Starting Net Worth: $44,323
Unfortunately, the market experienced another dip in December, and despite our ongoing contributions, our account values continued to decline. As had become the routine, we kept our focus on building up our bank balance while also securing vendors for our wedding. Of course, December means Christmas, so our spending was higher than usual this month as a result of buying gifts. The unique thing about December is this is when we had a serious discussion about what we wanted to do once our apartment lease ended at the end of February. We are both passionate about rental real estate, and decided our goal would be to buy a duplex in 2023 after our lease was up. The reason we wanted a duplex is because it would allow us to live in one side while renting out the other side. This means we would be able to start building equity in an asset with our monthly housing payment instead of just paying rent. Also, renting out one side means we would actually be able to lower our monthly housing payment since the rent income could cover a majority of the mortgage. We realized all of this combined would mean we would have an asset that could appreciate, our housing payment would help improve our net worth, and our housing payment would decrease, thus allowing us to increase our savings rate. This seemed like an incredible opportunity, and was one we would now be laser-focused on for our future.
Ending Net Worth: $43,168
None of the above information is a recommendation. This blog is purely intended as commentary on things that have happened along our financial journey.