities part.

The assets part include:

1. Cash in my wallet
2. All the money in my various bank accounts
3. Cash holdings under mattress and milo tins at home
4. Money in my paypal account
5. All the money in the 3 accounts in my CPF
6. Money market fund account
7. Marked to market investment portfolios
8. Surrender cash value of whole life insurance plans

Again, I do not include the value of my 5 room flat that I'm currently staying in, and also the value of the family car that I own.

The liabilities part include:

1. Credit card bills
2. My portion of the HDB mortgage loan (total remaining loan amount divided by 2)
3. My portion of the car loan I took this year (total remaining loan amount divided by 2)

Here goes:

2014: Assets: $226k, Liabilities: $220k, Networth: $6k
2015: Assets: $295k, Liabilities: $207k, Networth: $87k
2016: Assets: $351k, Liabilities: $188k, Networth: $163k
2017: Assets: $449k, Liabilities: $182k, Networth: $267k
2018: Assets: $483k, Liabilities: $191k, Networth: $291k
2019: Assets: $560k, Liabilities: $167k, Networth: $393k

Plenty of things to be grateful for this year. The networth figure increases by 102k from both an increase in asset of 77k and also a decrease in liabilities by 24k. The bullish stock market props up my assets substantially, since it is marked to market. Also, my active income contributed to me saving more than 60k this year. Slightly less contribution coming from dividends as I take money out from the stock market but that is kind of offset by higher interest bearing accounts. All in all, the asset part is a great improvement. Liabilities dropped more than usual because I started doing partial repayments of my mortgage this year to reduce the risk of interest rate rising in the near future. I've taken steps to reduce the interest rate fluctuations by locking the interest rate for 5 yrs by repricing my loan, so that is currently still in the works. I've also reduced the duration of my loan to pay more per month. Mortgage is still the major liability that I have, so it's always going to weigh heavily in my mind until I can clear the bulk of it. Takes time.

Going forward in 2020, I expect that the stock market might not do too well. Already more than 10 years of bull run, so maybe we can expect a severe downturn in the likes of the dot com era or the sub prime. Who knows such things? I also don't think my active income will be as huat as this year, since an economic crisis usually follows a stock market crash. I'm not going to say I'll tighten my wallet and live frugally from this year on. No. I will aspire to maintain my lifestyle as much as I can without compromising at all. The hallmark of great financial planning is that things should remain as normal as possible in spite of the stormy weathers. All my defense mechanism are in place, and I remain confident that I can weather the storm and survive, then hopefully thrive in the aftermath.

Same for my networth. In spite of the uncertainties, I will strive to increase my networth. So far so good, as it had been steadily increasing since 2014. Let's keep it rising for another decade or so.

This post is just the boring financial part of how the year 2019 goes for me. I'll do a separate post on reflecting on why 2019 is such a great year for me in terms of various themes, like family, health, relationships etc.