Friday, December 30, 2016

2016 Result and 2017 Projection

We exceeded our optimistic forecast of reaching a net worth of AUD 1.7 million by the end of 2016. The optimistic forecast for 2017 is currently AUD 2 million. Coming soon: December accounts, 2016 accounts, and more detailed projections.

Saturday, December 03, 2016

November 2016 Report

Here are our monthly accounts (in AUD):
Spending (not counting mortgage) was fairly typical at $6.3k. The biggest single expenditure was a $956 quarterly electricity bill. This covered part of the winter and with the baby we have been using much more heating - both reverse cycle air conditioning and conventional resistance heating. Our hot water and cooking are gas powered and so this bill was really large.

Salaries, tax refunds etc. added up to $19.7k (after tax). We both got three pay checks this month and Snork Maiden's pay went back up to the regular full time rate for some reason, even though she is not back at work yet. I also got a tax refund of $990.

After taking into account the mortgage payment of $3.7k (which includes implicit interest saving due to our offset account - the actual mortgage payment was about $500 less than this) - which shows up as a transfer to the housing account, we saved $9.7k on the current account. We made $3.6k of retirement contributions, and saved a net $1.7k in added housing equity. Net saving was, therefore, $15k across the board, which is very high by recent standards.

The Australian Dollar fell from USD 0.7613 to USD 0.7386. The ASX 200 gained 2.99%, the MSCI World Index gained 0.81%, and the S&P 500 3.70%. We gained 2.24% in Australian Dollar terms and lost 0.80% in US Dollar terms. So, we underperformed both the Australian market and  the international markets. The best performer in dollar terms was the CFS Geared Share Fund, which gained $18.4k followed by Platinum Capital and related funds, which gained $3.3k. The worst performing investment was Oceania Capital Partners, down $3.8k after the big gains last month. U.S. stocks were the best performing asset class in percentage terms with a 2.88% gain, while the worst performing was private equity, losing 3.56%. Australian small cap stocks also performed poorly losing 2.50%. That's not a good sign of the sustainability of stock market performance going forward.

As a result of all this, net worth rose AUD 42k to $1.646 million (a new high) or fell USD 5.4k to $US 1.216 million.